Hugh -

You are correct, it was Herb Stotler's shop. Prior to Herb, it was Keith Hazell's shop until Keith passed away.


And about Everglades; there was a pretty stiff current in there. Tres Martin could back a high perf boat into a slip like you can't even imagine. Owners would take three or four cracks at it, give up, and then just have Tres do it. No matter what it was or how bad it was running, Tres would back it in, first time, every time; AMAZING!

Barry

During the time I used to look around Everglades they were a Fountain dealer. They had the 47 Fountain all red The Dealer boat there. This was the Fountain catalog cover boat. Always some cool Ferrari's parked in the garage too! Seems like all the cool Hi-Perf places like Everglades, 188thst and so forth are all gone. Also I used to like to go to Sloop John B's on Ft. Lauderdale Beach. Offshore racing theme with hundreds of offshore racing photo's and team uniforms hanging on the walls. Good food too.

The Express Cat Was Rigged By Apache It Was A 48 Ocean Express With Triple 6's That "vanilla Ice " Raced Once Or Twice I Heard A Few Stories Like The Tunnel Was Ripped Out Of It And That It Ran A Fishermen Over In Biscayne In The Middle Of The Night......was A Bad Ass Boat

This boat is owned by a buddy of mine here in Miami Beach...his name is Milton...he transport boats

Mike

It was a 48' Ocean Express I have a pic of it some where in my office, The reason the tunnel came out was when it was shipped, it was sent out as a twin motor set up with extra tanks under the cock pit and they removed the center tank from the bilge and never added any super structure before they added the center motor.
It was sure a trick set up for the time I talked to juan a few time when I was still with O.E. we built some cool boats.

These pics were taken about a week after Don was shot.
Also the pic of the shop had the Apache cat being rigged.Did'nt get a pic of it.
Next to the dyno room, was an engine room that had 8-9 PAIRS of engines just sitting there waiting to be run. All of them were fully dressed with all accessories ready to go. When I raised the camera to snap a photo of that room, Ben put his hand in front of the camera and stopped me from taking any pics in that room. That was the only room that Benny would'nt let me take a pic of.
Never seen so many engines in one room.

How many boat builders were on Thunder Boat Row?

This Sucks.............i Can Remember Being Maybe 4-5 Yrs Old And Going Down There With My Dad To Poke Around After He Bought His 35 Misstress From Don.....it Kind Of Stinks That I Was So Young, Could Not Really Appreciate It Back Then.....know I Cant Get The Old Man To Even Help Me With My Mag, He Has Just Lost Total Intrest In It, Or Maybe He Doesnt Like Me Lol.........love To Read This Stuff Guys Keep It Going Offshore History Is The Only Thing That Keeps Me Going..............

My buddy Pete P. worked on Thunder Boat Row for years.One time we went across the street to Apache to discuss building a boat for a client of his with Bobby S. I sat in his office while they discussed boats .At the time I did not think a whole lot of it,but man that was cool.Also Fort Apache was a pretty cool place from what I can remover.

Apache Bar was the $hit where all the ballerz, players and dealer$ woukd hang out and the women were hot.....

Mike