MattBMiller
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Some awesome information in this thread! 
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History of the sport
- Thread starter Top Banana
- Start date
Some awesome information in this thread!
Without a doubt.
Top Banana
Icon/Founding Member
Charlie,
Wonderful photos! You have a great recollection for all of this, and it is great you are putting this stuff here for posterity!
I posted this over on offshoreonly, but thought I should repost it here.
Here's a photo I thought you'd enjoy seeing from the Benihana Grand Prix West in San Francisco in 1978.
Rocky only knew one way to run, and that was as hard and as fast as possible. The water was rough that year, and on the way out to the Farallons we broke the boat down the side and across the bottom partway to the keel. I think I have a picture of the damage, somewhere. This was the only race I navigated for Rocky. Actually, it was only half of a race, as I got hurt in the impact and had to get out at the Farallons check boat.
Bill Vogel, Rocky Aoki, and Errol Lanier before the 1978 San Francisco race
Bill....Welcome.
It's been a long time, nice to hear from you again.
Here are some quick shots of you and Joey on the # 3 Michelob Light Scarab, back in the day. I have some nice color stuff of your 28 Cigarette around here somewhere, I'll dig it out as soon as I can find it.
Charlie
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Top Banana
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We were talking about steps before and I know a lot of people think they were just applied to the designs of offshore boats recently...but......here is a shot from the 1970 Hennessey Grand Prix out of Pt Pleasant, NJ.
The boat is an Alim, the material it is made out of, is paper mache. The boat not only has a beak and steps, but it is a deep vee and a tri hull, it also has an air scoop under the beak to do who knows what, but it is there.
There is a lot of things going on with this design.....no wonder it took a little time to figure out which ones worked and which didn't.
The boat is an Alim, the material it is made out of, is paper mache. The boat not only has a beak and steps, but it is a deep vee and a tri hull, it also has an air scoop under the beak to do who knows what, but it is there.
There is a lot of things going on with this design.....no wonder it took a little time to figure out which ones worked and which didn't.
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Davidmnc
Contributor
I think I see Reggie's reflection off the side of the boat. And it looks like he is taking notes! :biggrinjester:
Sorry for the hijack. I normally just read these threads. I could not help my self on this one! Thank you for sharing. This is great stuff!!!
Top Banana
Icon/Founding Member
ITALIAN DESIGN We usually think of Ferrari's or boats from Lake Como, but a Formula??
Well this pointy nosed design was tried in the 60's and was doing just fine, Dick Genth was driving ....until it sank in one of the Bahamas races.
This boat looks a lot like Surfury, the famous Gardener's brothers boat out of England.
Contrary stories...it sank...or.....it was sinking and picked up by a freightor and was returned to Europe.
If anyone knows of the whereabouts of this boat, please report it to your local authorities.
Well this pointy nosed design was tried in the 60's and was doing just fine, Dick Genth was driving ....until it sank in one of the Bahamas races.
This boat looks a lot like Surfury, the famous Gardener's brothers boat out of England.
Contrary stories...it sank...or.....it was sinking and picked up by a freightor and was returned to Europe.
If anyone knows of the whereabouts of this boat, please report it to your local authorities.
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Top Banana
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Speaking of Mr Fountain. Back in 1979, Gary Garbrecht and Reggie Fountain began a new boat company. They bought a 30 foot Excalibur and added a pad to the bottom. Jean Claude Simon who designed the Excalibur (28 Magnum stretch) for Bill Farmer, claimed that the new boat company owners had to include his name on all advertising.....They promptly added a beak and the rest is history.
Gary and Reggie were very successful tunnel outboard boat racers, Gary ran the program for Mercury, but they wanted to go offshore and took this plunge. Reggie bought out Gary a short time later and continued on his own.
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Cool. I'd love to see any of the stuff you have.
Speaking of those documenting the sport during that period, I don't remember Sal, but Ron Thibedeau was a friend and Phil was doing a great job with Needlenose films.
Also, motorsports artist George Bartell and I became good friends. I went to George's studio near Palos Verde and watched him paint. It was an interesting process. He'd project his slides from the event onto a canvas in a darkened studio, and use it as a template for his sketching and painting. You couldn't tell the true colors of the paint due to the colored light. After he was completely finished he'd turn the lights on and the resulting painting was always a surprise, even to him. George did a lot of auto paintings that appeared regularly in Sports Illustrated, but he was a genuine fan of offshore racing. His work is certainly collectable now. I have a few of his originals and sketches, including a picture of my wife and me that was a wedding present.
However, right boat but wrong navigator. The time I navigated for Joey, the #3 boat was named "Outrageous".
Cool. I'd love to see any of the stuff you have.
Speaking of those documenting the sport during that period, I don't remember Sal, but Ron Thibedeau was a friend and Phil was doing a great job with Needlenose films.
