OSO What happened to the "Old Shadow Cat" thread?...5 pages are missing and I worked hard on that...so did a lot of others.

Where did it go, it was a great thread??????

..thought it was me!...what happened??

It wasn't me! Who originated it?

was not us, only could have been originator

Glad I read it T2x thanks for the bit history as to the thread I guess only the Shadow knows!!!!!!

Damn I was looking for that thread and thought I lost it. My mind that is.

I thought that emotiondriver started the thread about an old shadow cat.

AARGH! Now I have to make up a whole new bio ..........

Let's see....once upon a time there was a guy....who liked boats.....a lot...... He liked them so much he began to eat them. At first it was just little ships in a bottle ...but later he began to O.D........ he began to eat Checkmates....... for breakfast

And that my friends is how Paul Allison got started....but that's a whole 'nother story.........................

T2x

The threads about the Shadows and the subsequent information on the Conquest boats has indeed lured me out of my mid winter cave and sleep as some of you predicted.

I continue to be amazed at the memory of T2x he does tell you how it was and is with great accuracy. I was there and know the real deal.

Some other things you may find interesting in Shadow history.

1. The Shadow 30 was the first composit offshore cat in the world.
the only others at that time were the wood boats of Cougar.

2. On it's first test run at Mercury with Merc. 3.4 300HP outboards with T2x at the controls and me wandering about the boat looking over the side doing "designer" stuff. T2x tapped me on the shoulder pointing to the speed (approx 86 mph) which was 5 mph over the existing world speed record for offshore boats at that time approx. 1980 or 81 T2x knows for sure.

3. A few months later the first sterndrive (small block 525 HP) Love It was tested at Lake X. Since we had surfaced the outboatds we mounted the #2 SSM drives 1" prop shaft C/L over the bottom. and engines forward on 18 " drive shafts. The boat
was the joke of the Lake until it hit the water and ran 103 MPH first pass. 15 plus mph over the world record and the first offshore boat to exceed 100 mph at Lake X.

4.If there was ever a boat the racers and APBA wanted banned it was the Shadow. It was to offshore racing what rear(mid) engine
cars were to F1 and Indy racing- revolutionary. One solution was to run twin engine Shadows against triple engine Vee's - Wrong, closer but no contest (rough or flat) the cat's won. The final solution of course was and is to separate the Vee's and cat's.

Enough of Shadow for now and a few comments on Conquest.

1. This time period mid 1980's was by the accounts of designers and builders around the world the most exciting time in the developments of new technology and ideas. The rules were basicly 500 cid and a boat 30'-50'long. Wow that is really opening the door to a bunch of smart hungry guy's. Fabio Buzzi, Mike Peters, Peter Hledin, Kieth Eikert, Howard Arneson, Fred Kiekhaefer and the list goes on.

From this explosion of technology and development T2x came up with the idea to not be locked into a fixed design (mold) and to be flexable to produce different designs as the exploding technology developed - hence Conguest Marine.

In my view the boats of Conquest represented the colaboration of T2x - Ken Adams and myself. It was a time of great excitement as every boat and design was an adventure into the unknown and it would not have been possible without the undying passion and commitment of three very talented, obssessed people.

Back to my cave - see you all at Skater Fest 02.

George

Thanks for the history lesson George. See you at Skaterfest 2002.

http://www.darrensoffshorephotos.hom...aterfest1.html