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View Full Version : And all the boats from far and wide, came to Miami one day in May !!!!!



Top Banana
12-10-2013, 10:36 PM
I was looking for some photos on Beep Beep and started going through some of the BBC archives. Thought you guys might have an interest in how things were back in the day at the annual Bacardi race to Bimini every May.

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The race was held every year at the Four Ambassadors in Miami. It was a combination of a hotel and condo that was built in four very high towers for the time. The nice thing was the racers were given the front waterside rooms and we could look over the docks where our boats were, from our rooms.

You may see some boats of that era. Top Banana was docked right next to the walkway with the bow facing the left side of your picture. A couple boats out was the brand new 39 Cigarette, Bounty Hunter, in orange and driven by Billy Martin. The red and white Bertram of Howard Quam is in the top of the photo and you can also see the two boats that Betty Cook brought to the race, a cat and a deep vee. She would pick which one to race depending on the water conditions.

Out at the end of the docks that Top Banana is on are Joel Halpern's two Beep Beep's. He had a cat and a dep vee also. Preston Henn's Bertram, the usual winner of this race is right behind Betty's boats. One of my 34 foot Banana's is in front of Betty's boats, you can just see the bow of a black boat. That was Gone Bananas and it ran in the Modified Class.

Rocky Aoki had his own 38 foot Bertram and he also leased a 35 footer to some Japanese clients for the race, those two boats are tied together in back of Preston's. Some local boats and more would arrive from the various Miami - Ft Lauderdale shops as the start time got closer. Bill Elswick with Long Shot and Tom Gentry would show later.

The Production class boats were not usually allowed on the Open class docks, but would get in there anyway. Production classes were...Sports, Modified and Production. They were limited to two small blocks. All of the Open class boats that I raced with were limited to 1,000 cu inches.

We were going over the boat on race morning as we normally did. We had three complete checklists. The first would be done before the boat was launched, the second was done after the test ride the day before the race and the third, I did personally on the morning of the race. It had 7 pages and covered everything from the nuts that held the bow eye on, to the prop nut. Anything that could come loose or break was triple checked.

My race morning crew consisted of my truck driver who stood by in case we needed anything from the tool boxes on the truck. My navigator who would suit up first and then lay out the charts on the open deck area in front of me in the middle and him on my left. My throttleman who was on my right making sure the throttles would open up all the way and had no kinks or binds....and in the engine room, you can see my engine builder. as you will notice by the air cleaner stacks, I was running two big four barrel carbs, 1050 cfm, on each engine compard to everyone else with their fuel injection.

The white Scarab of Joey Ipollito with the number 3 on the sides was the Michelob Light boat. With pre-race prep done, now was the time to suit up for the driver's meeting and get ready to fire them up. A Spectra from California was tied up next to me, they were trying to compete in ocean waters and that size boat was not really up to the task.

Top Banana
12-11-2013, 12:38 PM
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Okay now we are all suited up and at the driver's meeting. We are all told the last minute changes to the course, what to look out for, and how big they estimate the spectator crowd to be....it was very big and choked off the turn boat at Government Cut.

The race starts and we are with the leaders going out into the cut....and staying with a bunch of shallow bottom vees like Bertrams, that was saying a lot. At the entrance to the cut where the calm water turns into ocean rollers, we all have to take a right turn and head down to the top of the keys.

The whole story of the race is written and available on the Banana Boat Co website.

www.bananaboatco.com

Click on Media Archives Scroll down to the Extreme Boats Magazine article I wrote in 2006. The story is about this race from Miami to Bimini.

I won't ruin the ending of the story, but we didn't win, but gave it a good shot in a rough water race.

Top Banana
12-11-2013, 12:54 PM
After the race we made it back to the docks and gently manhandled the boat into a spot. The engines were very hot and didn't like the close quarter starts and stops so we just basically walked the boat in. Remember we all had crash boxes not transmissions and the only way you could go from forward to reverse was to shut the engine off and bump the starter and shift...then you had to start the engine again and proceed in whatever direction you wanted...slowly...until you had to do the same scenario again to change gears.

I like the middle shot of the boat just sitting in the water with no fuel left. It had beautiful lines as it just sat there and looked so fast while it was stopped.

