Offshoreonly.com - Canale Takes Ownership of Sonic Powerboats

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Quote:

Originally Posted by skater40 (Post 4519967)

I highly doubt that Frisina is out.There are a lot of finished and unfinished boats still at the factory that Frisina has built along with molds that he owns.Why else would Reed still be there except to look over Frisina's interest.
I do wish Canale the best but there is a lot past stigma that he has inherited.

So that's interesting, and I only ask because I am curious...
What molds does Frisina own?
And which boats does he have yet to finish?
And where is this factory you mention?

Something just doesn't seem right about all this......

At one point in time, wasn't Kurt Berger involved with Frisina/Sonic? Is he still?

Didn't sonic actually start as Banana/coyote or some of the molds 38' and not sure what else . Charlie's were bananas and jean-Claude simon were coyotes. The Sold the molds to sonic?

more and more this sounding like being elected president of Haiti, sure you are president, but----

Quote:

Originally Posted by caseyh (Post 4520009)

Didn't sonic actually start as Banana/coyote or some of the molds 38' and not sure what else . Charlie's were bananas and jean-Claude simon were coyotes. The Sold the molds to sonic?

True. I contracted with JC Simon to design and build a new Open class race boat at the World Championship races in Key West in 1977 (Betty won that year) JC Simon could talk and desing fast, but the boat wasn't really ready to race until 1979. We won our first race and then JC Simon and I agreed that we would both make our own brand boats out of the 38 mold. He sold his as Coyote and I sold mine as Bananas. We also blocked the mold 4 feet shorter and made 34 footers too, same names etc. Some race boats had both Banana and Coyote on them. I dropped out of boat building in 1980 and JC continued on for a few years but then sold the molds to Sonic. What you see now as the 42 foot Sonic with a swim platform, is my old 38 with a swim platform added on....same bottom.

Great running boat. I wish Canale much success in taking this over and hope to see many good things to come in the years ahead.

Here are some shots of the 38 Banana and the 38 Coyote that raced in Europe as Dry Martini.

In 1979 I raced as Top Banana and in 1980 raced with the same boat repainted as Rums of Puerto Rico

That Top Banana was a cool looking boat. I love the classic lines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Top Banana (Post 4520108)

Amazing a hull bottom designed appx. 40 years ago remains the same. Is it that evolved that there is no improvement to be found or is it no one wants to invest in looking at the possibility of design improvements ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Interceptor (Post 4520206)

A few years ago there was a new bottom brought out by Sonic (Frisini) and it had steps.

I do not know who designed it, nor do I know...... how it performed with speed and handling.

In the old days, POWERBOAT Magazine had performance trials every year and published the results for everyone to see.

Now, each boat company says what the number is.... and some time they are right on and some times they are very much dreaming up their final speed number.

I think that just one boat was made with the new step bottom...maybe the owner of that boat would be willing to share some results.