Thanks guys for the warm welcome. Lucky strike, the only one who really knows the good stories is Meta, and neither you or I.... have been able to get her to tell them to us yet!!
Was watching a sports news story yesterday about how the Red Sox have prohibited any drinking in the clubhouse going forward. Offshore racing was very much like that in the old days, very concerned with the safety factor of it's competitors. To explain further.....
December 1978, Mar del Plata, Argentina, the site of the World Championship race that year. Competitors from all over the world have assembled at a submarine base in Argentina. Argentina and Chile are on war alert with each other at this time, so due to that fact, it was announced at the driver's meeting that no safety boats would be allowed on the course. If you sink, swim or get into your life raft.
The wind had been blowing for weeks and the waves had been building up for those same weeks. By the time we got there, everyone just looked out to sea and went...WOW!! The English had arrived and passed through customs very quickly, the American's were there, with Tom Gentry who had arrived via a different route than everyone else, he came through India from his home in Hawaii. Betty Cook, Billy Martin and Bill Elswick were there too.
Jerry Jacoby and Bobby Saccenti arrived with a new boat that would someday become very famous all over the world. Jerry had talked Aronow into blocking his 39 foot mold down to 37.6 feet and let him take a hull out of it. Don agreed and they pulled a 37.6 foot long hull that was 8 feet wide. Lacking a deck mold, they pulled a 36 foot race deck that was 9' 4" wide, laid it on top of the hull and simply went around with a saw and cut off the extra width. They stretched the length from 36 to the 37.6 to fit too.
AJAC HAWK was born. For a few years it was just called the 37.6, but eventually a hot new movie came out with a trick sounding name and the boat was henceforth called...the TOP GUN.
Anyway back to my main point about safety....no safety boats on the course...and the Italians are still not here. A vote was taken to wait for them and the race was delayed one day....we all hoped the water would be flat calm the next day, but that didn't happen. So what do offshore racers in a foreign country do while waiting for a one day postponement? We all took easy jogs on the beach, did some light stretching and then worked out heavy with the weights to stay in top shape......WHAT!!!
No, sadly we felt the great need to relax, so Billy Martin found a big old garbage can and put a plastic garbage can liner in it and .......proceeded to mix together every single type of liquor that all the teams had on them at the time. Billy dubbed it...Rocket Fuel. It was hot, and windy and nothing tasted better than some nice cold Rocket Fuel while we waited for the Italians.
Race day dawns, sunny and windy and very rough. Elswick sinks and he and his crew climb in their life raft. Just before dark they are spotted by a freighter going north 250 miles to Buenos Aires. The ship radios race control and let's them know the crew is safe and for the ground support people to head to Buenos Aires to pick them up.
Many boats broke, Ippolitto cracked his deck and hull in half, but made it back to the pits. The Italians won, but Billy should have, he was running along fine with his 39 Cigarette, BOUNTY HUNTER and though he was out of it..........just over the horizon ahead of him was Cosentino, the Italian who won the Championship in that big old 38 aluminum boat. Maybe with less Rocket Fuel powering Billy, he would have been World Champ of 1978.
I can remember at the Four Ambassadors in Miami as wet pits for the Bacardi race, a competitor walking down to his boat with two drinks in his hand, getting ready for the start. Hey we even smoked cigarettes back then, who knew? Thank you Lord for keeping all of us safe for as many times as You did.
