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Published by Fast On Water Publications 2015
Editors note Here we are, with Christmas only days away and 2016 knocking on the door. I do hope it has been a good year for everyone and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2016. We are always looking for contributions for future issues – memories, photos, specialist interests. So if you feel like putting pen to paper, we look forward to hearing from you.
All articles and photographs are copyright All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission.
Contents Editor Roy Cooper
Contributors Steve Pinson Kevin Desmond Roger Jenkins Roy Cooper
Cover photo from the John Walker Archive
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‘A First Glimpse’ Taken from the 1983 Powerboat Yearbook
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Fall Thunder Regatta, Tavares, Florida
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Heroes of Circuit Racing – Roger Jenkins
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The Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum - Seattle
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The Story of Cougar Marine part 1
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The Tavares Fall Thunder Regatta
The past will come alive as vintage and classic race boats of bygone eras return to Wooton Park in Tavares, Florida for the next annual Tavares Fall Thunder Regatta. Tavares is now a major stop on the CRA Florida Vintage Race Boat Circuit, and this fall's regatta expands to 3 full days, with over 75 beautifully restored vintage and classic race boats running demonstration laps on a 1 mile oval course on beautiful Lake Dora. In addition to seeing and hearing these unique and beautiful boats run, spectators are invited to view them close-up in the pit area at Wooton Park on both Saturday and Sunday.
With the local CRA group providing the support and volunteer base, Tavares is well known for running on a tight, published regatta heat schedule, running vintage heats every half hour for two full days. All the vintage race boats are run at least twice a day. So if you want to see lots of vintage race boats running hot laps, you gotta come to Tavares! We will be running large heats of all vintage classes, including outboards, small hydros, midhydros, large hydros, runabouts, flatbottoms, skiffs, speedsters and magnificent Gold Cup racers. The Invitation/Registration Packets have been mailed to all past Tavares participants and we are posting each registered entry, as received and assigned, to a vintage heat.
And joining the local fleet of vintage race boats during the winter months, when the northern vintage events are in hibernation, the snow birds are increasingly hauling their beautifully restored vintage and classic race boats down to Florida to enjoy the sunny and warm Florida weather and to participate. With the flat water on the small inland Florida lakes, these regattas are attracting large boat counts with well over 75 vintage and classic race boats at the last several events. The crowds are huge and the Pit passes allow entry into the actual race boat area during the noon lunch break for photos and a chance to talk with the drivers and crew. The regatta participants have fun running their beautifully restored vintage race boats at speed on a race course in the warm Florida sun, and the public gets a chance to see, hear and experience the rich history of powerboat racing. The sights and sounds are just magnificent, come join us for our next event - admission is free !!!
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Photos from This year’s Tavares Fall Thunder Regatta
Photos Courtesy of Steve Pinson
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Heroes of Circuit Racing Roger Jenkins ‘The Welsh Wizard’ Roger recently reflected on his time in Formula One Racing. ‘My break into F1 Racing came with the retirement of James Beard. As he was retiring Clive Curtis offered me the drive. We had a Mercury 3 carb V6 on a powerhead that Billy Seebold would not have stirred his coffee with.’ ‘These were factory injection, 6 carb, and the 3carb. To Gary Garbrecht it was fodder. These were just to make the numbers up. But that Season I managed to take 4 second places with the 3 carb engine.’
‘I convinced Jack Leek that I needed my own boat having won 2 World Championships with boats designed and built by David Burgess. That was my next move.’ ‘The first race was Leon in Spain. Renato Molinari turned up in his aluminium boat with no centre section, as it was built into the boat, a great engineering feat. But it didn’t last long and took in a lot of water.’
Amsterdam 1980 Roger at Cardiff 1975
‘With the introduction of OMC s V8, Cees van der Velden offered me a drive, as long as I used his boat. It was OK, but only just OK, slow and not the best at the turn pins.’