I was greeted by my wife with a nice kiss and one of my customers who had the 34 foot Banana Boat he raced in Modified class...Gone Bananas. They were running TRS drives in that class and ended up breaking one of the drives on a rough re-entry. The guy standing there by the way, was an ex Green Beret in Viet Nam and was on the assination teams they would drop behind enemy lines. They had to come back with the ears off the people they took out, to show they accomplished the mission. He said offshore racing was the closest rush he got to those missions. Tough guy.

The lady with the glasses was a writer for Spors Illustrated. The sport was covered by some major magazines back then and your name could be very well known in a short time with that kind of exposure. The article she wrote is also on the company website. The couple on the dock were friends of mine that allowed all my family to use their 60 foot Chris Craft Roamer as a platform to watch the race from Government Cut turn boat area. That was considered quite a boat in that time period.

Top Banana
12-11-2013, 01:20 PM
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The racers back then would hang around the docks after the race trying to get re-hydrated, some with water and some with other beverages.

I am sitting here with Betty Cook and her throttleman John Conners and I was trying to make a point that she didn't agree with. I was trying to discourage her from bringing two boats to all the races. Joel Halpern with Beep Beep also brought two boats and I could see the other owners looking with great interest.

My argument went like this.....If everyone brings two boats and they start building lightweight catamarans for the calm water races, then they would start putting pressure on the APBA. At the minimum the cost for racing had now doubled with two boats and just by that alone the field would start to thin out and pretty much only the very rich could compete. She listened and saw my point, but she was very competitve and wanted to win. Being the only female in the sport she got tons of press coverage and liked being a former world champion in such a tough sport.

My last comment to her I can still remember to this day. I said....The catamarans will get so exotic and expensive, the owners will not want to run them in any kind of rough water. The APBA will cave in and start making race courses on calmer bodies of water and take us away from real open ocean racing. Betty, I said, if I wanted to race Unlimited Hydroplanes, I would have gone that way. I don't and I also don't want to win a race by beating just two or three other competitors simply because no one else could afford to play at this level.

As we all know they continued on with the multi boats and the courses were calmed down. The very next year Michel Meynard with Faayva Shoes, brought two boats to the party and became the new World Champ his first year in the sport....beating even Betty and her two boat team.

Ratickle
12-12-2013, 10:04 AM
Hmmmmm, a prophet amongst us....

Top Banana
12-12-2013, 03:19 PM
Hmmmmm, a prophet amongst us....

Too bad the prophet could never pick the winning numbers on some of the big lotteries over the years since!

Bobcat
12-12-2013, 06:07 PM
Good stuff...great pictures.

Ratickle
12-13-2013, 06:47 PM
Too bad the prophet could never pick the winning numbers on some of the big lotteries over the years since!

I'm heading out shortly to win the $400,000,000. I'll share it with you when I cash the check.

Top Banana
12-15-2013, 06:52 PM
I was coming down in the elevator for one of the night before parties and this guy says to me.........So, you won the first race of the year in California, right? I said yes, I did. Well, he continues I am the boating editor for the Miami Herald and I need a good story for the race coming up, who are you the most worried about?

I didn't even hesitate for a,second.....Bill Elswick I said! He responds with...Wait a minute with World Champions and lots of seasoned competitors here, you pick a guy who has never won a race, why?

I told him that Bill and I competed against each other in the Modified division of the Production classes and he was the toughest guy I ever ran against. We only had little boats, I had a 24 footer and he had a 27 Magnum, but we had to race in the exact same water that the Open Class boats did...less miles, only 100 to 125 compared to their 185 to 225, but the waves were just as big and our speeds were not that much less. We respected each other and neither one ever gave an inch or expected the other one to give anything.

Bill didn't do well the next day, but I knew at some point he would. The following year, 1980 he just dominated Open Class and was US1 national champion. There was one race out of San Francisco that showed what Bill could do........We started in the Bay and headed out toward the Islands. About 5 miles from,the bridge, the fleet ran into a fog bank sitting right on the water. We were all still packed together pretty tight and heavy with fuel. When we went into the fog bank I was running between Elswick on one side,and Joey Ipolitto on the other side. You could barely see a boat length in front of you and were running in the high 80's at that point.

