Panther

Not sure if it had anyting to do with the reason I'm into powerboats but earliest memory and I don't even know how old I was (possibly 3-4?, most memories at that age were pictures for me like the one below)...

We were on my fathers boat going somewhere and I remember sitting next to him. As we were going along we must have hit a wave and the water soaked me and scared the crap out of me! I can still visually remember the scene like it was yesterday!

My mother told me that I had a habit of stairing out the side of the boat whenever we were running... She assumes I would go into some sort of a trance with the combination of engines and wind noise... (too this day I can only fall asleep if a fan is running and the wind is blowing). Nothing could break my attention...with the exception of a dousing of salt water from a wave!

Ryan8886

About 10 years old. There used to be offshore races on Lake Michigan from Saugatuck to Grand Haven. My family used to vacation there every summer and it usually happend that we were in town that weekend....all those big go-fasts firing up to head out the channel....I was hooked for life!

Pete280

WMF, does Pizza Tugo's still have a go fast? I lived in OC around 91-93, I think it was a red fountain

WeaponX

My uncle had a record holding drag boat. It's his fault.

Summer of 1986

Sunshadow

I was hanging with my buddy from school and his dad. His dad had a 21' Cobia with a 350 mag and thru hull exhaust. the sound of that exhaust echoing off the sea wall is what hooked me. I'm still more intrested in how much power we can make than how fast we can go.

c_deezy

iTrader: (1)

My family had always had a boat as long as I could remember but it was an old Checkmate boat (still have it, I gave up on it but my brother still tinkers with it). In high school started using it with my friends on the local lake, it was one of the fastest on that lake so I thought I was king ****. When I was 19 made a trip with some cousins to Lake Erie and that opened me up to a whole new world. I was out on the jet ski and kept seeing these big ass boats with a number '1' on the side of them and they were unlike anything I had ever seen! There was a no-wake bridge (Cedar Point causeway bridge) everybody had to idle under and I sat there for about an hour just watching these boats come and go.

The next time up I got introduced to Put-In-Bay, and a friend of a friend had a brand new Hustler 388 (this was in 2000) and he took us for a ride on it. When we left the dock at PIB it seemed like everybody there was watching us and when it took off it was like nothing I had ever felt before, blew my hat and sunglasses off and screamed across the lake. What took us an hour to get to PIB in the first place took us 15 minutes to get back in that 388. That was it, still see that guy a few times a summer and he still has the Hustler, a little older but still a sweet looking boat.

There are plenty of ways to spend the summer, and I've had my share of different big boy toys over the years but nothing compares to big blocks screaming across the lake!

MC-BOYS

What a great blog!!
My first powerboat memory started with watching Miami Vice (loved that Chris Craft Stinger then the Scarab).
When I was 12yo, my parents took me to Florida for vacation; one day we drove throughout Ft. Lauderdale stopping at different marinas to check out boats. The most memoriable was Everglades Marina; have home videos of walking around checking out all the performance boats--early model fountains, formulas and apaches. That pretty much started my obsession with high performance boats.

SLINGSHOT

lol must have been the same boat

craig anderson

Back in '79 or '80.....when I was 9 or 10...we were boating out of Oshawa on Lake Ontario, and did 2 weeks in the 1000 Islands...caught up with someone that was a friend of the people we were travelling with who had a '58 Hatteras MY, and a 20' Cigarette as a "tender", along with the typical 13' Boston Whaler. Bill decided to take "the men" out in the Cig...and we proceded to jump all of the tour boats, and freighters wakes in the St. Lawrence!! What a day! After that, once my parents moved the boat up to Lake Simcoe...they were boating with a guy who had a 26' Formula....circa late 70's/early 80's....with re-worked 454's. At the time it was the fastest boat on the lake pushing mid 70's easily. On a weekend trip back from an annual marina get-together, Jim took myself and my friend Mark for part of the trip, and we had the opportunity to drive the boat, with Jim very close at hand, for a bit. What a rush at that age!!

Perlmudder

Growing up spending the summer on Lake erie I was on boats since birth. But there were a couple sweet boats that just sealed the deal. There was a cat names air express with 4 eggbeaters on the back, and then a matching white one. I heard they had raced in jersey, but I never knew for sure. Then there was the apace ultimate warrior which sounded like the most amazing thing I had ever heard. I know where ultimate warrior is, but I never heard of air express again. anyone know? used to be on the east end of lake erie near buffalo?