SOTW Exclusive: Single-Engine Offshore V-Bottom Classes Merging

[Speed on the Water]

A smart move for a stronger single-engine V-bottom raceboat future, https://www.speedonthewater.com/sotw...asses-merging/

Eric Colby reports.

[john acosta]

I have an idea..

How about getting GM or Mercury to build an engine specific to that class and force the racers to buy them,
heck they could even be in charge of sealing the engines.

Single V -class is heading back to A class where it originated.Thank goodness

[Ratickle]

We will see how this shakes out. All they need is 3 boats to keep running the 525 injected versus the carbed engine.

[john acosta]

those particular v hulls are a fan favorite .mine certainly.

watching them run around the course is definatly an ooh aah wow did you see that moment.

have 10 to 15 of those run the first race .
then 750 cat the second race .on race day .
and go home happy , and positive as to who won which race.

[Ratickle]

They have some work to do though. It's not just the engines being carbed or injected. They have pretty much tweaked that over the years. Now they can both be rebuilt, bored out to .030 over and shaved heads to increase compression etc. But, the difference between single step, multi-step, etc weights has to be tweaked a bit I believe because the maximum length allowed in the injected was 30' and the maximum length in the carbed was 32'. Should there be a weight allowance for length if they do want to combine the classes?

They have yet to publish the 2023 rules, even though the 2023 UIM rules have been out since December 22 of last year. Hopefully they get them out soon. People are trying to build new boats but have no idea what the rules are for this year. If they don't tweak their criteria, there will be no boats racing because none will conform to what they said this year's criteria will be.