‘My Carlsberg No 9 Burgess boat did well and won the race. A fantastic race and off to a flying start. We knew Renato would not be out of the running for long and it took me until the last race of the Season to wrap up enough points to win the Formula World Championship in Italy, Renato’s home ground.’ 6
‘The greatest feeling about racing was to beat the Maestro, and when you realise that I beat him in every class we entered together from SE through every class to Formula One says it all. It’s a pity that nobody taught him to drive in a straight line, then I might never had had my big accident in Minneapolis.’ Roger lining up at Liege, 1983
Roger and Renato, Minneapolis 1983. Photo Glen Edwards
‘I was lucky enough to pick up several excellent sponsors, including Embassy cigarettes, Vladivar Vodka, Gordons Gin, and finally Carlsberg Lager (probably the best lager in the World!!).’ ‘I think that after my final season, there were too many fatalities, and I believe that my sponsors did not want to be associated with death. Hence the safety cells some time later.’ ‘I had a great career, complete with great mechanics, Dean, Terry and Dr Geb as well as a great hospitality team of our girls entertaining the sponsors.’ ‘And I loved every moment of it...’
The following article, by Anna O'Brien is taken from Powerboat 85 Yearbook.He has probably been the centre of controversy since the day he was born (if you can discover the date!). But love him or hate him, no-one can deny that Formula 1 powerboat racing will be a much poorer place without the influence of that mercurial jack-in-thebox from South Wales, Roger Jenkins. The exuberant, effervescent little driver has graced the sport for nineteen years – “nineteen good years” – as he is the first to point out. Nineteen years which culminated in his Formula 1 World Championship in 1982, when he pipped Molinari to the title by a single point. Memories abound. Memories of ‘Jenks’ whooping with glee in the Milan funfair the night after his world championship win; of ‘Jenks in tears of pain and frustration after his Minneapolis accident in 1983; of ‘Jenks’ fists thrust deep into his overall pockets, stomping the pits in sulky silence when his new hull proved disastrous in Lyon at the start of the 1984 season. Now there is a new ‘Jenks’. Retired. With ten years’ furrows removed from his brow and an immaculate set of ten unbitten fingernails – “the first time in twenty 7
years,” he confesses. Retired the Welsh wizard may be. But he has lost none of his pithy perception and outspokenness. Never one to mince words, he gave Powerboat 85 his own inimitable observations on his retirement, the future of Formula One, and his arch rival Renato Molinari. ‘The writing was on the wall for me six weeks before Tom Percival died. It was no secret that my sponsor Carlsberg had become disenchanted with the sport. Another death or serious injury, I was told, and they were out. Then Tom died. I still can't believe it. After his death, personally, I had run out of excuses. I don’t think a driver should have to pay with is life for making one mistake in any sport. In Tom’s case he didn’t even make a mistake. We had reached the situation in Formula One boats that if you made one single mistake there was a 90 percent chance you would be dead. The same thing happened in car racing ten years ago. They corrected it. All we had done in Formula One boat racing was to make the engines bigger and bigger and the boats lighter. No-one had been willing to accept the fact that we had a major problem within the sport and tried to correct it – and that included the drivers.’ ‘I think Formula One racing is in helluva mess at present. For the last 18 months we’ve been running to these modified OMC Formula One rules, then in London we went back to OZ rules allowing the T4s in, allowing fuel injection and methanol, allowing the new twin engine rig. Next year the new OMC engines will be fuel injected and have a new low-line mid
section and re-modified gearbox which means everybody’s equipment will be outdated. And the hulls will also have to be designed to take the safety cell. So now not only are you going to need a six figure budget to go racing but you are going to need a six figure budget to prepare a rig. And who is going to come up with that sort of money for an untried product?’ ‘I have heard rumours that Renato (Molinari) is retiring from the sport to become a team manager next year. Well, he is undoubtedly the best driver of the lot, head and shoulders above the rest. He’s a hard driver, not fair; in fact I would say he is very, very unfair. Uncompromising. I’ve seen him make moves no-one else would get away with. Not that I blame him for what happened in Minneapolis last year. Not at all. If I’d been in that same position I would have done the same thing. He’s always been the one I’ve had to look out for – and I’ve beaten him in Formula Three, Formula Two and Formula One – most satisfying. He’s damn good – but I would never call him a sportsman. People say he has difficulty with the language but I know he can handle that, he’s difficult to interview, there’s no charisma about the man. He’s bland. But you can never underestimate that middle-aged sulky Italian. Those socalled defeats by Barry Woods last season didn’t mean a thing. Renato’s not stupid; far from it. He had seen how dangerous Formula One had become like most other drivers. Once he’d sewn up his world title he just made sure he finished up the season in one piece himself. Never, never, underestimate him. He’s quite simply the 8
best there has ever been; the ultimate professional in a world of good amateurs.’ ‘I don’t regret my decision to retire. Of course, it’s hard to watch a beautiful hull running at full chat and to know you aren’t going to be out there again. But I’m not going to change my mind. I don’t want to die in a boat and I think that is the way a lot of drivers feel. At least I know I retired at the top, still winning Grands Prix. And I must admit if I hadn’t still been winning I would have hung up my jack plug long before now!’
