Old Outboard V class?
 

Was there an old outboard V class? If so what boats ran in it?

Back in the early 80's they had V class, (class five), the original "Boardwalk" ran in that class-a 24 Superboat with twin OB's. I believe that was a UIM class. Another boat that ran was "Knissel" and was owned by the family that manufactured snow skis.
This was a truly an "entry level" class. Don't remember much else without looking up info.
Bob G.

was it just a single outboard or did they run twins?

Twins. I think "Captain Maintained", driven by Gene Whipp was also in this class-22' Velocity, twin OB's.

The original Factory class ran boats such as 21' Super boats and 22' Activators, single engine setups. They do race single outboards in Europe. A couple years back there was a show on "Speedvision" that Bruce Penhall hosted called "Offshore 2000". I think they were U.I.M. Class III 2 Litre (that's how they Europeans spell it) monohulls. It was exciting ocean racing.

http://www.rya.org.uk/powerboating/offshore/classes/

Check out the link posted above.

APBA rule book 1997
class A 24'-32'
indoard single 510 cid vee
outboard single/twin 375 cid vee
class B 30'-39'
inboard twin 1020 cid vee
outboard twin/triple 560 cid vee
L.A.

How fast were the old A class and B class outboard boats?

They changed the rules towards the end of A & B classes. Origanally A was single and B was twins in the end they allowed twin in A and triple in B. Jo from Pantera was one of the last triple boats to race. There were a few twin boats to race A class back then. I drove a 26 Creative Native with twins at the worlds in 96 I think. It ran around 80. Back in the 80s the V class had a mixture of twin IO and triple Ob. Boardwalk had a 28 SEAHAWK with 3, Velocity had a couple of boats. The first C class was ALL twin OB V bottoms before the early 24 Skaters and 26-28 Cougars and the odd ball Triton tri's. The K&K ghost was the most dominate of all of these boats something like 5 time world champs. There were also 22 and 30 twin OB velocitys. Checkmates. When the cats started to dominate they changed it to Stock A & B . There were lots of V bottoms like Board Member Richochet, Four Winns even had a boat called profit sharing. Sea Hawk had Gary Ballough in Partys Over. I would guess these boats ran around 70-75.

I thought the Stock A & B Classes were great; maybe something like that can be developed in the future with the "green" motors; maybe like in OPC Supersport.

Actually a class is being talked about like that now for single and twin cats. I was told if we could get three boats of that type racing in a P class that they would take the place or supercat light twin.

I think a single engine outboard V bottom class would be a great. There has been alo of talk up here in the N.E. of doing a class like this. A few years back there was a class for these boats. You had Superboat, Activator, Sutphen, Velocity, Shadow, to name a few that were involved in these classes. Such a class would be a great entry level class.

As far as what motor to go with my guessing is that Mercury would probably be picked. I agree with Waterboy about them trying to do it with the Green Motors or let other manufacturers get invovled in it like they are doing with the Super Sport class in OPC racing.

Think this would be great for guys who cannot afford to run Pro Series or even the P classes for that matter. Enviromental and Economic friendly. Then again it is Boat Racing!!!

I also think a single engine OB class would be great! I would open it up to all engine manufactures because racing these boats offshore, you will never get the maximum speed out of them-he with the biggest balls wins. It would certainly put more emphasis on driving and throttling.