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03-08-2015 11:12 PMThe opinions herein reflect the author’s judgement at the time it is made but is subject to change at any time.
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03-09-2015 09:46 PM
24' Banana Boat - Top Banana The birth of the Banana Boat Company.
This hull used to be the Cigarette 24. It was the first 24 foot boat made from the molds that Don Aronow took from the Cigarette production and sold to Charlie. The boat was rigged by Don for Charlie at Magnum Marine. Don owned both Cigarette and Magnum at the time.
The deck is a 24 Cigarette deck that has additions to make the race configuration. Engines were twin 350 TRS packages blueprinted by Stan Irwin of Miami.
Driver/owner Charlie McCarthy, Navigator Ron Morrison, and Mechanic, Dick Hart. Charlie drove and throttled the boat.
The top photo is from the 1976 Key West Race it took first place in the Modified class. The boat also took first place in Gloucester, Plymouth and Narragansett Bay that year.
The boat was sold in 1978 and raced for another year under the name Gone Bananas by Chuck Fogarty and Neil Cody.Getting bad advice is unfortunate, taking bad advice is a Serious matter!!
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03-10-2015 10:40 PM
Great Stuff, Cannot wait to read more!
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03-11-2015 08:26 PMIt still amazes me to see some of the pics where the boats are so high in the air. Especially the 24's!!!!!!
Getting bad advice is unfortunate, taking bad advice is a Serious matter!!
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03-15-2015 08:44 PMThe two guys that raced Gone Bananas were Green Berets that had just come back from Viet Nam. They had a lot of stories and we all listened and smiled thinking...yeah, sure, nice story.
Then one day it became real. One of these guys went to lunch in Newport with another Banana Boat owner. They had a nice lunch and after walked back to the marina where they left the other guys boat. Their path led them through a warehouse area. One of the warehouses had a big fence around the yard and as they walked by, a Doberman Pinscher came running out and came right up to the fence really barking and jumping around.
The Gone Banana guy told the dog to ...Shut Up. The dog kept barking. Next thing this guy is over the fence and chases the dog back into the warehouse. My other customer told me that the look in the dogs eye was pure fear as he watched him climb the fence. A few minutes later he came back and jumped back over and they walked back to the boat. He was real and so were the stories. He loved offshore racing, he said it gave him the same rush as combat did.Light travels faster than sound....that is why some people appear bright until we hear them speak!!
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03-15-2015 08:52 PMYes, I said there were two guys who raced this boat.
The other guy? Well, to say that he had a different way to deal with stress is putting it mildly.
He would sit at the bar and enjoy a nice stiff drink.......and then he would eat the glass. Yup, the glass would disappear.Light travels faster than sound....that is why some people appear bright until we hear them speak!!
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03-16-2015 08:12 PMI watched a guy eat a glass once. What a nut!!
Any idea if they are still around somewhere?Getting bad advice is unfortunate, taking bad advice is a Serious matter!!
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03-18-2015 04:12 PMThere was a 66 Top Banana and a 60 Top Banana. Were they the same boat with different numbers?
Getting bad advice is unfortunate, taking bad advice is a Serious matter!!
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03-21-2015 08:14 AM
All of the photos in post 12 are from the first water test in Fort Lauderdale in 1978.
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07-15-2015 04:59 PM"Top Banana"
The phrase “top banana,” meaning the leader or boss, traces its roots back to vaudeville. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the term caught on after a leading vaudevillian, Frank Lebowitz, incorporated bananas into his act in the early 1900s; the term “second banana,” for supporting actor, also caught on around this time.