Also, motorsports artist George Bartell and I became good friends. I went to George's studio near Palos Verde and watched him paint. It was an interesting process. He'd project his slides from the event onto a canvas in a darkened studio, and use it as a template for his sketching and painting. You couldn't tell the true colors of the paint due to the colored light. After he was completely finished he'd turn the lights on and the resulting painting was always a surprise, even to him. George did a lot of auto paintings that appeared regularly in Sports Illustrated, but he was a genuine fan of offshore racing. His work is certainly collectable now. I have a few of his originals and sketches, including a picture of my wife and me that was a wedding present.
However, right boat but wrong navigator. The time I navigated for Joey, the #3 boat was named "Outrageous".
Top Banana
Icon/Founding Member
Cool. I'd love to see any of the stuff you have.
Speaking of those documenting the sport during that period, I don't remember Sal, but Ron Thibedeau was a friend and Phil was doing a great job with Needlenose films.
Also, motorsports artist George Bartell and I became good friends. I went to George's studio near Palos Verde and watched him paint. It was an interesting process. He'd project his slides from the event onto a canvas in a darkened studio, and use it as a template for his sketching and painting. You couldn't tell the true colors of the paint due to the colored light. After he was completely finished he'd turn the lights on and the resulting painting was always a surprise, even to him. George did a lot of auto paintings that appeared regularly in Sports Illustrated, but he was a genuine fan of offshore racing. His work is certainly collectable now. I have a few of his originals and sketches, including a picture of my wife and me that was a wedding present.
However, right boat but wrong navigator. The time I navigated for Joey, the #3 boat was named "Outrageous".
Sal was of the era right before the 70's. He was killed in a light plane crash while shooting the race at Key West. He was the guy who took all the great black and white stuff of the early Bertrams, Donzi's and Cigarettes. Ron and then the Lewis brothers certainly added the ultimate professional touch to the sport and brought it to a whole new level.
Bill......Outrageous. Yes, we have that photo of you guys in Newport Beach.......see photo below........and we even have the photo of Outrageous, the 27 foot Signature that Joey started with in New Jersey in our files somewhere.
George Bartell. John Crouse commissioned George to do all of the individual paintings that he used of the racers in his book SEARACE. Ses the Al Copeland one here.
John has donated the George Bartell originals to HORBA and we are planning on doing some type of posters for sale on the web site in the future.
What happened to the rest of the west coast people.....Jeff Brown and Paula Atkin...photo below, both good racers and fun people. Paula was the Betty Cook of Production class.
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Don't know about Paula, haven't heard news of her and husband Ron since the day.
Lou Gantz of Long Beach is another early Production guy I remember well, I suppose he may be gone now.
I ran into Karl Koster at a boat show in Long Beach just a couple of years ago. If I recall our conversation correctly, he is still involved in the boat business and in Offshore.
Dan Blocker and his two sons raced a 24' Campbell in POPBRA for a couple of years, it was a family affair like the Vogels. You'll remember Dan, he played "Hoss Cartwright" on Bonanza for many years.
Jeff Brown was doing well the last time I saw him. He's the owner of Jackson Hole Aviation in Wyoming. I visited with him in 2001(?) when we passed through there while flying around the country with my family in our Bonanza. [I have a fun flying story involving myself, Jeff and John Connor, but since it really doesn't have anything to do with boat racing I'll save it for another time and place.]
The kiwi brothers Brett and Craig Archer were active in US Offshore for quite awhile - I'd like to think I had at least a little to do with that. After the 1980 Melbourne Worlds, Bob & I were invited to visit New Zealand by local racer Roger Wood. We spent three weeks there and experienced wonderful hospitality: I was invited to drive Roger's cat in a local New Zealand offshore race which was a real treat (esp. since we won!), as I remember it was cold and the water was rough; we stayed with the Archer family for a little; Roger took us trout fishing at Lake Taupo, where we stayed at a resort with one of the top 10 game restaurants in the world; and spent plenty of time touring the islands with Roger and hanging out at his large sheep 'farm', attending the weekly stock auction in the nearby town, and watching the amazing sheep dogs do their work. He also raised deer which was very interesting - they had very tall fences around those pastures! Anyway, Brett and Craig came over to visit us the next year. They must have liked it, because they returned and stayed, first with us, then working for KAAMA Racing, and finally on their own. I spoke with Brett maybe ten or fifteen years ago, but have lost touch with him since. I understand that Roger passed away years ago; we were priviledged to know him.
There were many others - like Tommy ?, the personable Spectra guy. I'm seeing faces but it may take me a while to dredge up the names :sheepish: Help me out here!
I posted some pictures of Super Toad here: http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/2941003-post19.html
In 1972 we decided to move up to a boat we could campaign nationally in APBA Class III (UIM II). Dad arranged to buy one of the relatively new 28' Cigarettes from Don Aronow. Don had designed the 28 as a pleasure boat, with a large cockpit, big glass windscreen, etc. He agreed to build us one with a stronger race layup, leave out the console, and with stringers for a single big Mercruiser instead of the typical side-by-side small blocks.
