Real race boat, Real loud

[dwilfong]

One more memory from my youth.Every summer we would go to are shore house in Stone Harbor NJ. The next door neighbor had a merk dealership and sold Baja boats. He would bring home the demo boat a 16' Baja with a 150 merk. The 18' chopper prop looked like the terminators n#!. He would take me and his daughter out in the sound on good nights when water was like glass. We weighted about the same has he did. Made perfect balance for the boat.

He had the boat on radar gun by him self at 96mph. This was about 1975ish. I Will never forget watching the rooster tail grow as he trimmed the boat. One of those memories you will never forget.

Whoooaa!!

Back in the late 70's I had a Merc 1500XS (150hp shortshaft) on a 15 footer that ran an honest 73-74 mph pulling a 28 pitch cleaver. That was a legal weight J/Production boat. I believe the APBA Kilo record at that time for J/P was about 78mph. Your neighbor should have raced that 96mph Baja. Or maybe calibrated his "radar gun". Even uside down 69mph would have been a stretch. Tim Tinus running an 18'factory Baja at the Powerboat Shootout in St Louis managed 82mph with a V-6 Mercury 225. Single seater raceboat no interior. Probably as fast as a Baja in that era was capable of.

This is what he told me the radar gun was the police chief of Cape May's gun and supposedly his boat did 98mph. The prop coast $750 (allot of money in 75) and it was a piece of art no cleaver. Then again I was just a kid at the time.

The chief's boat looked like it had wings on the front of it can't remember what make it was but it was striped down to nothing. The Baja was all stock and brand new black with 3/8" silver flake in the paint and bright red interior with every opt. bin In a few 70 plus bass boats no comparison. His mechanic did some work to the eng. not sure what but he did just get back from Merck school.

This is just from what I remember it was along time ago an I was very young but the cars on the road going 55+ next to the canal were getting passed like thy were standing still and we weren't even full throttle or trimmed.

He would always laugh at me because I would have to pull start my suicide 6 because the battery was always dead.

David,

I surely don't want to burst you childhood bubble here. In 1975 the fastest APBA class was Mod-U. Factory 6 cyl-6carb T2X Mercs and OMC 8 carb Stranglers were trying to break 100 and most ran low 90's. Drivers like Jimbo McConnel, Buck Thornton, Reggie Fountain, and Billy Seebold surley ran faster than the Chief?. This is all prior to V-6's. 150 Mercs were lucky to hit in the 70's on Hydrostreams and Allisons. Baja's and Checkmates were heavy and rarely raced competetively. My cleaver cost $300 from Ron Hill and was state of the art back then. I used to kill a lot of 80 mph boats with a 74 mph on its best day rig. Funny how many lake racers are capable of breaking established world records. Just beer and bulls**t

Mark bring your Allison to Charleston and fire it up. Would be a real treat for everyone.

Mic

Well there goes another childhood memory thanks for setting me straight! I guest my neighbor would say what ever had too to sell boats.

 

[Mark Poole ModVP]

One of the little known tricks used by boaters wanting to fool someone is pinching the speedometer hose to make the speed run up. I know a guy who used to take people out on his 50 mph boat. Had all his friends convinced it was running 72.

Sensation of speed on water is MUCH greater....that is a fact.

 

[Tom Foley]

Speed is a simple function of RPM , Prop pitch , gear ratio ,and probable slip . Dwillfong , it would have been impossible for your buddies boat to go that fast ......period .

Anyone who knows anything about Allisons or pad V bottoms can appreciate the perfection of Reynolds passes for sure .

 

[Tom Foley]

Tom actually over a hundered in any V-bottom you don't drive. You just "Point and Pray"

Ran 90.5( GPS ) this weekend on the Suwannee in my Allison XB - 2003 right around 7000 rpm running a 28 ET , still had plenty left in my 2.5 280 ]Boat handles like a dream !!

 

[Brad Christy]

Guys,

First off, let me say that I grew up skiing on Lake Cumberland in KY behind a 21' shallow V-hull, V-drive with a chevy 454 under a 6-71 GMC blower. It would run in the high 70's on any given day, and a little over 80 on the perfect day, two people and a half tank of gas. Not bad for a boat with full upholstery seating five. It would also pull five sloloms out of the water. There was group of us, all family boaters, who had similar boats. There was one 22" Shiada V-hull, V-drive with twin turbo'd 482 and a 3sp Lenko tranny that would scare 90MPH, and, at one time, three 19' flatbottoms with V-drives, one of which was a Sanger hull with a blown big block that would run over 140MPH! Today the big thing at Cumberland is the 40+ footers with multiple HUGE displacement blower motors, some of them capable of speeds considerably in excess of 150+MPH. There is at least one 51' OuterLimits with FOUR (!) 1045's (twin blowers EACH) that was clocked at over 160MPH on a calibrated GPS between Jamestown and Connely Bottom, burning about 6 GPM.

