Offshore record run

[Bgchuby01]

Some of you may know that I work with Bob Russell full time. He has the original O/L cat that was laid up before Golddigger. This is the only O/L cat that is 100% Carbon Fiber. The boat weighs 10,600 without fuel. The boat has 1550 sterling power. We have the boat out here in Corona Calif. Bob has been talking for almost a year about running an endurance run from San Diego to Cabo. Well its happening in the future but to shake down the boat for a long run on November 18th next month give or take a day due to sea conditions we will be running the boat on a timed run through the APBA from the Golden Gate bridge to the Queen Mary in Long Beach. The route is 435 miles. The boat has 600 gallons of fuel and we plan on a non stop run. Archer Marine tried it 3 weeks ago and it took 10 hours but they had 12 ft seas. We have a weather company planning for us. We plan to make the run in under 5 hours. This boat can run at 100mph at only 4200rpm so we are not hurting the engines and cruising at a pretty good speed. This boat also has a rudder and BPM drives. I will keep everyone up to date as we get closer to the run

[Bobcat]

Thanks Jeff, looking forward to some reports and pics !

[old377guy]

Sounds pretty cool

[Bgchuby01]

I would post some pics but for some reason I can not upload

[Donskihp]

Looking forward to pics and updates

[Ratickle]

I would post some pics but for some reason I can not upload

What's it saying Jeff?

[Bgchuby01]

after I upload it says that there is an error, I will do it again and try to copy and paste

[Bgchuby01]

just says error in loading nothing else

[Bgchuby01]

also how do I delete the photo's that are already uploaded

[poncho]

Cool idea for a run!!!! Hope you set a record!!!!

[Ratickle]

also how do I delete the photo's that are already uploaded

? They stay in the data base for when someone looks at an old thread they were posted in. Is that what you're asking?

[Ratickle]

just says error in loading nothing else

Are you doing it through the post photo icon click at the top of the new post or thorough the advanced post?

[Buoy]

Are you doing it through the post photo icon click at the top of the new post or thorough the advanced post?

Just my .02, but I always use the Advanced, and then "manage attachments" button.
I'm sure there must be an easier way.

[Top Banana]

Jeff

The same run was made years ago by Powerboat Magazine owner Bob Nordskog. He did it for a charity that supplies seeing. eye dogs for the blind.

I don't remember the time he took, but at that time, it was a new record.

BTW for the old racers, we remember when this run was an actual race that started in Long Beach and finished in San Francisco. One year it was won by a 233 Formula with a single big block engine. Owner driver was Peter Rothschild and for crew he had Larry Smith of Scarab fame and Chuck Daigh who was a big time Indy car mechanic.

[Buoy]

Hey Charlie,
Didn't Betty Cook hold the record at one time?
I need to pull out my copy of Searace, but figured you would know right off hand.

[Top Banana]

Hey Charlie,
Didn't Betty Cook hold the record at one time?
I need to pull out my copy of Searace, but figured you would know right off hand.

Betty had the Cabo record with a Scarab with outboards. A small Scarab like 29 or 30. She never tried for the San Fran record.

[Ratickle]

At 75, Powerboater Bob Nordskog Lives at Full Throttle

October 16, 1988|JEFF MEYERS | Times Staff Writer

The yellow 39-foot powerboat looked like a prop from "Miami Vice" as it cruised into a slip at the California Yacht Club. The three-member crew, dashing in matching jackets, stepped onto the dock and into a party. The bone-jarring journey that had begun six hours earlier in the San Francisco fog had just ended in triumph under hazy skies at Marina del Rey. They had set a world record.

Before TV cameras and friends, the crew toasted their stunning achievement--5 hours, 57 minutes, 22 seconds from the Golden Gate Bridge to the marina breakwater, more than an hour faster than the old record. Sipping Moet, Bob Nordskog accepted congratulations. He owned the boat, planned the run and hired the crew, a pair of strapping brothers named Norm and Bob Teague. Bob navigated and Norm kept the machinery together. Nordskog drove the 1,700 h.p. beast, a considerable challenge for a 75-year-old great-grandfather.

