Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Anyone know anything about the Maggies Cougar or George Morales, any pics...thanks: Matt

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Wow! The boat that beat Al Copeland from Miami to New York. George Morales was one of the coolest guys I'd ever met.
Legend around here has it that he and his crew already had the patches sewn on their suits that they had won the race BEFORE the race had started!
I don't know if any of this is absolutely true, but I heard that George went away to "College" for a while and later was killed in a car accident many years ago.
Never heard anything specific about the boat except that it carried much more fuel than George told everybody!

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Edward: when did you meet Morales? I read the same thing about the patches on the jumpsuits, I especially want to get some pics of the deep vee Cougar that he ran also called Maggies...thanks: Matt

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

I think I remember seeing it sitting across the street from Ft. Apache in the mid 80's. Huge Cougar I Think.
For some reason I didn't think the powers to be that put on the Miami to NY race let him race because of his "Import Business" and he just happened to be at the start of the race and the first one to the finish line making him an "Unofficial winner". If anyone heard a different story enlighten us. The 80's were certainly an interesting time for offshore racing.
Willie F., Sal M., Ben K., Tom G., Lavins, Al C. etc.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

He was a friend of Howard Quam who moved me from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale during the summer of 1979 to replace Keith Hazell in the Open class boat "FlapJack".
I met George Morales in the early 1980s.
I have not seen either of those boats in years.
The 46' Cougar v-bottom "Popeyes" is at Castaline Marine in Hollywood, Florida.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

He did have the patches on beforehand. I was on the Popeyes crew. He had some sort of VooDoo S :evilb: antarea priest put chicken blood on his boat. Wierd chit. Al had ours blessed by a Cathilic priest. I guess his Wompum worked better that time. I have pics of the boat out of John Crouses "SeaRace" book. I will get LyAnn to help me scan and post later. Pat Taylor the oil man from N.O. had the first fiberglass version.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Catholic Sorry I need to use spelcheck

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Here they are the first one is his cat, the second an artist rendering by George Bartell and the last is a photo taken while racing. All courtesy of John Crouse :drink:

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Duh

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Stan Ware. I remember seeing your name on the boat!
Thanks for the photos; they brought back some memories.
Ed Cozzi

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

I love that boat!!

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

George's v-bottom 46' became the Popeye's Marathon boat. I built the aluminum one on Thunderboat Row. It was the first triple-engined-ass-kicker for the Superboat class. It was way over a hundred, which was fast in those days. George's 48' cat was first to N.Y., and his old boat was second.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Brownie, is this the same boat that Jay at Castaline has had for sale for a while?

Kurt

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Yeah, I heard a famous former racer bought it.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Pretty sure that the big cat ended up in Japan.........

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

George was an official entrant in the Miami NY race............ He ran much further offshore than the other team (Popeyes was the only other one to make it past northern Fla.).

We covered the race at both ends but could only find Popeyes off of NJ....... Morales was already in NY harbor when we took off from Atlantic City.........thinking we were way ahead of both boats.

T2x

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

R .L. is right. He was so fast we thought he had 2 boats. Something about a double blue moon. I know the logistics were staggering. Bill Sirois set it up and ran the show. A legend in my own mind. I truly miss him.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Okay...Here's a Morales story...from the Miami/NY Race

We're going from team to team...interviewing, getting testing shots, chatting with James Caan....etc etc.

We go over to Cougar...and watch the crew launching Maggies' Mercruiser Special..... George is preparing to test......wearing white slacks, Italian loafers, and a red silk shirt.... (What would you wear if you were trying to out shine the "Effing Diaz Brothers"?)

Anyway........

A Rolls Royce pulls up and out pops Maggie herself (George's wife)......... He motions her to join him on board, and before he could direct her otherwise, she hopped on one pickle fork and walked down the aluminum deck..... wearing stilletto heels..... the noise was right out of Walter Mitty's daydreams...... "Ta pocketa, Tapocketa, tapocketa"..as each step produced a dimple in the endless newly painted surface..... They embraced lovingly...exchanged geographic coordinates or some other little secrets...and separated adoringly..... She (almost) retraced her steps leaving a double trail of ruin behind her..

A few minutes later George turned to a wincing crewman...and said without blinking...... "Feez dat chit" and pointed to the deck.

