Serious At The Miami Boat Show 2014

[Ratickle]

This was the loudest boat at the show. I was talking with Mike Griffith from Mercury Racing and he said that was after they'd quieted it down some. The side exhaust made it so loud you couldn't hear the Outerlimits running right next to it......

[Ratickle]

This Fountain was not at the show, but the price was certainly interesting. A new 2012 in stock...

[Cookee]

P1 USA Superstock was there with a couple of their boats. I chatted with Azam for a little while and said hi to Martin.

They are almost ready to put out their 2014 schedule, just buttoning up the last couple of sites.

I drove one of those once - that was enough!

[Cookee]

Pete and Caroline, friends from this side of the pond - getting that boat sorted out properly has been a challenge!

[Ratickle]

Pete and Caroline, friends from this side of the pond - getting that boat sorted out properly has been a challenge!

We need some more info Cookee. You should have been here at the show. Spent a lot of time with the Chief Gang, you check the thread?

Venture Cup still a go???

[Ratickle]

They had this Deep Impact buried so it was impossible to get a good shot. Here's the best I good figure out...

[Ratickle]

Cool looking Midnight Express, (and car).

[Ratickle]

Mercury Racing

[Ratickle]

I drove one of those once - that was enough!

Yeah, I don't think they are designed to thrill the experienced racer. I hope they work to bring up the next set of offshore racers in the US. Other than the mini-hydros, there is no other beginning way to learn boat racing. You have some outboard offshore classes in Europe that we don't have over here. Our organizations have failed at promoting young racers into offshore. OPA has made the move now to Class 7 and that will hopefully help.

[Ratickle]

These guys seem to be at every event lately where there is water. Buit it was interesting watching him take off from the gas dock without soaking us...,

[Cookee]

We need some more info Cookee. You should have been here at the show. Spent a lot of time with the Chief Gang, you check the thread?

Venture Cup still a go???

There is a long story on "the other side" but I think he has it dialed in now and he has fitted some of his own kit including steering and throttle he custom made and brought over.

Lack of time to get over to the show I'm afraid, last time I was there was 2005 and really enjoyed it - went to Key West for the Worlds in the following November - a great year!

Venture Cup is very much on the go, I sold the race boat last week as my sponsors didn't fancy the return on the massive investment needed but the guy who bought it will likely still do the race and may need crew so I might end up doing the race in the boat anyway!

[Cookee]

Yeah, I don't think they are designed to thrill the experienced racer. I hope they work to bring up the next set of offshore racers in the US. Other than the mini-hydros, there is no other beginning way to learn boat racing. You have some outboard offshore classes in Europe that we don't have over here. Our organizations have failed at promoting young racers into offshore. OPA has made the move now to Class 7 and that will hopefully help.

Whilst I agree they aren't designed to thrill they are way to easy to turn over in my opinion, in addition the Evinrude saddles are made of something with the tensile strength of cheese which also causes fun and games when the engine falls off the back of the boat! The whole setup is underpowered so everyone is forced to turn corners as fast as possible which results in inevitable consequences - they had a fatality in the UK last year from someone getting thrown out and run over ..............

[Ratickle]

They certainly seem to go over often. One racer I know thinks they would be much more stable, even though faster, with twin outboards. Your thoughts?

[Ratickle]

Stainless Marine had a huge display inside the convention center of their products available.

[Ratickle]

Nor-Tech



Bob Teague waiting to chat with Terry Sobo

[Cookee]

They certainly seem to go over often. One racer I know thinks they would be much more stable, even though faster, with twin outboards. Your thoughts?

I seem to have missed this thread - One thing would definitely help would be 15" mids but they would have to swap over to Mercury for that and P1 are too tight, twins wouldn't help but a different hull would - our race RIB used to spin out instead of tip over and that went 91 mph with a standard 280 EFI on - I offered them the hull but they never came back to me, the hulls are made in the US and the standard of work isn't something I would want to go racing in which is inexcusable as there are plenty of good laminators over there!

[Ratickle]

It is a tough call. Boat racing is dangerous, as we have been reminded too many times.

Why do you think the shorter mids would be much better? Just to lower the center of gravity?

[Cookee]

It is a tough call. Boat racing is dangerous, as we have been reminded too many times.

Why do you think the shorter mids would be much better? Just to lower the center of gravity?

Yes, they tried the Merc 300's on the Cougar hulls which had very similar characteristics and had been running the Honda four strokes (Which was the original P1 series) and they transformed the handling of the boats, I also raced OCR which consisted mostly of Phantom 18' hulls with 200 HP V6 Merc XR2's and when they brought the 15" mid out it also transformed the handling of the boats - History proves me right!

[Ratickle]

So, I wonder if there is anyway to get Evinrude to modify their mid to offer a 15"?

[Cookee]

So, I wonder if there is anyway to get Evinrude to modify their mid to offer a 15"?

Not a chance - they can't even get them to stay in one piece for racing, as far as I know the standard mids don't have an issue in normal use but they are useless for racing from what I've seen. The only sensible route would be to go to Mercury engines witht he race offshore 15" leg but they won't do the same deal that Evinrude do ....................