Roger with Bill Ormiston (left) and Tony Williams at the Bristol 25 event, June 2015
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The Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum, Seattle The following is taken from the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum’s website The Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum is the (USA) nation's only public museum dedicated solely to powerboat racing. Formed in 1983, our Mission: is to inspire and motivate learning and achievement while honoring, celebrating and preserving the legacy of Unlimited Hydroplane racing. The museum features an incredible collection of vintage hydroplanes spanning seven decades, including boats that have won 17 Gold Cups.
Cup winner); Slo-mo-shun V (1951 and '54 Gold Cup winner); Hawaii Kai III replica (1958 Gold Cup winner); Miss Thriftway (1961 and '62 Gold Cup winner); the legendary "Green Dragon" Miss Bardahl and the 1967 Miss Budweiser. Most important, these great hulls have been restored by Museum members; people like you who loved the boats and simply could not see them fade away. David D. Williams Executive Director
The Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum is also the nation's primary resource for historical and educational information on hydroplane racing. Our extensive collection of books, magazines, race programs, newspaper, photos, trophies, and other memorabilia dates back to the turn of the last century. We have over 200 hours of rare, vintage racing films transferred to videotape, covering hydroplane racing for the 1940s to the present. The stories of famous drivers are here as well. Legendary Bill Muncey, Ron Musson, Mira Slovak, "Wild" Bill Cantrell and other past drivers are featured, plus information on many of the top modern drivers, including Chip Hanauer. In addition to great archives on the the history of hydroplanes, our museum is also a fully equipped boat restoration shop. Over the years, we have restored seven of the most famous Gold Cup and Harmsworth winners to full running condition. They include the Miss America VIII (1929 and '31 Harmsworth winner); Slo-mo-shun IV (1950, '52, and '53 Gold
They also run the Junior Hydro Program (J-Hydro), which is for children 9 to 16 years of age, where they learn traditional wooden boat building skills while building and rigging their own J-Hydro and race their completed boat in APBA sanctioned events. The Museum created this "kit boat" 11
to make it affordable for children to learn and participate. The boats are built alongside their family members at our Museum facilities. (Photos: Patrick Gleason) The Victory Education Program is a rigorously researched, classroom tested curriculum where museum staff, use the "Magic of Racing" to inspire students to pursue and excel in STEM education. The program is designed to encourage all children, including those from underrepresented groups, to envision themselves as potential engineers and problem solvers. The museum offers both classroom visits and fieldtrips.
McChord’s American Lake on May 8, 2014, zipping around at almost 60 miles per hour in a specially modified hydroplane. ‘It’s incredible that they would do this for us,’ said Wayne Biggs, one of the two amputees who drove the boat. This was a test day for the new project, created at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum to get lower-leg amputees in hydroplane races. ‘It’s proof-of-concept day,’ said Patrick Gleason, a program volunteer and referee for hydroplane races with the APBA. ‘We want the drivers to try it, see if they like it and if it’s something they want to do.’ ‘We did a lot of talking with Dr. Heckman for this program,’ Gleason said. ‘We went through everything with him and got a good understanding of their needs and safety concerns.’
