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The History of Go-Fast Boats

• By Pete McDonald, Photos by John Linn
• Updated: March 24, 2011

The emerald-green waters of Florida’s Government Cut are calm when the engines of a long, slender boat start to rumble. The sound builds until, suddenly, the stiletto-shaped boat slices through the water, ripping long V-wakes that flatten out slightly as the speed increases fantastically. The boat zips through the Cut, looping north into two-foot swells, running along South Beach and finding its groove.

It’s a “go-fast,” a Sunsation 36 XRT, and it is perfectly in its element. So is Wayne Schaldenbrand, who built it. Nope, his boat is built in Michigan, but it’s here today, cutting through open water against the backdrop of Miami glitz.

This may be where modern offshore powerboats were born, but Schaldenbrand caught his bug for it from his grandfather, who hand-built Chris-Crafts and other mahogany treasures, then powered them with one or two of the biggest engines he could.

“My first speedboat ride was in one of those,” Schaldenbrand says. “It probably went 35 miles per hour.” That’s all he needed to launch him and his brother on a career of building and driving fast boats. He was where the heart of this sport still beats steadily with adrenalin and high-octane fuel.

The performance scene slipped beneath the mainstream boating radar the past few years, as the recession and outrageous fuel prices sent people away. But boats like the Sunsation, Formula’s FasTech 353 and the 50 Cigarette Marauder, which turned heads at the recent Miami International Boat Show, prove that performance boats are back. So too does the announcement from Mercury Racing of a new 1,100 hp engine, on the heels of last year’s 1,350 hp V-8. And that’s a good thing. The performance world has always pushed the envelope for all aspects of powerboating.

Speed Is Sanctioned Most boaters associate the offshore performance world with a clip from the opening credits of the 1980s TV show Miami Vice . Sonny Crockett had a Wellcraft Scarab 38. But the need for speed actually traces back to the turn of the 20th century.

The American Power Boat Association formed in 1903 and held its first race on the Hudson River in 1904. Despite holding the race in New York, the scene then revolved around the Michigan boatbuilders, in close proximity to the auto industry in Detroit. Much advancement came from the mind of the famous wood-boat builder Gar Wood, who pushed his designs to get more horsepower on board.

The offshore scene started, as it did for Wayne Schaldenbrand, in the 1950s, with many racers from hydroplane backgrounds; these endurance races ran for hundreds of miles and laid the groundwork for the future.

Offshore performance boating as we know it today emerged through a confluence of events and people in the mid- to late 1950s. Sam Griffith, who worked with yacht broker Richard Bertram, helped found the race that would define the go-fast genre. He, along with boatbuilder Forest Johnson (the father of the famed boating photographer), developed an offshore race between Miami and Nassau, Bahamas.

Miami-Nassau became the premier offshore race in the United States. For a while, it was the only offshore event. Winning it was akin to winning the Indy 500 — and the desire led Bertram to design a hull that changed boating forever.

The inspiration, it turned out, came from a sailboat race. In 1958, designer Ray Hunt’s 23-foot Aqua Hunter , a fiberglass support boat for the 1958 America’s Cup off Newport, Rhode Island, was making waves. The boat had 24 degrees of transom deadrise and lifting strakes, designed to handle the rough waters of offshore sailboat racing. Bertram asked Hunt to design a 30-foot version. The rest is history.

Legend has it that Bertram didn’t want to enter his wooden prototype, named Moppie after his wife, in the 1960 Miami-Nassau race, but Griffith talked him into it. With Griffith at the helm, they charged out into eight-foot swells and blew away every other boat. The second-place finisher, the other Hunt deep-V, Aqua Hunter , came in two hours behind. Most other boats did not finish. From here on, the deep-V ruled the world, and the racing community spent the next several decades figuring out what to do next from Hunt’s hull design.

Trial and Error “During the 1960s, people tried absolutely everything to see what would work,” says Charlie McCarthy, a racer and boatbuilder who helped found the Historic Offshore Race Boat Association (HORBA). He tells the story of one builder running tests in Government Cut and saying, “This is it,” then pulling the hull and realizing the strakes had fallen off!

It was also around this time that a young real estate magnate from Brooklyn, New York, named Don Aronow moved to Miami and fell in love with offshore racing. Through sheer personality and determination, he became one of the top racers and a boatbuilder whose legacy is still felt today.

Aronow hooked up with two designers who would shape his early signature boats, Jim Wynne and Walt Walters. Wynne is the man responsible for bringing to market the other great innovation of the late 1950s, the stern-drive. Wynne had worked for Carl Kiekhaefer developing outboards with Charlie Strang, who originally pitched the stern-drive to Kiekhaefer, who rejected it. Strang and Wynne further pursued the idea, and when Wynne left the outboard company, he developed the first stern-drive in his garage and sold it to Volvo Penta, which released it in 1959 as the Aquamatic Drive.

Wynne and Walters helped Aronow design boats for his first company, Formula. McCarthy remembers walking into Aronow’s shop in a desolate area, one of only two buildings standing on 188th Street. This stretch would become home to many go-fast builders and be nicknamed “Thunderboat Row.”

Aronow had a 23-foot Formula inside that he had named the Cigarette . McCarthy would learn the name stemmed from a reported rum-running boat that ran in New York during Prohibition. Aronow had Wynne design the boat to compete in the 1963 Miami-Key West Race, one of the many competitions that emerged. Aronow himself would go on to win many races.

Eventually, the standard racing boat became the 24-degree, deep-V hull around 30 feet long, powered by twin gasoline stern-drives and staggered for weight distribution and to place the props closer together. The boats had a three-man crew — the driver, the throttle man and the navigator.

Aronow sold Formula to Thunderbird during this era and started a new company called Donzi. Then he sold Donzi and started Magnum Marine, where he teamed with designer Harry Schoell. To insiders, Magnums were game-changers.

“The defining boat,” says Allan Brown, a veteran racer, “was the 28 Magnum designed by Harry Schoell.” Aronow cut it down and sold it as the 27 Magnum, but to “Brownie” and others, the hull lived on through hundreds of copies.

