One of the best offshore racing stories in a long time...congrats to the entire crew!

Congrats guys!
That is what offshore racing is all about!

I would like to hear from the 50' Outerlimits crew who said "Reached by cell phone the crew announced that the water was “too rough” to set a record" What were they thinking and how can they quit a race? Really too rough to set a record? 2-3 foot chop in the sound too rough? The average time that is set is around 90mph and a 50 cat quit because it was too rough?? Once again, congrats to the sonic crew for not quitting and who set out on a race for the spirit and history of it and not for a record... but yet got one

Jeez, I say his boats look like dumpsters, and he leaves me out the winners column...............

wonderful story guys, thanks for sharing it. Congratulations to Joe, Jonathan, and Charlie, it's nice to see guts and perseverance prevail in a hobby that is often overshadowed by the size of one's wallet. Donna

Here is some more. I usually go the gym every day and all I can say is I did a lot less this morning than usual. Still feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside though.

So here is the scene at this point. We are stopped for fuel and repairs and we just found out we are in the lead. Jon had jumped up on the dock and was getting as much clean air into his lungs as possible. Joe had started the fueling process and I was trying to make mental checklist of priorities to get done. Meanwhile all of my experience was trying to do me in at this point. I kept thinking, never quit, never quit, we didn’t really know what was wrong with the other boats and I thought they too may be just stopping for some necessary repairs and they would soon be up and coming after us. I could already hear their engines as they tried to pass us in the ocean. At this point we just had to slow down and focus our efforts on what needed to be done.

I stopped Joe and got his attention and said remember..Fast is Slow and Slow is Fast. Just do one task at a time and work slowly on it so that it is done the best way possible. He repeated… Fast is Slow and Slow is Fast, back to me and just grinned. I got it, he said.

The first problem we encountered was the gas dock had no power steering fluid for the power steering pump. So we decided that the lowest grade of motor oil was the next best thing and we got a few quarts of that. (I remembered when Bobby Saccenti and Sonny Miller won the first Benihana in La Tortuga, they were running low on oil and when they needed more and didn’t have any, they used anything they could find that was close to it, like transmission fluid). When our pump was full again, we started the engine and I turned the wheel back and forth until Joe, who was under the hatch could spot the leak in one of the hoses. We shut the engine off and took stock of what we had onboard to repair the problem. No replacement hoses, but we did have another hose that was slightly larger than the broken one. Okay, slice the larger hose with a knife down the length and put it around the leaky hose, then put on as many hose clamps as we could scavenge and it would at least slow down the leak for awhile.

Next problem was the trim tab that would stay in an up position. Joe found a piece of wire that he used to hot wire the pump to go down to the lowest setting. For some reason the pump worked lifting the tab, but it would not push it back down again. While he was back there, he also discovered that the old return lines from the original Mercury fuel injection engines, was leaking. That was part of the fume problem, but most of it came from the front tank for some reason. He secured the return line the best he could and we were ready to go again. Jon was back, good and healthy and I had recovered fully from being away from the fumes for a while.

I told Joe that so far he was running the boat as good as anyone could. I sensed that he had some frustration with some of the brutal wave conditions between Orient Point and Montauk. I told him the only problem he was really having, was asking this little boat to handle those conditions at speed. The only solution for it was boat length. He was doing just fine.

We now faced the exit out of the inlet. We had some hearty cheers from the fishermen on the charter boats and we started out. We couldn’t determine where the no wake zone ended, but we were already being lifted by the rollers, so Joe just nailed it and off we went. The boat rolled onto a plane and he began to trim up the problem tab….it all worked beautiful. The face of the waves coming in were a sight to behold, reminded me of Argentina in 1978, Big Momas for sure. Joe kept it steady and didn’t rush anything, but just felt our way out past the breaking surf line and still out even more just to be safe. When we finally turned west, we were at least a half mile out and clear of all the breaking waters.

The new riding position for me now, was standing directly behind Joe with my head leaning out over the side to keep inhaling clean air. As we encountered various conditions and seas, he would ask for some suggestions regarding trim and I gave him my best guesses and it seemed to work just fine.

The beach along the south side of the island would go out of sight as we dropped in a trough and then would reappear as we came up again, over and over we repeated this same scenario. I watched in amusement as the two new offshore racers experienced the weightlessness of the jumps. Back in the days to pass the time of the long legs, we counted the seconds we were in the air as 1001, 1002, 1003 etc. And as in all races, there is that one wave that we all remember. When our turn came for the biggest wave to find us, both Joe and Jon just looked at each other when we landed and went… Whoaaaaa!!!!

Below is a photo of the master...Sammy James flying his 38 foot Bertram, back in the days.

Congrats guys.....AWESOME to see an avg Joe with and avg boat win a REAL OFFSHORE RACE against some of the machines that were in the race. YALL EARNED it and earn all the RESPECT. Once again congrats and enjoy your spot in real offshore......

donz jr

Sorry Brownie............ I owe you a beer..........not a premium beer, but something on tap.:D

In defense of everyone who entered that event.....Give them credit.......They showed up and took a whack at it. In all probability the cat's crew figured out shortly after the start just how far the run actually is. I don't care what hull you choose...that course is long and draining. I also think that it is a course for racing rather than waiting for the ideal day and conditions and then setting out to break the record. The whole test here is the weather conditions and unpredictability of a random preset race date. Since the Atlantic City race was called off due to the huge rollers from Hurricanes out in the ocean, it makes this run doubly impressive as the Sonic team ran in big storm seas as well.

T2x

I spoke with the crew from the cat today. They participated in the event to support the event and Billy Frenz. They recieved the weather report for the south shore and decided to preserve the equipment for another event in which they commited to this weekend.

The main point is they were there to support the event.