This was Offshore racing in the 80's.............

For more info rent "Scarface"..........

T2x

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

I am not as good as T2x but here is one (story) for you. Somewhere in time ,80's, Al Copeland, George Morales, and me, are in the penthouse suite ( floor) at some hotel in Detroit.

It is the night before the race and we are up late bench racing. I go to get some ice and some guy in the hallway starts talking to me about races. I guess because I had a Popeyes shirt on. Turns out it is a guy we now know as Sting. I go back in the room and proceed to tell George and Al That the "Police" are staying on the same floor as us. George jumps up and says "Theeze Mother F!@#$%^ can never leave me alone. I am trying to explain to him that they are a band while he is ranting and Al is about to piss is pants laughing so hard. Anyway it gets blurry after there. One thing I remember about Maggie is that she never wore the same clothes ,shoes,acc.etc.. twice. George was quite proud of that fact in an offhand way. As the man said "such were the 80,s".

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

this is some cool s h it !!! :cool:

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

T2x - Tell them about James Cann - another story -

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

I wan't there, but I heard this story for the truth....

In the early '80's, George was hauled into Federal Tax Court and charged with spending $3,000,000 more than he had earned over the last couple of years. (Earnings $42,000) When asked how he managed that, he produced a paper from incoming immigration and said, "When I came from my beloved Colombia to live here, I was asked 'are you carrying cash or other securities?' Answer, 'Yes'. If so, how much? "I put $73,000,000". "If you look closely, you have a copy of this". Judge.."You don't even have a bank account!". George.."It doesn't say anything about a bank account. I keep it under my bed". "Goodbye"

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Damn that's funny! Thanks for the stories. :D

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Great stories!

Those guys are so much more colorfull than today's "Hell raisers".

Alot of money and a bad hair cut doesn't make you a bad ass.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Nope...He's still alive.

T2x ;)

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

1. As much as he needed to

2. He didn't actually retire......... He went on retreat...with the aid of the Federal by God Gummint!....

3. His biggest contribution to the sport was an endless stream of bigger than life stories and (perhaps) the whereabouts of key players in the Medellin Cartel.

In truth the big "players" today don't come close to the characters of the 70's and 80's.....Getting commode hugging drunk on Duval Street and showing off your wife's new boobs to the other racers....... does not rank up there with kidnapping a federal agent and stuffing him in the trunk of your car.......for starters.

Morales, Magluta, Falcon, Kramer, Hidalgo,.....all with tales that would fill three books.


We will never see those days again ..when men were men and women turned state's evidence.

T2x........

Brownie.......... The real kicker in that courtroom story was Morales insistense that his profession was "Gas Station mechanic"..... ;)

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Any pics of Maggie?

What's the real story with the two Seahawk boats in Key West? Was it 1988?

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Team Seahawk had two Alum. cougars #20 and #25 the #25 was the newer one. They won several national championships KSW (KE) powered with SeconEffort(Arneson) drives.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

We bought the Bengal bay club cat at a customs auction. It had US CUSTOMS painted on the side. It now has T58 turbines where the KE. motors used to live.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

About 10,000 kilos worth

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

I think Morales is still alive today and has changed his identity to Ozzie Guillen.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

The 46 v-bottem was on e-bay 2 weeks ago. Looked fresh and was bidding at around 55k when I left for Chorpus. Listed as having 3 blown kieth eikerts and #5's. Still bright yellow with 10 on the side and popeyes graphics. I was definitly tempted.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

I remember something about the race to N.Y. being put together so geo. could show where the money to pay his taxes came from.....entry fee was high..........very high........m.m..........

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Great old thread that someone brought to life again...

Here's a picture worth 1000 words to put a face with the earlier story!

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

wow...good stuff

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Boat was looking good when it went to Japan. Where is it now?!

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Before the race, George was doing his best to get into Al's head. He came out and said he knew he'd be victorious as he wouldn't be wasing time running into harbors for fuel. He was going to do aerial refueling on the fly with helicopters. Even though ridiculously implausible, I don't think anyone was willing to doubt it entirely.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

The monohull was called Mercruiser Special and the cat was Maggie’s Mercruiser Special, the picture attached is from the first test run on the intercoastal down by Haulover before the Key West race.

Re: Maggie's Mercruiser Special
 

Sorry had to change the format