By 1969, Aronow had sold off Magnum Marine and started racing a 32-foot Cary he also named the Cigarette . Aronow raced that boat to the 1969 World Championship and promptly retired from racing to start what became the defining brand of the go-fast world. You can guess the name.

Bad Boys Were Good Business Miami Vice lives on beyond its time. Its portrayal of go-fast boats brought a new image to the scene. Like with Harley-Davidson motorcycles, enthusiasts flocked to brands like Cigarette and Scarab for the outlaw image. Doctors, lawyers and businessmen could get behind the wheel of a go-fast boat and feel like a bad boy.

Charlie McCarthy calls the decade of the 1970s the “golden era” of offshore performance boats. “Anyone could buy a boat off the street and be competitive,” he says. “If you were able to grit your teeth and hang on, you could win.”

Thunderboat Row became the epicenter of the race scene. Bertram was still heavily involved in racing and producing boats, and builders such as Formula, Donzi, Magnum, Apache, Cigarette, Tempest and, later, Cougar were going strong.

Innovations from the racing side began to spill into recreational boatbuilding, as pleasure-boat builders learned more and more. Pleasure boaters took to the idea of going fast, and performance boats gained traction in the public eye. In the 1980s, they’d gain notoriety for different reasons, though.

The trouble was, the outlaw image was real. Mainstream sponsors started abandoning the offshore race world, scared off by its drug-money affiliations. The world of performance boats also took a major hit when Don Aronow was murdered. It remained unsolved for a long time, spurring rumors of a mob hit or that Aronow was a victim of the Miami drug wars.

The deep-V racing scene took another hit at the hands of fast catamarans. “They just destroyed racing for a while,” says Allan Brown, because they won every race.

The cats could go significantly faster than the V-hulls in calm water. With their appearance, and with sponsorship opportunities dwindling, offshore racing went from a unified group under the APBA to several splinter organizations.

Go-fasts continued to have a strong recreational following, but the era of the classic offshore deep-V race seemed past.

Gambling on Poker Runs Nothing could be further from the truth, though. Builders like Fountain, Formula, Baja and Donzi kept performance racing alive while bringing the recreational end to new heights in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Poker runs replaced racing as the focal point of the scene and represented a sea change in performance boating from the early years. While some old racers decry this development, poker runs may save the go-fast boat.

Most races field about 20 to 25 entrants; a major poker run will get 150 to 200 boats. Participants run — not race — to five different checkpoints and draw a playing card at each one. The person with the best hand at the end wins. “It’s the same type of thrill,” Lipschutz says, “but nobody argues over who wins.”

In the old days, you had to rebuild everything after every race, and a typical recreational performance stern-drive lasted 20 or 30 hours before breaking down. But today’s engines hold up, and the boats are built with lighter cored construction.

Indeed, Cigarette, Formula, Sunsation, Outer Limits and others all survived the recession. Baja, Donzi and Fountain have been resurrected under American Marine Holdings. and Reggie Fountain started a new company, RF Boats (which stands for “real fast,” not Reggie Fountain). Building is a different game. Of production go-fasts, Sunsation’s Schaldenbrand says, “Those days are about 80 percent gone.”

Schaldenbrand estimates he will build 12 36 XRTs this year. Overall, his company will build about 45 boats, down from around 80 in the early 2000s.

With or without poker runs, performance boats will always be around. Someone is going to get behind the wheel of a boat and make it run as fast as possible. As Schaldenbrand explains, “I was born with it. It’s in my blood somehow.”

Or, as Reggie Fountain once said, “It takes a lot of money to win offshore races, but as long as there’s somebody out there racing, I’m going to be out there kicking their asses.”

Game-Changing Design The biggest change in fast, deep-V hulls in the past 20 years has been the popularization of stepped hulls. Steps date back to the early days of powerboats in the 1900s, but they didn’t start to gain mainstream acceptance until builders like Reggie Fountain popularized them in the 1990s.

Phil Lipschutz, a cigarette dealer in Miami and a veteran racer, explains the allure of stepped hulls: “You can’t go if your propellers are in the air. With twin steps, a boat will lie in the water and hook up so much better. It’s faster and easier on the engines.”

Stepped-hull boats go 10 mph faster than a conventional V-hull with the same power, and they ride level. Early designs with large 21/2 -inch steps proved unpredictable and could catch and spin bow to stern. But most builders have honed the steps down to 11/4 inches, getting the same performance results with more stability.

The twin-stepped hull is now the dominant form in modern performance boats, such as the Sunsation 36 XRT. “We siphoned everything we could from high-end catamarans and aviation,” Wayne Schaldenbrand says. With twin 525s, the 36 XRT hits around 95.5 mph.

Carl Kiekhaefer & Mercury Racing One of the great ironies in boating is that Carl Kiekhaefer, the man who dismissed the idea of a stern-drive in the 1950s, became one of its biggest proponents in the 1970s. Kiekhaefer is famous for his revolutionary Mercury outboards, always pushing them to go faster at his mysterious testing center in Florida known as Lake X.

Kiekhaefer sold his outboard business to Brunswick in the 1960s and left the company in 1969. In the early 1970s, he went on to form Kiekhaefer Aeromarine Motors, which specialized in marine racing sterndrives. He applied the same demand for excellence there.

“One of the key guys he had was a kid named Richie Powers,” recalls Charlie McCarthy of the Historic Offshore Race Boat Association. “They’d go through engine after engine, blowing them out and tweaking them until they got 625 hp out of a 496 block.” When they finally got it, Powers asked Kiekhaefer, “Can I go home now? It’s Christmas.”

When Carl passed away, his son Fred took on the company and eventually sold it to Brunswick, which renamed it Mercury Racing. Fred Kiekhaefer is still very much involved as president of Mercury Marine.

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• Author: Bob Ottum

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ORIGINAL LAYOUT

The wind was in full cry and the seas were stacked overhead, angry waves with white claws curling down from their tops. Her Scarab had been thrashing along for some 95 miles when suddenly, after leaping off the top of one wave, the boat drilled the next one. Inside the wave there was a flash impression of a perfectly quiet green world. But the impact had slammed the driver's head back against the hatch and now, upon coming out the other side, her head was whipped forward into the wheel. A few moments later the inside of the face mask of her crash helmet was being coated with a strange red fog—she was exhaling blood from several cuts inside her mouth. She tried to hold her head still, but it started nodding uncontrollably from exhaustion, as if she were greeting each wave. Despair was closing in; winning the race would be nice, she figured, but getting the hell out of all this would be better. And it was at that moment, from high atop another crest, that the last check boat and the harbor came into view.