Also part of the museum’s programme is the Summer Camp program where kids can build their own RC Hydroplane and take it home to race on their favourite lake. Their latest project is the ‘Warriors on the Water’ program. The program was created in collaboration with hydroplane racing legend Chip Hanauer, who volunteers at the Puget Sound Veterans Administration and Jeffrey Heckman, a doctor at the VA hospital’s Regional Amputation Centre. Together they came up with the idea and reached out to the museum staff, who brought it to life. Two amputees were in for a day of exhilaration as they skimmed the surface of the water at Joint Base Lewis-
Biggs and Kelly Bailey, the two test drivers, had never seen a hydroplane in person, let alone raced one before the event. Biggs is not a military veteran, but makes prosthetics for veterans at the Puget Sound Veterans Administration. He said he wanted to help pave the way for his patients to get involved in the program. ‘For the amputees that I treat, I’m always looking for things for them to get involved with,’ Biggs said. ‘After they lose a limb, they’re often trying to figure out what’s next. I want to help them do that.’ Most hydroplanes are made to kneel in, but for the program they were loaned a laydown boat from a private owner. They made a few modifications and painted it with the “Warriors” logo. ‘If you like it, you can keep racing with us,’ said David Williams, executive director at the museum, to the amputees before they 12
got into the boat. ‘We want to create a motorsport that’s not adaptive, but that you can race with everyone else.’ Although skimming on water at fast speeds might seem like a difficult skill to master, especially with a prosthetic limb, after some quick instruction the test pilots were soon speeding down the lake with ease. Bailey, an Army ROTC cadet before he lost his leg, went first. He circled around the lake in an oval formation several times. After the rush of controlling such a fast machine, he couldn’t contain a smile as he exited the boat. ‘It was a blast,’ Bailey said to a small crowd standing by and waiting to hear his reaction. ‘It was faster than I expected and a lot of fun.’ He then got right back in the boat and readied himself for another, faster run.
Everyone was ecstatic; the program would be a success and it was something that amputees could do just as well as anyone else. In the future, the program’s volunteers said they hoped to get more wounded warriors involved and competing in local hydroplane races. If you want to see more of what goes on at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum, go to: http://thunderboats.ning.com/
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Polo Shirts - £29.99 (£2.50 p&p) Tee Shirts - £14.99 Childs – £8.99 (£2.00 p&p) Baseball Caps – 14.99 (£2.50 p&p) Enamel Badges - £5.00 (£1.00 p&p) A3 Poster – Renato Molinari, Bristol 1982 - £3.00 (£1.50 p&p) Limited Edition Bristol 25 Programmes £9.99 (£1.50 p&p) 14
Twin Roars from a Single Beast The Beginnings of Powerboat Catamarans The following article was written by Kevin Desmond and published in Multihull International, May 2002. If there is one continuous human thread in the extraordinary saga of Cougar Marine it is a jovial Londoner by the name of Clive D. Curtis. His story should therefore be traced from the beginning. He was born on the 23rd September 1933, the very month and year and that Hubert Scott-Paine, burly chief of the British Powerboat Company, was piloting Miss Britain III up and down the Solent in an attempt to become the first man to do 100 mph offshore. At the age of 9 Clive Curtis joined the sea scouts and fell in love with boats from there on. In 1945, aged only 12, he built a 12ft ‘Sharpy’ sailing dinghy at Bancrofts School in Essex. On leaving school, he planned to become a boat builder. But one day he went down to Burnham to see Priors yard and was horrified to discover that some boat builders still slept underneath benches. Put off, young Curtis joined his father in business in the city of London. He also joined the run the Ranelagh Sailing Club, where he met Robin Beauclair. The latter persuaded him to go into partnership to install cigarette vending machines on the streets. This was in 1954. ‘We sold thousands of pounds worth of cigarettes every week and made a lot of money.’ In 1958 Curtis and Beauclair started a marine business; based on a tiny 10ft dinghy they built in the then comparatively new