Bob and I drove our pickup (orange, of course!) to Florida during school vacation to finalize the arrangements with Don. While there I remember making the final decision on the color, boot stripes, etc. While they were building the hull, I found a trailer builder to make us a California-style (float-off) rig. This was harder than it sounds, as everyone uses cranes in Florida and no one there had ever built a trailer for ramp launching an offshore boat. We'd hang out with the guys from the Cigarette factory, go to lunch with them at Tony Romas, all pretty cool stuff for a couple of kids from California.
When the hull and deck was finished, I wrote Don a check and Bob and I towed it home to California. The three of us rigged it ourselves from scratch. We put in a 482 Mercruiser (carbureted!) with #3 super speedmaster, fabricated a windscreen, Jake welded up the tanks which we foamed in, built a frame for the bolster and had it upholstered, and we built a full-width cockpit insert/console out of plywood and fiberglass to take up the extra space in the cockpit. It bolted into the cockpit, which was a good thing as later on we needed the access when we installed additional tankage forward for the Miami-Nassau Race - you can see the fills on the front deck in one of the photos. You can also see the little spoiler we added at the top of the windscreen - the original design put all the wind right in our face - ugh! The little lip was just enough to direct the blast over the tops of our helmets.
I was maybe 18 at the time...
Dangerous Dave
New member
Thanks for sharing that cool story! Any idea where Super Toad is now?
In 1965, I was at Donzi with Aronow. We built lots of experimental boats. One of them was the 14' Donzi "Peanuts". We built the first one with a racing Volvo on a model 100 Volvo drive. Don was driving everyone to finish the boat in time for the famous 9 hour race at the Miami Marine Stadium. He had sold it to a French Canadian. We finished it at 11:00 at night, after a lot of beer drinking. We launched the boat in a driving rain, and Don immediately jumped in, and roared off down the canal, wide open in the dark, pouring rain. We heard the noise fade away, and sat around and drank a few more brewskis. Soon, we heard the unmistakeable exhaust note of the little Volvo, and Aronow flashed by at about 50 mph. He idled to the floating dock, and said "Brownie, this is the best f**king boat I have ever built. It is fast, and turns on a dime. Give it a try"! Reluctantly, got in and squinted my eyes into the rain. I didn't intend to go very far in the dark, but when I gave it some throttle, I was surprised how zippy it was. When I got to the end of the canal at wide open throttle (which I could barely see) I cranked the steering wheel hard over. The boat hooked immediately, and threw my ass about 50 feet down the bay! Fortunately I had hooked the deadman switch, and it shut the boat down, but I couldn't see it in the dark. I thought to myself, "S**t! Aronow is going to shoot me"! I had visions of the boat in the rocks, etc. Finally, my heart slowed down a bit. I swam in a circle and located the boat, floating happily, about 100 feet away. I swam over and climbed aboard. It started up immediately and I gingerly ran back down the canal at about 30mph, and idled over to the dock. I said, "I tried a hard left turn, and threw me right out"! With a huge grin, Aronow turned around and showed me his ripped shirt. "Me too"!
Dude! Sweet!
Charter Member
Thanks guys. This is very enjoyable. Also very nice to hear some west coast history. Seems like there is very little of it around anymore.
I found this when I did a quick search related to Archer Marine...
http://www.nigelhook.com/raceteam/raceteam-craig.htm
I always thought that the Archer's stilled owned it. Anyhow here's the contact info for those guys.
Team Archer Marine
936 Sunset Dr. #B
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Tel: (949) 646-9778
Fax: (949) 646-0844
I found this when I did a quick search related to Archer Marine...
http://www.nigelhook.com/raceteam/raceteam-craig.htm
I always thought that the Archer's stilled owned it. Anyhow here's the contact info for those guys.
Team Archer Marine
936 Sunset Dr. #B
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Tel: (949) 646-9778
Fax: (949) 646-0844
That same year, 1965, we (Teleflex, who bought the company and me in April) gave the 35' "Big Bad Donzi" to Aronow in return for him screwing us on his non-compete agreement. Most of you know that the 35' magically turned into the 35' Magnum. The BBD had a pair of 427 Holman Moodys on Casale V drives and ran about 50 mph. Don was looking for more speed (I had beaten him and the boat twice already that year) and he asked (told) me to launch my 18' Donzi with a 289 Phony Cobra on an Eaton C (piece of ......) drive. It would run 60 mph, and the plan was for me to observe and photograph the running surfaces of the 35' while Don ran along. We could get under the chines of the boat and got some great pix of the propeller shafts breaking the water, etc. I was overseeing and shooting, and the boat was being driven by Gene Schoell, my glass foreman. Gene was Harry's brother. I gave Gene hand signals, to move in, out, up, back, etc. It was going extremely well, when Gene let out "S**********************t"! When I looked up, I could see that Aronow had turned into our canal, and taken us right to the end. In those days, there was no Magnum or Hi-Lift Marine, just a rough dredged beach at the end of the canal. Aronow pulled back the throttles on the BBD, and lightly beached the boat. By the time Gene got it together and pulled back, the unit trailed out, and we went 50 feet into the weeds.
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