That kind of adventure is called offshore powerboat racing, and this episode occurred off Key West on a particularly lousy November day in 1977. The racing nuts who were standing on the dock that day, waiting for the boats to come home, swear that there were whitecaps inside their glasses of gin and tonic and that the beer was sloshing back and forth in the big paper cups. They say this with great glee. The nastier the weather and sea, the more offshore fans love it. And so, as the 38-foot Kaama came bubbling up to the dock, they toasted a woman who was still too wobbly to climb out of the cockpit. They watched her tug off her crash helmet and nodded approvingly at her swollen mouth.

"Where is everybody?" Betty Cook asked.

Good question. Race officials yelled to Cook that she was the first one in; the other boats were still out there in the murk. They also noted that she was now the new open-class world champion, having averaged a surprising 54.9 mph going over, under and through that wild sea. In fact, the next boat didn't finish for another 21 minutes, and after that only three more of the nine starters in the top class came in, seven of 19 in the entire fleet. This was considered a near-perfect climax to a miserably perfect day. At the cocktail party that evening, the racers turned out in bandage and sling—the formal wear of this sport—hugging each other and hollering and whooping while their bruises deepened into rich purples. Betty Cook included.

Looking back on it now, a little over two and a half years later, one can see that it was the being included that was important. Not that Betty Cook had suddenly become just one of the guys—she is far too crafty and feminine for that—but winning that 1977 race was a graduation day of sorts. It established her as a force in the sport; none of this sweet-little-old-me-against-great-big-you stuff, but someone to be reckoned with as an equal on a hull-to-hull basis. Offshore powerboat racing hasn't been the same since.

After all, here was a sport that relished its pure-guts, masculine image, an activity populated by boats carrying gritty names like Thunderball and Villain and Intimidator and Bounty Hunter. And what was this? Kaama? A boat named after an African antelope? As if that wasn't bad enough, apparently a lady African antelope. The boat's fore-deck featured a stylized creature with long, graceful neck, nicely curled horns and, well, eyelashes. And beneath that a red heart, you guys. The racers could only nod mutely when Cook explained that she had picked the name from The New York Times crossword puzzle and that she had picked the logo simply because she liked it. Any more questions, fellas?

A necklace encrusted with diamonds in the shape of an anchor now commemorates that 1977 victory; Cook wears it constantly, along with a small gold pendant spelling out Kaama and another gold chain punctuated here and there with more diamonds. An oval diamond ring on one finger could be used as a sea anchor in an emergency. With every little move Cook sends sharp beams of light into the dark corners of rooms. All of this is combined in the best possible throwaway manner with over-the-counter blouses and faded blue jeans and beat-up boat shoes.

Yet nothing is overdone. In fact. Cook's attire is conservative. Offshore racing is an exotic sport full of folks who are restlessly brave and wealthy and like to prove it to each other. The men tend to talk in capital letters and bold italics, and most of them wear more jewelry than Cook. If dropped over the side without a life jacket, many racers would sink without a bubble.

"Well, it is an exuberant sport," Cook says. "Ocean powerboat racers seem to vibrate with life. They operate in a dangerous element, and they come back full of a special verve. You can't merely shake hands with a boat racer; they're touchers. They grab and hug. It's strange; we've found that we can't stage a typical sit-down awards banquet with these people. They won't sit down, and they can't sit still. They're constantly up, pounding on each other and shouting. A speaker has a hard time being heard over the din."

These conversations, carried on at full voice across crowded rooms, contain also a biting camaraderie:

"Hey, Don. I saw you racin' today, and I think I've spotted yer problem."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"You don't understand that the pointy end goes in front!" Har, har, har.

Through all of this, Cook is the quiet one. When she is suited up in her emotional armor, which is most of the time, there is no telling what's going on behind those ash-blonde bangs and ingenuous smile. In the bluish, smoky haze of cocktail parties, glimpsed in a roomful of men in racing jackets, she looks remarkably like June Allyson. No, not the June Allyson of 1948, of Words and Music, but June Allyson now. They are both in their late 50s—Cook is 58, Allyson 56. They are also of a size. Cook is 5'4" and weighs 115 pounds. She glows with a tan that might be called California burnish. Men find her irresistible. They sweep her off her feet in giant hugs, holding her up perhaps longer than is necessary. She gets a great deal of big-brotherly smooches which she deflects with just the slightest move of her head so that the incoming kiss usually lands on an eyebrow. In a group she nods animatedly, vodka-orange in one hand and cigarette in the other, and talks Offshore Racing, which is a foreign language, like Urdu. But she is always in control.

Cook has won four titles: world champion in 1977 and 1979, U.S. champion in 1978 and '79. After six races so far this season, she is third in the U.S. standings, having been a close second until the Benihana Grand Prix, in which her boat started coming apart off New Jersey. She also runs three interlocking businesses devoted to going fast over water, and she campaigns two boats—no waiting. Both are open-class monsters under the rather loose definitions of the American Powerboat Association. They are powered by engines that were born into this world as stock MerCruisers but come out of Cook's engineering shop near Newport Beach, Calif. so full of added muscle that they are fearful to behold. Each engine resembles the Wurlitzer pipe organ at Radio City Music Hall and is said to be worth about $25,000—but exact costs are hidden under Research and Development. One boat is a 38-foot Scarab with a deep-V hull and the other is a 38-foot Cougar catamaran whose twin 482-cu.-in. engines spit out more than 700 hp each.

The catamaran is capable of 100-plus mph in just the right water—thrashing upwind in a moderate chop, its tunnel hull riding on a cushion of air—but the precise top speed is a trade secret, and Cook goes glassy-eyed whenever the subject is mentioned. "Well," she says, "once you get over 80 miles an hour on water, it's all fast. In fact, it's awesome." But for the record, in the first race of this season, on Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain, Cook's catamaran whooped away from the fleet at 90 mph and won over a 206.8-mile course at an average speed of 86.8 mph, a U.S. record.