material of glass reinforced plastic. Two years later they became agents for the extruded aluminium masts recently developed and manufactured by Ian Proctor. ‘Cliff Norbury and myself had to pour caustic soda down the first mast to lighten it off because it was so heavy.’ That same year, 1960, they formed a retail business, C and B Marine at Hammersmith, selling fishing gear, diving gear, Chandlery and in particular Evinrude outboard engines. In 1961 Curtis started making voyages in outboard engined runabouts with Geoff Tobert. They used a boat known as the Healey Corvette powered by two 40hp Gale outboards – The Baltic Spray. In this boat, they attempted a trip to Sweden by sea, but only made it to a Danish island before being forced back. Edward Elliot, a marine artist, offered to buy Baltic Spray only if Curtis would prove its capabilities to him by making a return crossing to Calais. This they did in the February 1962. When Tobert heard of Curtis’s trip, he at once challenged him to a race from London to Calais that year to establish who the better driver was. Originally it was for a £5.00 bet. But when the publicity potential was realised by other marine traders, each of these put in another £5.00 - and so the summer of 1962 saw the very first London-Calais race, the foundation of Class III offshore power boat racing as it exists today. Curtis won the first two Putney to Calais races and has since won it a total or five times. 15
Back to 1962. C and B Marine took on a new employee, Chris Hodges, a highly skilled plywood boat builder, previously working as a foreman at Jack Holt’s dinghy building yard at Putney on the Thames. Hodges at once caught the powerboat bug, having taken an exhilarating ride from Putney to Westminster in a North American 22 deep vee, which EP Barrus Ltd, UK Johnson concessionaires, had imported and which he had helped to fit out. Soon after, unwilling to pay the high rent at Hammersmith, Curtis decided to close down the C and B marine business. Chris Hodges she got a job as one of the two maintenance carpenters at the royal Albert hall, whilst building marine half models in his spare time. Then he got the chance to build a boat for a man called Clive Poster. To house it, Hodges acquired second-hand, a wartime prefabricated building. Having personally laid down concrete foundations for it, he erected it on the premises awful Newman’s boatyard at Strawberry Vale, Twickenham. Hodges was just about to start building when Poster lost faith and and the project fell through. Clive Curtis took over the premises and turned it into a racing stable that he decided to call Swordfish Marine. This was in 1965. They began by looking after Lady Arran’s boat Badger, a Liverpool cotton broker, cruise Ken Cassir’s Wildcat, and Derek Morris’s Marlin. By this time the racing fraternity had begun to read about a new configuration of the racing powerboat, the catamaran – as built for the circuits by the rival Italian yards or Torrigio and Molinari in Como and unsuccessful offshore cats such as the Pink Panther and Thunderbird both of which had fallen to pieces in offshore stress. At this stage most drivers preferred to remain faithful to the deep vee hulls as designed by Sonny Levi and built by Messrs Merryfield and Melly. Then in
1966 a young man entered Swordfish Marine who would, before the end of the decade, totally changed their play safe attitude. This was a 22 year old Englishman by the name of James Christopher Beard. Privately educated, Beard was now working for his family business; Agricultural Implements Limited. A good cricketer, a fine snow skier, he was also a very determined powerboat driver. He had originally got the bug in the 1950s when he and his elder brother, Mike, adventured with an overpowered home built wood and canvas powerboat down at Rock in Cornwall. More recently the Beard brothers had campaigned in the V bottomed Mongaso with some success. Now James Beard visited Twickenham and commissioned Clive Curtis to put a Johnson GT outboard on the back of his latest offshore powerboat, Volare. This done he went out and won the 1966 North Sea Race at Whitby, then the regent trophy in the Putney-Calais race, whilst Clive took the overall and Goodman trophy in Wildcat. Indeed, when Farm Implements Limited was sold up and the Beard family moved to Guernsey, the brothers used to stay at Curtis’s home in Isleworth whenever they were over. Another race in 1966 in which James Beard proved himself a gritty driver was the Paris 6 hour. Having nose-dived in the Shead designed Pussycat, he took off his helmet, build the boat dry, started the engine and fought back to win his class, only to be disqualified because someone had held his painter whilst he was bailing. Clive Curtis also showed his courage as an offshore driver that year when he drove the low powered Wildcat in the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race and managed to get the little craft across a very 16