Nordskog is the Ancient Mariner of powerboating. While most men his age are content with hobbies they can do on the couch, Nordskog is heavily involved in a highly dangerous sport. "The career of the average powerboat racer is two to four years," he said. "A few hang in there for five to seven. Going back 10 years, there's nobody still around as a driver except me. Physically, they can't take it. And the owners can't take it in the pocketbook."

A millionaire industrialist from Tarzana, Nordskog seems impervious to pain, danger and insolvency. He's known in the sport as an "iron man" for running endurance races without relief drivers. Entering racing at the advanced age of 51, he has won more powerboat races and broken more records than any other racer in the world. He also says he has broken most of the major bones in his body.

"I've been in so many crashes I have aches all over," said Nordskog, who considers himself a "sportsman" and competes for trophies, not cash. "It's not like I have an old person's aches. I don't ache because I'm decrepit but because I'm doing the things I love. Besides, what's the worst thing that could happen to me? I could get killed."

Riding in the cockpit of a thrashing Cigarette boat isn't like taking a spin in the family Buick. Powerboaters are punished to the extent that blood in the urine is a common occurrence after a race. During the 425-mile journey Monday, a combination of 10-foot swells and top speeds of 85 m.p.h. pounded bad vibrations through Nordskog's 5-foot, 8-inch frame.

When he rode home in record time last month, Nordskog accomplished what movie macho man Chuck Norris had tried and failed to do six weeks before. Norris, driving a 46-foot diesel-powered boat, had run the same distance nearly two hours slower than a man 26 years his senior. After his attempt, Norris had complained of tired legs from standing in the cockpit for the entire journey. Other than a crick in his neck, Nordskog looked fresh enough to swim to Catalina. As his wife, Elli, combed his thinning silver hair and he posed for photos, Nordskog talked about the record run as though it had been a pleasure cruise.

"We didn't have good water until Point Conception," he said matter-of-factly. "It got a wee bit rough out there."

There is more to Nordskog than hot boats and thrill-seeking. An inventor and self-described "gadgeteer" who holds about 30 patents, he presides over Nordskog Industries, a Van Nuys conglomerate with more than 500 employees and annual sales in excess of $30 million. He's also a philanthropist who teaches blind people to water ski, and the publisher of Powerboat magazine.

At his plant in Van Nuys, the company logo, naturally enough, is a drawing of the Earth overlayed with a large "N." Down the street, the Nordskog Competition Center, a 10,000-square-foot warehouse and toy store for adults, contains "some of the things I'm crazy about," Nordskog said a few days before he left for San Francisco.

Alongside a customized 1963 Corvette with a yellow flame scorched into the metallic finish is a cherry 1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air, "the first new car I ever owned," Nordskog said. Nearby is a Datsun Z with a 350-horsepower Chevy engine. "We make the conversion kit," he said. "Some years ago somebody sold me a Datsun and when I drove it, I found out it didn't have any guts." The room also houses a Nordskog solar-powered boat, the world's first, he said, adding: "I've been playing around with solar equipment for years."

Then there's the room's centerpiece, a sister ship to the one that Nordskog had sent to San Francisco for the record attempt. Covered with Kelvar skin, the boat sat high on its trailer behind a large truck, the combined length of the rig about 80 feet. In the cockpit, a driver, flanked by a navigator and mechanic, is confronted with what resembles an airplane control panel--numerous gauges and toggle switches for such functions as "turbo boost."

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-10-...1_bob-nordskog

[Bgchuby01]

I go to advanced and use the manage attachemts, upload the photo and then it says error

charlie, I think the gas record is a little under 7 hours.. by norskog

[Ratickle]

I go to advanced and use the manage attachemts, upload the photo and then it says error

charlie, I think the gas record is a little under 7 hours.. by norskog

5 hours, 57 minutes, 22 seconds in the article above.


All it says is error? Can you tell me the file type? It doesn't show the little exclamation point and say file too large or anything when you click on the exclamation?

[Ratickle]

If you can't figure it out, email it to me at ratickle@seriousoffshore.com and let me see if I can.