Cook's crew consists of fellow-Californians John Connor, 35, who handles the throttles, and navigator Bill Vogel Jr., 24, a Mammoth Mountain ski patrolman in winter. They race in tense, perfect harmony, giving hand signals and barking brief alerts over their helmet intercoms. "There's no extra chatter," Cook says. "It would be too confusing at that speed. To correct our course, Bill might say, 'Port, port, good.' That's all. If there's something in the water ahead, he'll simply say, 'Junk.' And whoever spots the next checkpoint will yell, 'I got it!' and point it out. That's it."

Well, that's more or less it. All three jobs call for a delicate touch under impossible conditions, but handling the boat may be the toughest of all. Veteran ocean racers are agreed that there is a ton of difference between steering a boat and driving it; one false move at the wheel will turn the world upside down. "Ideally, when you take off from the top of a wave you want to land keel first," Cook says dryly. "No corrections in midair, please. You have to dig the boat out of certain swells and guide it back up on plane. Let's put it this way: the idea is to keep the boat from hurting itself."

And all of this is happening to a slight woman whose mother wouldn't let her have a bicycle until she was 16 years old because it was too dangerous. As a child in Glens Falls, N.Y., Betty, then Betty Young, started ballet lessons at five, which delighted Mom, and lived a secret childhood as a shortstop on the sandlot baseball team—which really delighted dad. This double existence involved going to great lengths to hide her cuts and scrapes, "which would have made my mother frantic with worry; she was like that." But the combination of activities produced a special resilience that Cook still has today, deceptively so, because she looks so dainty. Early on racing mornings nowadays, at a gray hour when some drivers are still wondering if perhaps the Seagram Building had fallen on them the night before, Cook is up and exercising. She combines lithe, catlike ballet movements with the more familiar stuff, push-ups and sit-ups, with the intensity of someone who is about to go out and fight Roberto Duran for the title. Yet when she appears at dockside, tiny and shapely inside a bright orange jumpsuit and trailing the faint and elusive smell of an excellent perfume, there is no hint of iron in her manner. No wonder her competitors can't figure her out.

Tough Bernie Little, a racing commissioner, owner of the two Michelob Light boats and one of Cook's fiercest opponents, is full of admiration. "Listen," he says. "I've flown over Kaama in rough water you wouldn't take a battleship out in. And I've seen her boat bounced so hard that she hit the floor. No, I don't mean the deck; I mean driven right down into the floor, like some giant pile driver had whopped her atop of the head. And she pops right back up and goes on driving. I mean, you gotta hand it to that little lady."

Still, there was a time when none of this had seemed remotely possible for that little lady. After her childhood in upstate New York, life was routine for years before it became dangerously glamorous. It was a pretty typical success story; as a screenplay, Hollywood would have turned it down for lack of thrills. Betty Young earned a bachelor's degree in political science at Boston U., then moved on to further studies at M.I.T., where she met and married fellow-student Paul Cook. "I got the usual PHT degree," she says. "That is, Putting Hubby Through college by taking a job at M.I.T.'s nuclear science lab." After that, in rough sequence, the Cooks adopted two sons, Eugene, now 36, and Gavin, now 25, and somewhere in the routine of PTA and mowing lawns and baking brownies and moving to California (where Paul got into chemicals, as they say), the Cooks became wealthy. More correctly, hugely, enormously wealthy. And then came the day that was to change Betty Cook's life.

When she talks about it now, speaking fast in her husky, slightly smoky voice, she draws pictures in the air with her hands. "It was on a May morning in 1974," she says. "Paul had been racing boats as a hobby. We used our yacht as a check boat; my role was to act as hostess and serve drinks and sandwiches.

"But then Don Pruitt, an ex-racer and manager of the Kudu team, convinced me that I should try racing. We used one of our raceboats, a 30-foot Bertram named Mongoose. And Pruitt kept telling me how very easy it was: 'Here are the ignition keys. Got that?'

'Keys. Right. Got it.'

'And here are the throttles.'

'Right. Throttles. What are these other switches?'

'Never mind the other switches.' "

She eased the Mongoose out of a 50-foot-wide slip (Cook says, "Like this"), and somehow managed to bounce the boat off both sides. And then Pruitt gave her the three most important secrets of all powerboat racing: "One: never turn on the top of a wave. Two: never let go of the throttles. Three: always run in green water; that is, stay the hell away from the wakes of other boats."

Three days later, with husband Paul riding shotgun, Cook won her rookie race, a dash from Long Beach to the Newport Beach buoy and back, total distance 60 miles. She averaged 40 mph "in a boat that was capable of 80," she says. She also won four trophies: first in class, second rookie, first woman, plus one for having the cleanest socks among the drivers—boat racers like zany categories.

Cook's life has indeed changed. Everything is more intense now. The speeds, the rewards—and the risks—have all gone up. For better or worse, she is now playing a high-stakes game with the big people. Figure more than a quarter-million dollars to buy and campaign an offshore boat for one season. Figure on blowing up a lot of equipment en route to the title. As one mechanic says, "Seems every time you turn around you've got to open a new can of engines." No wonder the laughter of offshore racers sometimes seems tinged with hysteria. Racing is a matter of seize the moment and shake it with all your might. What comes out of it, as in auto racing, is a gradual improvement of the breed.

Cook's three interlocked companies are converting the lessons of racing into improved hull designs, engines and drive systems for non-millionaire boaters. In Florida, Wellcraft is producing what amounts to Betty Cook signature-model Scarabs, complete with MerCruiser-Cook engines, including the antelope emblem, eyelashes and all, if the customer wants. Inside the shop at Newport Beach is a secret test boat with a single diesel engine and an even more secret two-speed transmission that promises mysterious, unnamed advantages over conventional transmissions. A couple of governments, ours included, are interested in the boat for coast-patrol use. "The first one to come up with a really high-performance diesel boat wins this game," Cook says, "and we have the finest, most inventive minds in nautical technology working at Kaama Engineering. Offshore racing is the ultimate shake-table test."