All this to tell you that I may not have all my terminology correct, but I'm not a stranger to speed on the water. There were outboards around, but none of them very fast. We always referred to them as "clampons". They were not highly regarded as "powerboats".

My dad sold the ads in the phonebook, and thus knew many of the upper tier mangement and business owners in the greater Dayton, OH area for many years. One of those individuals was a guy named Wayne Brown, who owned Browns Pest Control, a very successful pest control company in North Dayton. Money was basically no object for him. We often ran with him on Cumberland. He had a twin tunnel V-hull (it looked like a standard V-hull, but had a tunnel on either side of a center pad about 18" wide) with a HIGHLY tweaked 235 Evinrude with what he referred to as a "Stinger" lower unit. It was one of the most beautiful boats I've ever seen. Super deep candy apple blues with tiny hot-pink stripes all in the gel-coat. It had all the jack plates that allowed him to lift and tilt the engine. It also had the blue NOS bottle with a switch on the dash. I said switch, not button. My dad rode in it several times, but would never let me go along, as I was only about 10 or so at the time. Wayne would get the boat up to about 75 or so and start trimming the engine. When he had it the way he wanted it, he would peg the throttle and hit the NOS switch. At about 135 MPH, he could turn the wheel from lock to lock and the boat would run straight as an arrow for as long as the bottle lasted. Again, not bad for a boat with full upholstery.

Thanks. Brad.

Titan Racing Components

BlackJack Hydros

 

[Tom Foley]

I've seen STV tunnels run right at 143 with the baddest of the bad Merc 300 Drag powerheads and100+ shots of nitrous at the Suwannee . Both boats had 12 " mids and # 4 Speedmasters and the best propellers available (2005 ) An evinrude of any kind running on a Mod Vee Production hull as you describe running 135 mph is probably a hard stretch to believe. To really learn about these boats and what they are capable of join Scream and Fly .com you will get an education for sure .My boat in the picture is a stock STV Euro ,same bottom as the race hulls of the day (1989) , with a 2.5 -260 hp Merc .this runs 105 loaded down with 28 gallons of gas and 2 people today .These boats are a lot easier to drive than the Allison or other Hydrid Pad Vee's such as Marks Allison. Check out the middle pic of the Allison so far up on the pad you are literally flying .

Another MVP STV at 128 MPH GPS below.

 

[Mark Poole ModVP]

Brad...the boat that you describe (looked like a v but had tunnels) is the design that transformed outboard hot rodding. Also know as Mod-VP. The pic of the boat that I started this thread with (15' Allison) was the "standard" in outboard race boats in the late 60's early 70's. They were ahead of their time, quite fast, but took a lot of skill and practice to drive towards 90+mph. Many people were killed or seriously injured in them and other brands of v bottom race boats. When the horsepower got up to 200 in the mid 70's, blowing over a V bottom became as common as blowing over a tunnel.

To this day 16' to 20' "true" tunnel boats have never been a design that could be put into the hands of the average Joe because they are just not forgiving enough. Oh sure you can cruise around in one at 50 mph, but take one into triple digits, you better look over your shoulder for the grim reaper (no not Grimracer). Few people outside of the high performance boating world understand that the Mod-VP made going 100 mph in a weekend boat quite easy. Today, Allison V bottoms still hold their own because of the intense experimentation, design work and knowledge of the people that build them.

 

[Tom Foley]

Allison at it's best ..1987 NOA Speed trials , Glenn Reynolds from Reynolds Racing Marine in TN ......2.4 Merc , Allison XR hull . 129 mph .UNREAL PASSES !!!!http://vimeo.com/3569752

not bad but i would like to see him get on the plane before the pass. let alone pull 2 skiers.

but not bad for the 20yo merc

check this out

Boat will plane in 30 ft , these boats are not pigs on takeoff , Allison s are very impressive at the drag races . It's all in the prop and setup .

Thanks for starting this thread Mark , gives others a glimpse into the other side !!