A T2x for sale find?????

[Ratickle]

An interesting boat for sale.


1966 Carlson Challenger Tunnel Hull Race boat


Rich, any comments?????

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ws...809973653.html

[Gladhe8er]

cool little old shool boat

[Sean Stinson]

Damn I was just there and could have looked at that boat

[OneBadInjun]

They have the looks, but don't run that well. Like a lot of Carlson's designs. And, they all were not race boats. Just say'n...

[T2x]

They have the looks, but don't run that well. Like a lot of Carlson's designs. And, they all were not race boats. Just say'n...

For once .....we agree.

[JoeD]

I owned one from 1975 to 1985 we had alot of fun sking behind it with a merc 150xs.

[T2x]

George Linder's first race boat was a 1966 16' Carlson Challenger called (with some questionable originality ) "Challenger 1". He bought it after watching one of my old dual engine Glastrons at races..........We rigged it at K&K Outboard with twin 110 Merc inlines and speedmasters and it was a slug....no speed, bad turning and handling, terrible in rough water (it spit his co-driver out in the old Nyack Regatta on the Hudson River)..... but very pretty in Red Metalflake with real gold leaf lettering.... I called it George's "Skateboard". Art Carlson had told George that the hull design ( a cat in the front with an SK like flatbottom in the rear)would bank in turns and get around a short course quickly.....After the boat was completed we tested it repeatedly and none of us could get it to bank or turn quickly.... The boat's first race was the Orange Bowl 9 hour and, lo and behold, Art Carlson was there. George tells the story of asking Art to drive it and show him how to turn the thing. Carlson apparently begged off saying he had a head ache and never went near the boat for the remainder of the event.

I tested it numerous times and found it to be slower than the Power cats I had driven previously......and no match for Glastron ( pre Carlson designed) or larger Eltro vee's. George kept it for a season and raced an 18 Eltro the following year ( Challenger II..... )..... Later George called his award winning 21 vee bottom design..... "Challenger". I wonder why..... George learned so much about how NOT to design a boat from the Carlson, that he wound up creating some of the most iconic hull designs in offshore history.......with a little help from his friends...

The Carlson did have a wide flat bottom at the transom and probably would make a good ski boat...... in calm water.

[Ratickle]

A headache, huh??????


Pretty good stuff. Wonder where he heard that line before.....



How did your dual engine Glastron run?


And is the pic George?

[T2x]

A headache, huh??????


Pretty good stuff. Wonder where he heard that line before.....



How did your dual engine Glastron run?


And is the pic George?

Yes the pic is George......... in late 1965, right after we finished rigging the Carlson.

As to your other question..... I ran a couple of dual engine Glastrons, a 16 and a 17 footer. They were the hottest thing in the old JJ class from 1963 through 1966 or so ( We ( Ken Kalibat and I) were second in JJ class in the '66 Orange bowl Regatta (about 150 boats made the start in 5 classes)with the 17 footer.......and my 16 footer (below winning the Merrick Bay Regatta in 1965) won at least a half dozen races. The designs were changing quickly and i went to an Allison and then a couple of Eltro's in the next 2-3 years. At that point the tunnel revolution took over the OPC classes and I stepped into Molinari's, Seebold's...etc.

[Ratickle]

What kind of speeds did you see with the twin setup on the Glastron?

[T2x]

What kind of speeds did you see with the twin setup on the Glastron?

The JJ record back then was about 68 with stock lowers......the Glastrons ran close to that..... and that was faster than just about any larger offshore hull in existence at that time. Our 15' Powercat ran about 70 with stock lower units....5 -8 mph faster with SSM's but that was a tiny rocketship.

In the following 10 years...OPC speeds doubled (while simultaneously going from multi-engine to single engine power). The most dynamic technological revolution in the history of speed on the water. By comparison, Offshore speeds went from the low 60's to the mid 70's in the same time period. From '76-'86 Offshore speeds went up 75% ( the English Cougar folks, Peter Hledin at Skater, and our Shadow/Conquest team all had strong OPC backgrounds) and have increased about 50% in the last 25 years.

Nothing really equates to the OPC hull and engine development spurt from 1968 to 1975 spurred by the "factory wars" between Mercury and OMC (under Charlie Strang...ex Mercury)....and the Offshore increases were almost completely dependent on the OPC improvements.....( except for the turbine and uber HP supercharged monsters of the past 10 years)....... all prop, lower unit, light weight construction techniques, and hull design mods and concepts (pads, cats, steps, strake placement) came from that 7 year OPC development spike IMHO.

This is why I spend so much time yawning when old wine in new bottles keeps showing up posing as a dramatic "revolutionary" concept.

[Brownie]

I don't think so, Tim........ I feel that the offshore speeds were held down by engine technology, as opposed to boat design. We had honeycomb cats and such (Zippe), but only had about 400 HP each side, and a 10,000 pound boat. In addition, you had #2 SSM or inclined shafts. Neither one very good. What we did have was a beautiful unlevel playing field which often let the best men win. As far as strake design is concerned, everyone knows that they are only there to keep the Cubans from sliding off while they are sanding the plug.

[T2x]

I don't think so, Tim........ I feel that the offshore speeds were held down by engine technology, as opposed to boat design. We had honeycomb cats and such (Zippe), but only had about 400 HP each side, and a 10,000 pound boat. In addition, you had #2 SSM or inclined shafts. Neither one very good. What we did have was a beautiful unlevel playing field which often let the best men win. As far as strake design is concerned, everyone knows that they are only there to keep the Cubans from sliding off while they are sanding the plug.

Who is Tim?

Brownie: IMHO all of the quest for light weights and attention to set up detail came from the stock outboard guys who stepped up into the tunnels during the outboard wars. Guys like Seebold, Herring, Jimbo, the Hauensteins, Lee Sutter, et al all obsessed on things like removing all of the washers from a boat to save weight and working large collections of jewelry like propellers to the enth degree. Prior to that both Offshore and OPC to a lesser degree used either one or two sets of relatively crude props and usually traveled to and from races with them attached to the prop shafts. In fact most inboards used a non surfacing traditional submerged wheel without a lot of sophistication.... Mercury got all of their Offshore race drive designs and technology from the outboard SSM's that preceded them........ and prop surfacing itself (as practiced by Arneson, Buzzi, Mercruiser etc...came directly from the Stock outboard guys by way of the OPC ranks.