My throttleman slowed down a bit and I reached over and pushed the throttles back up and yelled over to,him that everyone else would,back down and we would be ahead when we came out the other side. When we did come out, I looked around and Elswick was on one side and Joey was on the other. We did this 5 times with no change. We were all young and daring at that point in our lives........both of them are gone now may they RIP.

Ratickle
12-16-2013, 06:57 PM
Cowes Torquay 1980 Winner

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SATISFACTION BILL ELSWICK
39 ft SCARAB
2 X 600 HP MERCRUISERS
TIME ; 3HRS 5 MINS
SPEED 79.6 MPH
RACE DISTANCE 245 NM





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Ratickle
12-16-2013, 06:59 PM
Didn't Bill also race nascar a couple years? Kind of sponsored himself through Performer Boats?

In 1980 was he in the Cigarette or the Performer?

Ratickle
12-16-2013, 07:12 PM
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Top Banana
12-20-2013, 10:32 AM
Didn't Bill also race nascar a couple years? Kind of sponsored himself through Performer Boats?

In 1980 was he in the Cigarette or the Performer?

Paul, thanks for posting those two photos. The top one Satisfication, was owned by Paul Clauser, who also owned Sunny Isle Marina in N Miami. Bill Elswick rented the boat and shipped it to England for Cowes. He also hired Richie Powers as,throttleman. Richie had raced Cowes many times and knew how to put together a winning effort, which he did here again.

The next photo was 1980 Bacardi race. This was the first Open Class race Elswick ever won. He used a 39 foot Cigarette to become US1 in 1980.

He did race in NASCAR back then. There were a few of the offshore drivers that raced Winston Cup or owned a team and hired some of the better known NASCAR drivers to drive for,them.

Top Banana
12-21-2013, 09:15 AM
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This top photo is from the 1980 Detroit race. That is my boat heading out to the start as Rums of Puerto Rico, followed by Bill Elswick in Longshot. The race was won by Joel Halpern in his catamaran, followed by Betty in her Catamaran, then Elswick, somebody else, sorry can't remember and me.




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This would be the 1981 Race out of Aventura, or Miami as we all called it. There was a bridge going back to Miami from Miami Beach and to get to the inlet all the boats had to go under it so it was always loaded with photographers.

Top Banana
01-11-2014, 07:18 PM
The circuit next moved to Detroit in the month of June and then on to the Benihana race in Point Pleasant NJ.

Betty and I were tied for first place in the Open class standings heading into Detroit based on both of us winning once and coming in third once.

I owned a bunch of trucking companies back then and there was a nationwide truck strike called, so anyone who was moving trucks on the highways was affected. I was torn between my business and my ego, but Don Aronow called me and told me in no uncertain terms, that business always comes first and for me to not even think about going to Detroit. In the end I stayed home and did my best to help my customers make as many deliveries as possible.

So, I had time to get ready for the biggest race of the east coast locations. The Benihana was held off NJ and was the direct descendant of the Around Long Island marathon of the 60's and early 70's. The course ran north and south with a leg that went over to Long Island and back....this leg was eliminated in the 80's.

The water was rough enough for Tom Gentry to snap off the bow of his 38 foot Larry Smith Scarab and put all three crew members into the water. There are some great photos of that broken boat out there somewhere. I blew an engine the day before the race and Phil Lewis recruited me to ride in the helicopter and do the play by play voice over of his films of the race. T2X did this voice over work much better in the later years when he was working for Needle Nose Films.

lucky strike
08-02-2014, 05:38 PM
Thats my brand new 28' Cigarette P-5 parked in front of your boat Charlie in the 1st pic.

That race was by far the roughest offshore race I've ever been in.

Ratickle
08-03-2014, 07:13 AM
The blue one with the strakes down the deck?

Top Banana
08-11-2014, 04:20 PM
The blue one with the strakes down the deck?

Those aren't strakes, it was a rib that ran down the center of the 288 SS deck on those Cigarettes. In international racing under the UIM, the rules were that you had to have a lifeline down the center of the deck, for any crewman to go forward and have a place to hold on to.

Aronow thought it would look cool and set his design apart, so he added the rib and then put a lifeline on it with stainless posts to support it. And it did look cool.

Ratickle
08-12-2014, 09:50 AM
I must be looking at the wrong first pic. Which post number first pic? This very first post first pic?