And so Cook races on. She has made the transition from housewife and check-boat hostess gracefully, as befits a former ballet student. Behind her animated exterior and beneath the ash-blonde bangs she even manages to mask her irritation at being constantly referred to as a racing grandma. It is indeed true that her son Eugene has three children—it happens in the best of families—but well-meaning or otherwise, it seems that nobody in the press can bear to pass up this bit of biological trivia that has absolutely nothing to do with her racing. It strikes even on historic moments: on Aug. 29, 1978, Cook and crew raced the Scarab Kaama over the 230 miles from Cowes to Torquay and back, off the coast of England, slamming along at a course-record 77.42-mph average, and the London Daily Express headlined its story: U.S. GRANNIE POWERS WAY TO WIN RACE.

"One cannot help but notice the irony in this," she says wryly. "Many of the men I race against are grandfathers, in fact. But when have you ever heard about 'Racing Grandpa Wins Race'? Ah, well."

Besides, at full blast there is no hint of any grandmotherliness in Cook; she has been shaken loopy-legged in several races and once was knocked unconscious for three minutes; Connor eased up slightly on the throttles and Vogel kept an eye on the course until she finally shook her head groggily and gave them the thumbs up. Another time, Kaama executed a memorable entrechat, and the landing jammed Cook's elbow into her ribs. Snap, snap. "I tried gesturing and shouting to John to tell him my ribs were broken," she says, "but in those heavy seas, he didn't catch it. So we went slamming on. Then we blew an engine and stopped. The pain was terrible. I kept sinking out of sight, sort of slithering down through the bolsters that wedge me into the cockpit. Finally a Coast Guard cutter picked me up off the Kaama, and someone propped me half upright on a pile of life jackets. I kept wafting gently in and out of consciousness." (Cook paints all of this in the air with both hands; if offshore racing ever fails, she could become a heck of a mime.)

Cook figured that an ice pack might ease the agony—but there wasn't any such thing on the cutter. "So someone pulled a big slab of frozen bacon out of the ship's freezer," she says. "I took it and hugged it tightly against me like a teddy bear." Not long after that she was whisked away to a hospital by helicopter—regretfully leaving the bacon behind—and that same evening, walking gingerly and fending off all huggers, she showed up at the awards banquet in an off-the-shoulder evening gown to congratulate the winners.

That sort of steely dedication, plus the technical advances she has brought to the sport, have accorded Cook full acceptance and affection in what was once a man's preserve. Before that 1977 Key West race in which she won the world title, a throttleman named Jack Stuteville had looked out at the surging ocean and growled, "It'll get down to who has the most hair on his chest." And Joey Ippolito, 29, of Michelob Light, once told Motorboat magazine, "What am I supposed to do? Beat up on her because she won?" But a few weeks ago Ippolito said, "She's all precision; she's smart enough to keep her equipment living. You've got to figure on her finishing what she starts."

Cook takes it all in what might be called dainty stride ("After all, I don't have a male ego to feed"), never accepting full credit and always thoughtfully stressing the teamwork involved in winning. She and her husband have lived apart for the past five years, though it is a benign separation, with each one proud of the other's accomplishments. Cook lives alone in an expensive house on an expensive private island in Newport Harbor, concentrating fully on the jobs at hand: running the three businesses, supervising the technology that may one day change boating—and racing. "It's still a world of wonders for me," she says in her marvelous, throaty voice. She grows more animated, sketching in the air again. "Whenever we win a race I still jump up and down in the cockpit. I say, 'Gee! Did I do that?' "

Listening, watching the pictures take shape in the air, one realizes that there is no Pollyanna or Little Orphan Annie in Betty Cook—there is nothing artificial about her sense of wonder. She sure enough did do all that.

At her Newport Beach engineering shop Cook smiles demurely amid thousands of horsepower.

Cook steers her 38' catamaran from the port side, while navigator Vogel sits behind her and throttleman Connor controls the engines from the starboard hull.

Cook trots out her monohull when the water gets rough.

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March, 2018

For many senior boaters, packing it in and retiring on a boat for a few years has a lot of appeal. Fortunately, there are hundreds of older powerboats that possess the attributes boaters look for in a good liveaboard. It’s all about size and living space, that much is obvious, but after that comes storage space—the more the better. A large galley is important, and in boats over 40 feet it would be useful to look for a model with a built-in dinette. For those looking a something in the 50-foot range, a washer/dryer is a tremendous asset in a liveaboard boat. Further down the wish list are features like a master stateroom tub, galley freezer, good engine access, and lots of outdoor space for entertaining.

With so many great older models to choose from, here are eight  popular (and reasonably affordable) motoryacht choices that aspiring liveaboards might consider.

At a Glance: Last of the so-called “small” Hatteras motor yachts — great styling and a roomy layout made 40 DC a top-selling model. For the first few years of production the galley-down teak interior featured an L-shaped sofa to port in the salon with a serving counter to starboard overlooking the galley. The aft master stateroom includes a centerline queen bed, hanging locker, and en-suite head with shower. The interior was redesigned in 1990 with a salon dinette and wet bar, more open galley area, and enlarged bow stateroom with three bunks. Additional updates in 1990 included a new flybridge layout with a swept-back windscreen and forward helm station, and a full-height entry door to the salon. Also in the newer floorplan is space for a washer/dryer. A lower helm station was optional. No lightweight, standard gas engines cruise at just 13–14 knots. Optional Cat 425hp diesels cruise 18–20 knots. Over 125 of these yachts were built.

Price Range: From $50–60K to the low $100s.

Hatteras 56 Motor Yacht

Hatteras 40 Double Cabin

At a Glance: A classic twin-deck Hatteras motor yacht — the definition of 1980s yachting luxury. The galley and dinette are down in the Hatteras 56 resulting in an expansive main deck area with the salon completely open to the wheelhouse. There are three staterooms and three heads on the lower level including a full-beam master with walkaround queen berth (or twin berths in early models) and en-suite head with tub/shower. The amidships VIP stateroom has twin berths, and the second guest stateroom (or crew quarters) is forward with over/under berths and private head access. Split walk-in engine rooms flank the corridor leading aft to the master stateroom, and a washer/dryer is located at the base of the companionway steps. Double doors open from the spacious salon to the semi-enclosed aft deck with hardtop and enclosure panels. No lightweight,  cruise at 14–16 knots with Detroit 735hp diesels.