rough Lyme Bay in one piece. Wildcat won the championship that year with six outright wins. Come 1967, Robert Glen, then of E P Barrus Ltd, agreed to finance a new boat from Swordfish Marine. Although its basic hull was a Levi deep vee as built by Merryfield and Melly, Hodges fitted it out to Curtis specifications for £50 labour. These included an anti nose diving device, in the form of a fixed and metal fin and perhaps more interesting, air holes on the boats deck leading to holes in the transom to improve the air flow past the boat. Hodges, it should be mentioned, worked on this project in the evenings as he was working at the Royal Albert Hall during the day. They called the boat Hummingbird, and Curtis fitted a 140hp Johnson GT on the back. In 1968 Curtis and Beard co-drove Hummingbird first at Amsterdam and then in Paris when he finished fifth in the ON class, then at Berlin when they won the deep vee race. After this they were invited by Mac McCune on behalf of OMC to go over to the United States that November and compete in the World Outboard Championships at Lake Havasu, Arizona. They raced and Johnson Powered Schulze catamaran as one of an impressive starting field of 120 boats: unheard of in Europe. Clive Curtis nose-dived their boat after two hours; ‘I was leading the single-engined pack. We didn’t know much about cats in those days. As the fuel emptied from the back, the stern became lighter, whilst the front became heavy. This resulted in my going to the bottom of the Colorado River’. ‘Competing alongside us were the Switzer wings, revolutionary catamarans as produced
by the Switzer Aircraft Corporation. I shall never forget one of them, called Diablo, despite the wind and the waves, it ran 121mph down the straight but when it got to the corner it didn’t turn, just carried straight on, careening sideways into the reeds.’ On their return to England, James Beard announced that his lately departed grandmother had left him a sum of money in her will providing it was spent on a boat. Although Curtis would have liked to buy a Vbottomed Avenger 21 and put two twin Johnson engines on it, Beard decided to see whether they could build a catamaran that was an improvement on the Switzer wing, in that it could stay on the water and turn corners. Chris Hodges was consulted as to the best way to make it strong enough not to break up at sea. Almost 22ft long, this offshore catamaran was built by J. Osborne at the Glory Yacht Services. It was finished off and rigged with twin Evinrude X 115 outboards totalling 300hp, at Swordfish Marine. Painted in metallic dark blue, it was called Volare II. Chris Hodges explains. ‘The cats which had been unsuccessfully tried out previously had been built as three bits joined together. Instead, we had built a wing and on to its struts fixed the two sponsons as a single unit. It was pretty simple, the sort of thing you do with model aeroplanes. When Volare II, race number 07, turned up at her first contest, the Swanage 80 on May 18, 1969, everyone laughed. It was too big and too bulbous. It could never be faster than the then highly successful Class III Avenger boats, as designed by Don Shead. It had lower powered engines than anyone else, 17
particularly the favourite, Martin Jensen in his Scavenger. But with Clive and James in the twin cockpits, Volare II surged into the lead, and after two of the three laps, in force 5 conditions, was boat lengths ahead, running like a tram on rails. They beat Scavenger by a mile, averaging 44kts. To add insult to injury, when Volare II was taken out of the water, one of her propellers was missing! In that first race they also found the weakness of their prototype. Both large steps, positioned amidships on each hull bottom, had split, due to the lack of water flow continuity in the bottom planking and the tie up between aft and forward plane. This was rectified for the following race by fitting stainless steel turbulence deflectors under each step. After that, Volare II enjoyed a very successful season and won nearly all she entered, at speeds in excess of 50kts. That year at the Cowes-Torquay race, Clive Curtis acted as navigator to the legendary American millionaire, Don Aronow, chief of the extremely victorious US Cigarette racing stable. “As Volare II went alongside us, he made a few disparaging remarks. Defensively I replied ‘Listen Don, just you wait. One day I’ll take the cigarette stuff of yours and stuff it up your .....’”.
