If you won a race back in the day, no one would accuse you of a walk in the park, you earned it, often over 200 or so miles of open ocean, not to speak of the quality of the competition.
Here is the start of one of the races. Closest to the camera was the 38 foot Larry Smith Scarab of Paul Clauser, SATISFACTION. This is the boat that Bill Elswick with Richie Powers throttling, took the Harmsworth Trophy in England later in the year.
Next out is Sammy James and Vince Fasano in VINCENTIVE. Sammy would run the boat so hard that Vince would often come back to the dock with is face in shreds from banging off the steering wheel. At a drivers meeting in Miami, we gave Vince a birthday cake in the shape of a steering wheel....and Sammy pushed his face in it. The Bertrams only had a 20 degree bottom vs the 24 degree of the other boats....we called it a flat bottom.
Next boat out with the flag is the start boat...it is a Schiada, so this is probably a West Coast race.
Behind the start boat in the far left of the photo is Billy Martin in the lightweight 39 foot Cigarette, BOUNTY HUNTER. He knew he had another 200 miles to go so he probably wasn't concerned with his location at the start.
Next boat, just in front of the start boat was a new guy just coming into the sport with a 37.6 foot Cigarette. His name was Al Copeland and he called his boat POPEYES after his chain of restaurants. In the boat with him was very experiecned throttleman, Bill Sirois and as navigator, Stan Ware who is still racing today in a Skater cat.
Next boat out was a guy who had this crazy idea that he had a better idea for drive systems. Howard Arneson was trying his new invention on his 38 foot Larry Smith Scarab, # 6 SEA SWEEP.
Next boat out was Charlie McCarthy in his 38 foot Banana Boat, #60, RUMS OF PUERTO RICO.
After turning down Bernie Little's offer for sponsorship the previous year, Charlie accepted the sponsorhship of the, Economic Development Office of the Comonwealth of Puerto Rico, to raise the American drinking public's awareness of rums from Puerto Rico.
Next to Charlie was Betty Cook in her 38 foot Larry Smith Scarab, KAAMA. John Conners was both crew chief and throttleman.
Not shown but most certainly there, would have been Joel Halpern in BEEP BEEP, Joey Ippolito in MICHELOB LIGHT, Bob Nordskog and Norm Teague in POWERBOAT MAGAZINE SPECIAL, Rocky Aoki in BENIHANA. Arnold Glass and Mel Riggs in COPPER KETTLE, Bill Elswick in LONGSHOT, Michel Maynard and Bob Idoni in FAYVA SHOES, and Jerry Jacoby with AJAC HAWK, the first ever 37.6 Cigarette that would later be known to the world as the Top Gun........plus a gathering of local racers with third and fourth hand 36 foot Cigarettes.