Price Range: From the low $200s to low/mid $300s.

At a Glance: A modified version of the classic Hatteras 53 Motor Yacht with an enormous full-beam salon.  A partition separates the wheelhouse from the salon, and centerline teak doors open to a small aft deck area. The mid-level galley—three steps down from the deckhouse level—features large counter spaces, abundant storage, and a booth-style dinette for four. Forward is a guest stateroom (or crew cabin) with over/under bunks and private head/shower. Aft of the split engine rooms, to port, is the guest stateroom with twin berths. A full head with stall shower is opposite. Further aft, the full-beam master stateroom has a walkaround queen berth, dressing table, and en-suite head with shower. The flybridge is greatly enlarged from that of her predecessor with an updated helm and additional lounge seating. Detroit 465hp 6V92TA diesels—or 450hp 8V71TI engines—cruise at 15–16 knots.

Silverton 402-422 Motor Yacht

Hatteras 53 Extended Deckhouse

At a Glance: Popular entry-level cruiser with the features and amenities of more expensive boats. Her two-stateroom cherry interior is a model of efficiency with a roomy main salon, two double staterooms, two full heads, booth dinette, and full-service galley. A serving counter overlooks the galley from the salon, and big wraparound salon windows provide panoramic views of the water. A convertible L-shaped sofa is to starboard in the salon and an entertainment center is to port. Down and aft three steps, the master stateroom features a centerline double berth and en-suite head with stall shower and mirrored vanity. The aft deck, with its standard hardtop, wing doors, and wet bar with refrigerator, is perfect for entertaining several guests. Molded steps from the transom make boarding easy. Most were sold with big-block gas engines for a cruising speed of 14–16 knots (about 20 knots top).

Price Range: From $75K to the mid/high $100s.

Carver 4207

At a Glance: One of the best selling motoryachts in her class throughout the late 1980s. Roomy two-stateroom interior of the 4207 delivers the comfort and amenities often associated with a larger boat. Two floorplans were offered, one with a U-shaped dinette opposite the galley, and the other with no dinette but an expanded head and a much-enlarged forward stateroom with island berth. The spacious, teak-trimmed salon features an entertainment center, wet bar, L-shaped sleeper-sofa, and salon chair. A full-service galley offers a combination microwave/convection oven and double-door refrigerator.  A lower helm was not available. The wide side decks are a plus. While diesels are generally preferred in a boat this size, the majority of 4207 Aft Cabins were delivered with standard 350hp gas engines (13–14 knots cruise/22 knots top). Cat 375hp diesels were optional (20 knots cruise/mid 20s top).

Price Range: From $50–60K to just under $100K.

At a Glance: The top-selling cockpit yacht in this class for several years. Basically a Carver 396 Aft Cabin with a good-sized cockpit. The 444’s huge full-beam interior — made possible by raising the side decks to eye level — comes as a surprise. With its panoramic views and nearly seven feet of headroom, the salon’s dimensions are those of a much larger boat. To save space, the forward head is split with the shower stall to port and toilet compartment to starboard. A sliding glass door in the (smallish) master stateroom opens directly into the cockpit. In 2004, an optional "Extended Salon" floorplan with a full-size dinette, enlarged galley and redesigned VIP stateroom became available. Topside, the helm is forward on the spacious flybridge with lounge seating and wet bar aft.Twin Volvo 370hp engines cruise at 18–19 knots. Carver sold a ton of these versatile boats.

Price Range: From the mid $100s to low/mid $200s.

Carver 500/504 Cockpit MY

At a Glance: A super-popular model for Carver, basically a condo on the water. This is a c ockpit version of the Carver 455/456 Aft Cabin model produced during the same years. Spacious two stateroom maple interior has a folding bulkhead in the forward VIP stateroom that conceals a small guest cabin/den to port with convertible bunks. (This feature was eliminated in 1999 when the interior was redesigned and the name changed to Carver 504.) The large U-shaped galley is aft in the salon rather than forward as it is in most motoryacht floorplans. In the master stateroom, the walkaround queen bed faces aft to permit the installation of cockpit access door. Washer/dryer is in forward stateroom. The huge interior is the result of moving the deckhouse well forward in the hull (note the relatively short foredeck). Twin 450hp Cummins diesels cruise at 18 knots.

Price Range: From about $150K to mid/high $200s.

Carver 444 Cockpit MY

Sea Ray 550 Sedan Bridge

At a Glance: Stylish 1990’s cruising yacht with three stateroom interior and extra-large cockpit. The salon is impressive, a wide-open (carpeted) living area with cut-down galley, long leather sofa, entertainment center and big wraparound cabin windows. The forward master stateroom is huge with an island queen bed, two hanging lockers, vanity, and private en-suite head. Roomy guest stateroom has a full-size berth, and the second guest cabin has over/under bunks. Both heads have stall showers, but guest head is tight. Lower helm was optional. Center transom door is flanked by built-in bench seats in the cockpit. In 1996, the flybridge ladder was replaced with molded steps and the helm was relocated aft. The 550’s drooping bow is distinctive enough, but the possibility of stuffing the bow in rough seas might be a concern. Detroit 625hp 6V-92 diesels cruise at 22–23 knots.

Price Range: From $125–150K to the mid $200s.

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Offshore Racing Legend Bobby Moore Passes Away at 80

Offshore racing legend Bobby Moore —the man who virtually invented the job of throttleman—has passed away at age 80.

Moore’s health had been declining in recent years. He had recently been hospitalized, but was moved back to his home in North Carolina on April 22. He died at home this morning at around 7:40 a.m.

Until the late 1990s, Moore was the most winning throttleman in offshore powerboat racing history. His titles were earned at the helm of many different hulls, with a wide variety of drivers, and all over the globe.

Moore earned his reputation as the sport’s deadliest hired gun, winning 12 National and World Championships. His titles were earned behind the throttles of ten different boats, sitting next to ten different drivers.

