You can't fault t2x.
Messages take awhile to transmit via smoke signals or drums. Especially JPEGS.
There are some primitive ( obsolete ) cultures that still use these antiquated forms of communication, to this day.

BUT . . . even these primitive "shipwrights" are fashioning 'steps' into their dugouts.

you crack me up man!!!

Obviously one of those unsafe stepped hulls.

He was alright luckily, Full safety suit paid off. Cool but unfortunate pic.

Ya that is a Nitrox bottle. The boat wazs going 138 when it went over. The driver spent a few days in the hospital, only bruises. Fricken luckey!.
This is a case of Brass Balls and poor set up. Two other STV's were faster that day. They didn't need the bottle to do it. Expect 150 to be broken in the next few weeks.... they are real close.
These boats are where the REAL rigging and driving skill is shown.... and the mistakes are displayed like the above.

RT

Those are incredible pics!

I'm just curious, does anyone know the weight of these boats with driver/pilot?

How much HP do these motors make approximately?

thanks.

Hulls are 500-800 lbs depending on the laminate schedual, The motors are 275 lbs to 400, depending on midsection and gearcase..... drive is how fat you are, add 200 lbs for rigging and fuel.
The motors make 260 and up in power, a GOOD stroker 2.5 will make 400hp....... you can bump that up another 100 with spray.

RT

So I am guessing that these record breaking boats are around 1300 lbs ready to run with 400 hp?

You are high on hp, not may have that much, more in the mid high 3's. Weight is a safe number too.
The boat that Crashed is called an STV Mod-vp, the boats that were faster are River Rockets, 1 to 4 seaters, The fastest was a 3 seat pleasure boat that gets run every weekend. These arn't records either, just the boys out having fun.

RT

Thanks for the info Firewalker.
I'm just trying to get an idea of power to weight ratios for these outboard boats.
In another thread, there was a mention of 175+ mph small tunnel. I was wondering to myself what the power/weight ration would be to get those little boats to run that speed.

For me, it could put other recent speed records into perspective.