Bob Wonders takes a stroll down memory lane.....

by Bob Wonders on 17 Aug 2007 With offshore powerboat racing’s all new Offshore Superboat Championships shortly to get underway, Bob Wonders takes a stroll down memory lane and recalls some of the sport’s early beginnings.

The dawn, the birth, the beginning, call it what you will, of offshore powerboat racing probably comes down largely to a matter of opinion.

There were offshore events staged in the English Channel as far back as the early days of the 20th century, but with the technology of the time horsepower was in rather short supply.

In fact, powerboat drivers in those early days thought they were really ‘flying’ at 15mph (24km/hr)!

What we refer to these days as the ‘modern era’ of the sport could be termed to have begun in the United States around 1956.

A race car promoter named Sherman ‘Red’ Crise came up with the idea of a powerboat race from Miami to Nassau, a distance of 296 kilometres (184 miles). There was no prize money on offer, just the prospect an open ocean pounding for the 11 boats and crews which entered.

A former World War II, heavily decorated US Air Force war hero, Sam Griffith won the inaugural event, averaging just 31.7 km/hr. Offshore racing made a major contribution to recreational boating shortly after.

The 12.0-metre Americas Cup yacht, ‘Vim, was sailing off Newport, Rhode Island, in 1958. A Miami yacht broker, a crewman aboard ‘Vim’, noticed how well a tender boat was handling the conditions, its speed and sea keeping abilities appearing most impressive. The yacht broker was a man whose name would grow to legendary status, Richard ‘Dick’ Bertram.

Accordingly, Bertram ‘bailed up’ the man responsible for the design of the boat, one C. Raymond Hunt and commissioned the design for a 31-footer (9.44-metres) to contest the 1960 Miami – Nassau race.

I guess no one knew it at the time, but Hunt’s radical design was what we now know worldwide as the ‘deep vee.’

Unlike normal designs of the day, Hunt’s creation was unique in that it was vee shaped for its entire length with fore and aft strakes below a sharper than usual chine.

The genius that was Charles Raymond Hunt changed forever the face of power boating and made speed, stability and precise handling normal expectations.

Dick Bertram took delivery of his new boat, named it ‘Moppie’ (his wife’s nickname) and entered the 1960 Miami – Nassau race.

He was to show the field a clean transom, steering the wooden ‘Moppie’ home in race record time at averaging nearly 30mph (48km/hr).

Conditions were such that more than a third of the fleet was unable to complete the course.

Bertram figured he was on a good thing and made plans to have a plug and mould made to enable ‘Moppie’ to be built in the then ‘new fangled’ material, fibreglass. It was to be the foundation stone upon which the Bertram Yacht empire was to be built.

Offshore powerboat racing continued to flourish in the Miami region (Time magazine in 1966 labelled offshore racing as ‘Madness off Miami.’).

As the respected magazine stated, ‘They aren’t taking volunteers for the Alamo any more and it is getting harder to find cannibals to invite to lunch. So what does a man do when he’s bored and restless (and maybe partly insane) and has $50,000 (make that one million-plus in today’s money) or so to spend? He races powerboats’.

I read once that someone believed Americas Cup yachting competition was akin to standing under the shower tearing $100 notes in half.

For offshore racing, make that standing under the shower tearing up wads of $100 notes while someone beats you about the head and body with a length of two by four!

In 1966 a race was organised over a course to Bimini and return.

Bertram, who was recognised as the 1965 world offshore champion, entered with his diesel-powered ‘Moppie’.

Other boating giants set for the race included Gar Wood Jnr, son of the legendary Gar Wood, remembered as the first man to achieve 100mph (160km/hr) on water and the great Jim Wynne, inventor of the stern drive.

I had the privilege of meeting Jim Wynne in Miami in 1989.

A compact, quietly spoken man with a Van Dyke-style beard, such was Wynne’s modesty that he was quite ‘tickled’ that a fellow from Australia had heard of him.

Sadly, that was to be my first, last and only meeting with the inventive genius who succumbed to cancer shortly after, aged only 60.

The Miami-Bimini-Miami race was a brutal affair; Jim Wynne (who was to win two world offshore championships) drove Thunderbird to victory, but for Bertram the race was a disaster.

‘Moppie’, as Bertram recalled at the time, 'Was blasting along at 50mph in second place when a light warned of water in the bilge. Two minutes later we were swimming,' he added.

One of ‘Moppie’s’ 550hp diesels had come adrift and pounded a hole right through the hull, sending the boat to the bottom in 90 fathoms (540-feet).

Despite losing a $65,000 boat (and nearly his life!), Bertram summed up the attitude of offshore racers – ' If they made it any easier it wouldn’t be ocean racing and I’d quit,' he once said.

Colourful characters took to the sport as offshore racing grew in stature across the US.

There was none more colourful than Don Aronow, a former college wrestling and athletic star who had made a fortune in real estate.

Aronow would begin a career in Miami that would see him firmly cemented as the biggest name in ‘muscle boats.’

It would simply be impossible to refer to offshore racing history without mentioning Donald Joel Aronow, once known as ‘The King of Thunderboat Row.’

‘Thunderboat Row was 188th Street, North Miami and it was here that Aronow bought land in 1961 and became involved with boats.

In 1962 Aronow established the Formula Marine boat company, followed it up with Donzi (his then wife’s pet name for him) Marine and in 1966 Magnum Marine, in company with Elton Cary.

Cary had a boat called ‘The Cigarette’ which Aronow campaigned successfully and in 1970 won the World Offshore crown.

This prompted Aronow to again start a business on yet another block on 188th Street and using his own designs established the Cigarette Racing Team.

When discussing Aronow, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction, legend and myth.

There are so many stories.

One I heard from several sources was that Aronow and his throttleman, ‘Knocky’ House, a former US Navy submariner, hated wearing race helmets.

Aronow noticed that the race rules of the day only stated that helmets must be worn at the start.

There was nothing in the rule book requiring helmets afterwards.

Consequently, as soon as they crossed the start line in an offshore race, Aronow and House (and soon after many other crews) tossed their helmets overboard!

Makes you wonder how many race helmets are sitting on the sandy seabed off Miami?

Another legend or myth related to the pair was after a capsize that injured both and left them in the water.

House was losing blood from a couple of head cuts and these were shark-infested waters at that.

Asked what he did, Aronow replied straight to the point; 'I told Knocky to stop bleeding,' he said.

Forget the myth, the legend, the myriad of tall tales that surround Don Aronow, his boats have won in excess of 350 offshore events and at one time held every speed record in every country at one time.

Aronow has been elected to every powerboat Hall of Fame in existence and along with the immortal Gar Wood is one of the only two Americans to be honoured with the UIM (Unione Internationale Motonautique, the sport’s governing body) Gold Medal of Honour.

I never met Don Aronow (but I managed to visit his office and sit at his desk!); someone beat me to it and it was someone armed with a .45 calibre Government Model pistol who blasted six shots into the King of Thunderboat Row on the very street that w