Jay, the white perforated cotton-like material was called "Coremat". All the Velocitys used the 2 mil thickness version. It was just introduced in the early eighties & an incredible new product for stiffening a large panel area. It is a commonly used product these days in boat building. Another new product that had just come out in about 1984, which we take for granted these days, was 1708 Biax glass. Talk about a major labor saver, resin saver & weight reducer. I brought this into the Velocity plant, used it, loved it, and never looked back. Also the regular GP(general purpose) resins were of excellent quality back then, very strong, until about 1987, when they started removing the carcinagens, etc, out of it, and reducing its Barcol Hardness(strength). We then started experimenting with a newer and much more expensive resin that Ashland Chemical was begining to promote, called AME4000. Big mistake. It never cured in the mold. They sent another free drum of it, saying it was a bad batch. Second big mistake. Anyways, Velocity never used any PVC foam coring, only BalTek Balsa Core, 3/8" thick. Hullsides had no coring, only the bottoms. 1/2" A-C fir plywood is the ONLY plywood thickness that came into the factory. All the stringers on every Velocity were only 1/2" ply, with only two 1708 Biax wraps on all O/B boats, same with I/O boats, except the engine bay, which had 3 wraps. Where you there when we began building Larry Bishes big sportfish "BishCraft" with the inline six diesels, with the "Stepp" bottom?

[QUOTE=Ed;2643736]Jay, the white perforated cotton-like material was called "Coremat".

Yes, that's it. I recall the 1'st 22 footer we used it on, ran the Key West race & the rough water & agressive crew de-laminated the sides, and we could clearly see the Coremat- which was now the outer layers of the hull sides. They did bring it back to the docks though, which was quite a site. We did use some Klegecell pink foam coring in the bottoms at one point. I'm pretty sure we "tried" everything there was at some point, especially when I was at the original Pompano shop. We made 2 successful racing 30's that I know of with "Bamboo" stringers & hull/deck stiffeners. We dubbed Walt Beasley's "Scarlett O'Hara's" the "Bamboo Princess". As I recall the hull & deck weighed just 2200 lbs. We did less experimenting in the larger shop where Larry's boat was made.

Where you there when we began building Larry Bishes big sportfish "BishCraft" with the inline six diesels, with the "Stepp" bottom?

Yes, I was there for the initial drawings & all the way up until just before sea trials. You can call me in Jupiter at 561-746-2209 if you want to talk old times, or e-mail [email protected]. Please forgive me if I prefer to
call the pad design what it is --- "Allison" pad bottom. Briefly- Darris Allison invented & perfected it, Steve raced Allisons, When Steve flipped his Mirage & put a stepped & Pad Allison design on it & made a mold, he agreed to give Darris a Royalty for using his design & for his consulting on the design. He never did & Darris is quite bitter about that. I used to be an Allison Dealer & have owned a couple of them. R. Fountain had a 20" Allison with it's distinctive "beak" and his 1'st Fountain 32 looked just like a larger Allison 20. I'm not privy to his deal with Darris, but you can bet Darris got some payback through his helping Reggie. Just a big nautical soap opera. Gotta give Stepp credit for adapting that calm water design to rough water & larger heavier craft. We had endless discussions on all this stuff back then- bottom length, X-Dimension, pad size, pad shimming, props, cupping, bow lift, stern lift, ..............& so on. Some of this stuff was cutting edge back then & is mostly obsolete now. Those were heady times.
Did you work for Steve, or for a Supplier? Remember my late Cousin Gene Roppolo from the Pompano shop?

Jay, yes...I was there with your cousin Gene, quite the character, very funny old man, in a good way... He had already had a couple heart operations prior to his passing there at the plant. It was definately a shock & a big loss for us at the time. He came to us from Chris*Craft, Bradenton, building/tooling their original Scorpion Sportboat line they had at the time. Yup, the first 22' Velocity was all black gelcoat & named "TABU". Won a lot of races. We built & raced a number of 22's & 30's in the mid-80's that were unique. Bill Kaye, of "Captain Maintained" in his 22 & later, his 30...won three consecutive National Championships in race boats we built for him. All with stock 200 Mercury Outboards. We had a great hull design, great hull construction/rigging & and some great pilots. I flew back & forth to Regal to assist in their production line set-up during the sale. They were totally lost when it came to building a performance boat. Remember the "Veloci-Slot"? LOL! Some great memories from Powerline Road.