ICON's: Please tell the story of Cary Marine

yes yes more we need more, alot more. Thanks guys I look forward to all your postings and thanks so much for shareing.
 
VERY VERY cool! I think that is exactly what I miss most when H_tB_at Mag, f'd up and then ended. Tales from ThunderBoat Row was the coolest column! Why? Why? Did it have to end this way??
 
Don't want to get off the thread, but to give you some ideas how cool the guys were back then.....just let me give you a little background on the winner of the first Miami - Nassau race and some of the other things he did and who he was.

Sam Griffith:

Founded and built Pelican Harbor Yacht Club.....The power boat racing club in Miami
One of founders of Orange Bowl Regatta
Founded Orange Bowl 9 hour marathon powerboat race.
Founded the 6 hour pleasure craft marathon race.
Founded the Gold Coast Marathon and won it twice. (Race inside the intercoastal from Miami to Palm Beach and back)
Won Miami to Nassau race four out of first five times it was run.
Was the first to try a new design called a Deep Vee in a boat called Bertram.
Won around Long Island Marathon race.
Held several world speed records for both gas and diesel powered boats.

Was a full Colonel in the Army Air Force and survived two parachute drops where the chute didn't open.

Smuggled rubies out of India

Was so beloved by the Bahamian people ....they called him "Mr Sam" wherever he went.

Was one VERY TOUGH guy that nobody messed with.....in any form or fashion.
 

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Elton Cary was our insurance man at Formula and Donzi. He was a personal friend of Don's, so Don never paid him (he did that a lot). Instead, he gave him the mold to 008, the cut-down version of the 28' Donzi. Elton turned it into a first class fish boat. Don later blew up the 32' Cary/Cigarette by 1 1/2 times and made the 48'3" Cigarette/Cary. First one had gas Chryslers and belonged to Jordan Klein, the famous underwater guy. Next two were smugglers with diesels, then Don had another premium due, and gave the mold to Elton. He hired me to run the project. I built about twenty of them. When the frogs ran Cary into the ground, the molds ended up with that, er, eccentric guy, Randy Postma.
 
Persons of Gallic descent...... I was on a demo with some yachtsmen, when they tried to "talk boats" with Claude Bigot, President of Cary Marine. "What is the draft"? "I don't know. Maybe it is because we are passing under the bridge".
 
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