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww310/ptrose/Misc%20and%20Personal%20Boats/BacardiCharlie.jpg (http://s730.photobucket.com/user/ptrose/media/Misc%20and%20Personal%20Boats/BacardiCharlie.jpg.html)

Ratickle
08-12-2014, 09:54 AM
One heck of a historical photo!! :hurray:

Ratickle
08-12-2014, 09:56 AM
I was looking at this first pic with the blue boat, yes I can say Duh....:leaving:

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Top Banana
08-12-2014, 07:43 PM
I must be looking at the wrong first pic. Which post number first pic? This very first post first pic?

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww310/ptrose/Misc%20and%20Personal%20Boats/BacardiCharlie.jpg (http://s730.photobucket.com/user/ptrose/media/Misc%20and%20Personal%20Boats/BacardiCharlie.jpg.html)

What other picture than this one has a 28 Cigarette in it?

Yes, it is this picture it has the P number on the deck. That designated the Production class boats.

Top Banana
08-13-2014, 04:40 PM
I was looking at this first pic with the blue boat, yes I can say Duh....:leaving:

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That blue boat is Harry O the winner of the Modified class.......simply because one of my customer's in a new 34 Banana, Gone Banana's broke down.

Gone Bananas is the black boat in the first picture, at the very top of the photo in front of Betty Cook's two boats, the cat and the deep vee, and right behind that sportsfisherman.

lucky strike
08-13-2014, 05:30 PM
I took that photo from my room.

That race was a boat buster.

My 28 Cig P-5 was brand new and after that race my floor was split in two.

Ratickle
08-14-2014, 10:38 AM
Well, I guess the good part it was just the floor....

lucky strike
08-14-2014, 11:21 AM
Well, I guess the good part it was just the floor....

True and my back has never been the same.
150 races takes it's toll on your body.lol

Ratickle
08-15-2014, 10:41 AM
How many Gone Bananas boats were there?

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Ratickle
08-15-2014, 10:42 AM
True and my back has never been the same.
150 races takes it's toll on your body.lol

And which were your favorite and least favorite?

Top Banana
08-17-2014, 07:07 PM
How many Gone Bananas boats were there?

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There were actually three. The first one was a 24 foot Banana production boat with full cabin and sit down seats. The owner was new to high performance boating but loved the adrenaline rush. He entered the boat in a local race and was forever hooked. He next wanted to buy my old twin engine 24 footer, so we changed the colors from yellow accents to orange and renamed the boat.

After a year racing that boat, mainly in the northeast, he started attending the Miami winter races for production boats. He made it out of New England towing the boat through a famous blizzard that shut down the northeast for days. After a few days of driving he finally made it to Miami and checked into a hotel near the race site. Next morning, feeling rested and ready to race, he went down to head over to register........the truck was still there, BUT the boat and trailer were never seen again.

He took the insurance money and ordered a new 34 footer. The boat was very fast, but had never ending mechanical problems from the engine builder he was using. An ever changing crew on board didn't do much to help and finally on the way out to the start of a race in Mass. the new throttle man pushed when he should have pulled and the boat shot up the face of a big wave and stood on it's transom, then tripped forward and buried the bow in the next wave which was very big. That is how it ended it's very short career with the deck ripped back about 10 feet and nearly sinking.

The owner, still enjoying the adrenaline rush, moved on to a new gig in south Florida...... importing some kind of medicinal smoking stuff that ended badly. I saw him a few years after his government provided vacation, older and wiser, but not looking to go racing again.

Top Banana
08-17-2014, 07:15 PM
And which were your favorite and least favorite?

Perhaps the answer to that question should come from ......Meta!

Ratickle
08-18-2014, 06:36 PM
After reading your review, I was cracking up.

Top Banana
08-18-2014, 09:56 PM
After reading your review, I was cracking up.

Ahhh, if I could but tell all the stories I remember, that would crack you up for sure.

This particular customer was a returning vet from Nam. He was a Green Beret on the death teams that were dropped behind the lines. He had some wild stories, that I honestly half believed until one day, another customer met the first customer in a New England harbor. They both had their boats and decided to have lunch together. They docked the boats and had a nice leisurely lunch and then walked back toward the docks.