He was the chief mechanic for Dick Bertram (Bertram Yacht Company) in 1964, and won some races before being recruited by Holman-Moody (of the big, bad Ford 427 fame). A year later, he was riding alongside Don Aronow and maintaining his race boats.

Moore’s first racing title came in 1970, alongside Bill Wishnick . He wrapped three more titles around a stint in the Vietnam War (his duty call was, of course, powerboat operation and maintenance) before retiring from racing in 1978. He set racing aside for 10 years to build up Bobby Moore Custom Marine in North Miami Beach, then staged an astounding comeback, winning eight more titles in ten years.

Among the boats he raced during this comeback:

• Eric’s Reality , a 48′ Cougar cat owned and driven by Charlie Marks. Their average speed of 97.12 helped them clinch numerous APBA races in Fort Meyers, FL, Grand Haven, MI, and Traverse City, MI, in 1989.

• Spirit of Amazon , a 48′ Cougar cat owned and driven by Eike Batista. The pair took the boat to victory in 1991 at OPT Offshore races in Chicago, IL, and Cocoa Beach, FL.

• Katana , a 46′ Skater driven by Kimitoshi Hosotani. The team won the 1994 Offshore World Championships in Key West, FL, in Open Class.

Moore’s son Billy has carried on his father’s legacy, throttling the 42′ MTI Team Qatar with driver Ali Al-Neama during the 2013 Super Boat world championships, as well as PersuCat Racing , a 44′ MTI driven by Paul Boudreaux in OSS 750 Class. In 2018, he throttled the 44′ Victory CT Marine with owner/driver Andy Strobert, and last year teamed up with Canadian Chris Grant to throttle the 42′ MTI CJ Grant/Graydel in Super Cat class for both the OPA and Race World Offshore circuits.

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Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's??

• Thread starter LegacyT
• Start date Sep 29, 2011

Petty Officer 1st Class

• Sep 29, 2011

Supreme Mariner

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? if we are talking 17-22 footers..... the bayliners owned the styling area....they changed the look of boats for the next decade  

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? Bayliner Arriva  

oops! said: if we are talking 17-22 footers..... the bayliners owned the styling area....they changed the look of boats for the next decade Click to expand...

Senior Chief Petty Officer

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? I sure like the looks of my Bayliner ARRIVA Great boat..  

bruceb58 said: Style without function. On my 87 Bayliner Capri, you basically could never look out of that steeply slanted windshield because of all the glare. Click to expand...

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? Hmmmmm, Bayliners seem to be on top so far. I had a 21ft 1987, and a 19ft 1984, both were good looking boats, with large open bow seating. I liked them both.  

1980Coronado

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? Kinda partial to the Century's all of em......I'm old school...don't like all the Starwars gauges and cheep materials.  

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? Glastrons made pretty boats too in that era. I like the Centurys & a couple of the SeaRays. Don't forget Boston Whaler - that 80's Mantauk was as "pro-boater" as you could look.  

Philster said: The iconic boat image of the 1980's is the Wellcraft Scarab. Click to expand...

Master Chief Petty Officer

Philster said: The iconic boat image of the 1980's is the Wellcraft Scarab. View attachment 116081 View attachment 116079 View attachment 116077 Click to expand...

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? Mine.  

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? Wellcraft Scarab with that arch was always iconic, the Mariah Shabah were also a pretty gorgeous design that differed a bit from the other euro-style boats that developed in the mid-late 80's.  

25thmustang

Lieutenant commander.

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? I like a lot of boats from this era, more than newer boats. The Four Winns Liberator is one the nice ones IMO.  

smokeonthewater

Fleet admiral.

Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? Click to expand...

americaneagler77

Re: Best lookin boats from the late 80's early 90's?? four winns liberator, early 90s formula ss, donzi sweet 16  

The Best 80s Power Ballads: A Nostalgic Music Journey

• Published: August 17, 2023
• By: Yellowbrick

80s Power Ballads: A Musical Icon of a Generation

Origins and characteristics of power ballads, notable examples of 80s power ballads, how power ballads transcended genres, the lasting influence of 80s power ballads, key takeaways.

• 80s power ballads were emotional and heartfelt songs that became anthems for a generation.
• They featured soft verses, explosive choruses, and emotionally charged lyrics.
• Iconic examples include “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” and “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
• Power ballads were not limited to rock bands, with artists from various genres embracing this style.
• The popularity of 80s power ballads can be attributed to their ability to provide a contrast and serve as a soundtrack for romantic moments.
• The influence of 80s power ballads can still be felt today, with contemporary artists incorporating elements of this genre into their music.

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Timothy Clarke Mixshow DJ/Personality, Radio One/Urban One, Sirius XM I want to be able to help upcoming artists be heard and seen on a global level, and be known as one of the biggest DJs turned A&R in hip-hop culture.

Tiana brown director of broadcasting & production, university of pennsylvania game day broadcast staff, philadelphia eagles my biggest advice is that if no one wants to open the door for you, kick it off the hinges. most of the opportunities that i have been afforded thus far have come from creating my own and giving opportunities to other people. creating your own opportunities can take a lot of sacrifice, a lot of lost sleep, a lot of fun missed, but in the end it will all be worth it when you wake up every morning living out your dreams..

Stefani Marie Clare Janelli Founder, The MIC & Artist Development Specialist (13 Seconds Music) Have tough skin, but be open to learning and adapting! This industry is constantly changing overnight, and adapting to however the wind blows is vital. It's also essential to have the willingness to learn. Being open to learning a new way to do something, or to listen to a new idea, even when it's not your own, is advice anyone at any age could benefit from!

Shelby Gussman Senior Director, Social Fisch I define success as achieving my goals, assisting my team with achieving theirs, and then setting the bar higher and accomplishing more than before all while being able to enjoy life! I hope to have the opportunity to work in different global markets, travel, collaborate with new people, and continue to be challenged and learn.

Sharrod Williams Actor, Writer, Producer - Neighbors, Hamilton, Moulin Rouge! The Musical There are no small parts. None. I have been fortunate enough to wear many different hats, big and small, on different projects. But like any machine, organization, or even the human body - each role I take on is in service of the one greater purpose, to tell a story. The hat i've worn the most is "actor". In this role, I am the vessel that conveys the humanity and experience of what each character I play is going through in the story being told. My goal is make the audience feel, relate, and or think about the aspect of life that is being reflected or challenged in the story.