At the end of the year, Messrs Curtis, Beard and Hodges decided that several requests for them to build more catamarans had come in,
they might just as well for a new company. Having considered patriotic name is like Jaguar, Tiger and Panther it was Mike Beard who came up with the name Cougar. Everybody liked it, and Cougar Marine was born. And with a new name, came the search for new and larger premises. As a temporary measure, they rented space originally used by the well established Thorneycroft boatyard on the Platts Eyot, a small island in the Thames, just upstream from Hampton Court. Chris Hodges recalls; ‘We arrived there with my tool box, six G clamps, a Black and Decker sander and electric drill-that’s all’. Ironically the first keel to be laid there was for and an experimental cat, designated the C3A (Circuit three pointer Marque A). Hitherto almost forgotten until this article. The C3A was so light and fast that it had a tendency to take off and land more like a fighter plane than a successful race boat. It was therefore quietly shelved. Not so the three offshore cats; Black Panther, as ordered by Clive and James’ friend, Sean the Earl of Normanton, then engaged two James’ sister. Then there was the Hy-Mac 580 commissioned by Ken Cassir, and finally Badger VI, for Fiona countess of Arran. Each of these boats was to be powered by twin Mercury 1000hp engines. In essence, they looked very much like present day catamarans; Influenced by the improvement in turning ability as achieved by the Italian and U.S. circuit cats. Beard and Hodges gave their three commission’s dead vertical tunnel walls. By the time these three boats had been rigged and painted, Cougar Marine had moved yet again, this time to an old railway coach-building factory at 18
Hounslow. The old railway line still ran into the shop. As it was a three Storey building, Messrs Beard and Hodges so organised it that the aircraft ply, usually bruynzeel, could be cut up on the top floor, brought down to Hodges who would build the boat, which
would then be lowered through a hole and on to the ground floor where Curtis would rig it, before it went out through the front door to customers. The effort paid off. Hy-Mac won six National Class III races that year and, including the Putney-Calais with James as navigator. But yet again, Hy-Mac together with Black Panther and Badger, renamed Alfie, taught Cougar even more about catamarans and the sort of poundings that take place, particularly in the tunnel area where the water became trapped and could not go anywhere but through the boat.
On Black Panther the front sponson started to give out because they had ventilated its frame too much. Then they discovered that the last 6 to 8 feet of the tunnel areas at the back
were hammering through. Twice, a boat finished with great fountains of water coming straight through its tunnel, through its deck and up into the air; luckily not knocking out the main spar. Still in 1970, determined to come up with a circuit cat that would beat Molinari of Como, Cougar now produced probably one of the most revolutionary boats in the history of the sport, at least four years ahead of its time. This was Miss Cougar; she had exaggerated pickleforks, stepped sponsons with stern flaps, anti-strip chines, and even a foot operated hydraulic engine trimming system. However, as James had once told Kevin Desmond, maybe Miss Cougar had too many inventions at once. Her centre of lift proved too far aft for the engine power she had on her stern. This resulted in her suddenly doing a 90 degree turn when the driver was going flat out. A very twitchy boat! So much so that she had rolled over at speed in the 1971 Paris Six hour race, badly injuring her driver, the Earl of Normanton. It was perhaps fortunate for Cougar Marine at this stage in their rise to success that whilst James Beard and Chris Hodges never ceased to come up with revolutionary new ideas, Clive Curtis – some ten years their senior – always acted as anchor man and kept progress on a realistic business footing. It was also crucial that both James and Clive looked at their latest creation with the eyes of the experienced drivers they had become.
To find out what happened next, stay tuned for the next issue....
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A Very Merry Christmas and All the Best for 2016 from all at Fast On Water
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As we near the end of another year and manage to find five minutes to catch our breath, it gives the opportunity to reflect on the past twelve months. There’s no doubt that the Bristol 25 Event was the main highlight, with over two hundred guests spanning a good chunk of circuit racing history. From what has been observed since, I think it triggered many a memory and has created more than a little impetus for some to rekindle involvement in the sport.
with the new owner of the building where the collection is presently housed, who is demanding he be paid for storing the collection, even though there is no contract with this gentleman. It may well be that legal action will need to be taken to recover the collection of 120 outboards but we are still hoping this can be avoided, and the person in question sees some sense. We presently have a limited number of copies of the Bristol 25 Event Programme at £9.99 + £1.50 p&p. If you are interested then please email fastonwater@live.co.uk
As yet, next year’s plans have still to be finalised but as soon as they are, we will let you all know. Our AGM will be in January; at which our aims for 2016 will be finalised. As they say, Watch This Space. Some of you may already know that two of our Trustees, Steve Kerton and Dene Stallard, have decided to dip their toes back into circuit racing water, having set up BRM and with a great roster of drivers for next season. Again, Watch This Space! Fast On Water has now taken on stewardship of An Stradag, the boat in which Lady Arran achieved the electric boat World Speed Record of 50.825 mph in 1989. We have also been offered the collection of outboard engines that used to be at the Basildon Motor Boat Museum. This includes the Bert Savidge Collection, which John Savidge has kindly donated to Fast On Water. Unfortunately there is a dispute
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