On the way they passed a warehouse with abig chain link fence round it, as they passed by a big Doberman Pinscher came running out of the warehouse and came right up to the fence and started barking and barking. Customer number one, the Nam vet looks at the dog and says....Shut up!!! The dog continues barking. Customer number two says, come on just keep walking were almost at the docks anyway. Customer number one says......I told this dog to shut up and he better shut up!

Customer number two finishes the story by saying......Before I knew it, he had climbed the fence and was in the yard with the dog. He said, that dog took a good look into his eyes and turned around and ran back into the warehouse with him chasing it. A few minutes later he was back, looking none the worse for the wear and tear of the last few minutes. I have no idea what happened in the warehouse and I didn't ask him, we just got in our boats and left.

We had some colorful characters in our sport back in the day..........

Ratickle
08-19-2014, 09:25 PM
I think there may still be a few "colorful" characters left.......:sifone:

lucky strike
09-23-2014, 05:06 PM
Point Plesant NJ was always my favorite
Home town race. Knew the coarse like the back of my hand. No GPS back then.
During the summer we use to go out and run the coarse with a few boats for fun
Won our class more than a few times.
Never remember it not being very rough.

Great lakes were my least favorite.
They have what they call square waves.

Newport beach was a great race.
Always rough with huge rollers.
Always was the first race of the season.
If u were running for a championship that race was a must.

lucky strike
09-23-2014, 05:13 PM
My wife went to every race with me.

She also said Jersey.
We would rent a chopper and put her in it with her camera.

She said she had to go to them all because she use to see a lot of racers with their girlfriends not their wives
One of her favorites was New Orleans.

lucky strike
09-23-2014, 05:14 PM
Perhaps the answer to that question should come from ......Meta!

see above post

lucky strike
09-23-2014, 06:05 PM
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lucky strike
09-23-2014, 06:14 PM
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lucky strike
09-23-2014, 06:29 PM
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Top Banana
10-04-2014, 08:59 PM
The bottom two photos of the last post bring back some good memories. On the right is the twin step Top Gun that Steve allowed me to drive one day in South Florida. That boat had some crazy moves with all those bubbles under the back of the boat. That was a good day on the water with my son and old friends, the Berk family.

Second photo, that guy was looking to commander some boat at Point Pleasant during one race event......and he found a very happy to oblige... Cigarette owner. For Steve and me and others of that era, that is the Don we remember when we think of him. He was at the top of his game and his brand of boats were winning all over the world.

Ratickle
10-05-2014, 07:46 PM
I like that "Crazy Moves" comment. How many stepped hulls have you driven now?

lucky strike
10-11-2014, 05:59 PM
I like that "Crazy Moves" comment. How many stepped hulls have you driven now?

Steps.. Non steps... Charlie is one of the best drivers out there. Boats or cars.

You should take a ride with him in his Turbo Porsche!

Ratickle
10-12-2014, 05:41 PM
Yep, that's why it makes me curious as to how many different stepped boats he's driven. It seems like every one I've been in handles a bit differently, especially in hard cornering, so was gonna try to pick his brain on the best one in his opinion, and why.......

lucky strike
10-14-2014, 08:17 PM
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Steps.. Non steps... Charlie is one of the best drivers out there. Boats or cars.

You should take a ride with him in his Turbo Porsche!

My boat was the 1st Cigarette T/S built. Their factory race boat.

Very lite a'lot of carbon fiber. Very fast with stock 525's

Ratickle
10-15-2014, 07:36 PM
I didn't know that, cool!! For some reason I thought Dick Simon's was the first TS F2 boat.

Ratickle
10-16-2014, 07:19 PM
Are you pretty happy with the way it corners compared to some of the stepped Vee's out there?

lucky strike
10-17-2014, 07:06 PM
Are you pretty happy with the way it corners compared to some of the stepped Vee's out there?

I never had a problem with turning it.
Had it for about 3 years.
Lots of running it in all kinds of water.
I live in Florida so it's all year boating.
I've never driven a T/S other than this one.
Keep the nose up and it turns beautiful every time.

Ratickle
10-18-2014, 04:40 PM
Keep the nose up and it turns beautiful every time.

Ah, some drivers figure that out too late.....




I live in Florida so it's all year boating.


Oh sure, rub it in..:banghead:

lucky strike
10-18-2014, 07:28 PM
Heading out tomorrow.
Stop by if your in town78973