Shady Elsayed Guest Services, ASM Barclays Center Whether it’s through celebrity appearances, brand and apparel collaborations, sponsorships, in-arena entertainment, or business partnerships, being a part of this industry is a rewarding experience. With it’s fast paced nature, and event based daily routine tasks, the sports and entertainment industry is built on networking and creating long lasting relationships.

Sabrina Assistant Project Manager, Dirt Rock Empire For me, success means continuing to learn and grow everyday. Next, I hope to become an even bigger voice in the industry and help encourage positive change.

Rebecca O’Keeffe Content Partnerships Manager, TikTok My role is Content Partnerships Manager for TikTok Ireland. I work with creators, media partners and public figures to enhance the content ecosystem to ensure the best user experience for the people of Ireland. This includes content projects with Ireland's biggest creators and public figures, exciting hyperlocal tentpole projects and events, in-app campaigns for things like Black History Month and Pride.

Rebecca Lu Business Development, Joes Footwear The biggest challenge is you never know when you will be challenged - they just pop out somehow, even you think you are doing the best. So don’t take challenge as monster, always be positive and do whatever you can.

Pavlina Koleva UX/UI Designer, Pixum To be a designer means you give people better experience, you help people and you try to see things through their eyes. Creating flexible products even for people with disabilities is great achievement. Design was and always will be part of people's life.

Natalie Turturro Mettouchi Costume Designer, IATSE Local 829 I am most proud of designing the costumes for a short film that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021, called "Esther in Wonderland." I had a shoestring budget and was working on two other pretty huge projects simultaneously, but still managed to design creative outfits that allowed the dancers to move freely and help develop their characters.

Meosha Enslow Seamstress, Cintas uniform company As a designer I pride myself on originality and creativity... The problem comes when I sit down to plan I begin to doubt myself and my capabilities...To avoid the setbacks filled with self doubt I think of the end result and how it always makes me feel so empowered and shuts the weak voice in my head saying I can’t do it.

Matt Popper Music Touring/Business Affairs, United Talent Agency Be relentless - the most difficult part of the job is getting your foot in the door. Once you're in, your good work will speak for itself. Of course, there will be some days where you will feel defeated and want to give up, but if this is what you're meant to do, you'll find a way to make it happen.

Deyonte Fashion Designer, DWC Project Runway Season 16 Contestant Everyone has challenges and obstacles they face in the industry. It's what you do with those minor situations that help you become better if you allow it. You have to fight for your vision and be relentless.

Mathilde Garnier Product Manager Footwear, adidas AG To me, success is passion. I strongly believe you can only be sucessful if you truly love what you are doing. Passion is a magic fuel that can inspire and drive people towards their goals... [but] passion is not enough. Our world needs more than for us to just do what we love. In order to be successful, we need to make a difference. I need to make a difference.

Lindsay Milner Sigmund Vice President of Design, Vida Shoes The highlight of my career was becoming a Vice President of Design at a respected industry company at a young age. It showed how all of the hard work I put into my career- including evolving and continuing my education in the field- really put me ahead of the curve.

Leslie Peterson Coordinator - Center of Excellence, NBCUniversal One of the hardest parts of my journey was moving to New York City from a small town and learning how to navigate the corporate world. Everyday I am learning something new and need to be okay with not knowing everything.

Kyle Rebucci Customs Team Trainer, Puma Fashion is a part of everyday life. You don’t have to like trends, brands, or designers to contribute to the giant that is the fashion industry. You can’t escape from it. My contribution will of course directly relate to fashion, but I hope to be part of some reform in the industry when it comes to sustainability and ethics.

KeNisha Ruff Founder, Marie Hunter Beauty Less than 1% of luxury beauty founders are black. I am laying the groundwork for black founders to enter the prestige sector and using my company to inspire, break the stigma surrounding mental health, and fight climate change.

Joseph Richert Manager - Corporate Development & Strategy, Universal Music Group Success to me is happiness, both professionally and personally. On the professional side, that means having an impact on helping artists and entrepreneurs bring their dreams to life in an industry I'm passionate about; which I'm lucky to say I'm doing now!

John Paul Endab Physical Education Teacher, Joppa High School As an educator, I truly believe that learning is a continuous process. It give us an opportunity to satisfy our curiosity, pursue our interests, or try new things.

Ilana Duboff Associate Media Director, OMG23 While I am proud of all the amazing films I've been fortunate to work on over the years, I am most proud of the growth I've had while working in this industry. I have been promoted three times in the past four years and now manage a team of people, which I never even thought could be possible when I first started working. I feel honored that I have the opportunity to lead a team as well as teach them and work with them.

Haramritjot Singh Founder, Cash Cow NYC I’m a kid from the Bronx, I’m a first generation American, I’m a Sikh, I’m a father in his thirties, and now I’m the owner of a clothing brand. I serve as a prime example to many different people from so many different circumstances that starting a small business and following your dreams is possible.

Giulia Baldini Fashion Journalist/Editor and Academic Researcher, Lehman College I represent the underrepresented with words. I report stories and narratives that center on the fashion industry, specifically when the protagonists are from the African Diaspora, when they are sustainable businesses, and when they are engaged in minorities' activism.

Forbs West Associate Music Curator, SiriusXM/Pandora I think one of the biggest challenges that I've faced in my journey is patience. I think especially being in Generation Z, it is important to slow down and appreciate what we have accomplished so far. I think when you least expect things, it is a surprise yet it is also very rewarding.

Elena Takmakova Manager - International Production, Universal Music Group The thing that keeps me on track is remembering how far I've come. Just that simple feeling of being proud of myself can make miracles.

Dounesha Scott Product Manager, Anna Griffin Inc. Of my career achievements, I am the most proud of being a uniform fit specialist for the Delta Style Project... Delta only redesigns their uniforms every 5-10 years. The uniforms were designed by Zac Posen and manufactured by Lands End... We are in the Delta museum and will be a part of Delta airlines history.