These two boats U-27 Slo mo IV (4 first picture) and Slo mo V (5) built in Seattle in mid to late (50's) were the first unlimited hydro's. Built by Ted Jones for Stan Sayers who owned a Chrysler Plymouth dealership in down town Seattle. The picture below is of the IV being either pushed into or held back from the dealership garage. I knew the Ted Jones kids. Ron the son came often to the high school I graduated from in Tukwila and sat in with the Band as he had been a band member when attending Foster. I once went to the home of Ted Jones, because Ron had invited there for a reason I don't recall now. Ted and his wife also had twin girls, Shirley and Sharon were their names as I recall, (could be mistaken on that). To me at 17, as were they, were beautiful. I wanted to get to know them better, but life just got in the way. OH and BTW the two Allison engined Miss Triftway was on the trailer in the back yard. Ted Jones Jr. often came to band practice and often times accompanied us on Band trips around the area. He once came in and made us honorary members of the then popular Confederate Air Force of which he was full fledged member, giving each a certificate of authenticity. This gave the Jones access to the Allison's that powered those boats.......... From Wikipedia: His son, Ron Jones, Sr., and grandson Ron Jones, Jr. both also had distinguished careers with unlimited hydroplane racing. (This is just my 2 bits (25 cents for you you younger guys) worth on the subject.) Just one quick story told to us about the 1950 Gold Cup win by the IV boat. You will notice two people in the boats back then. Driver and Mechanic. For that race Ted Jones was driving, Stan Sayers was riding shotgun. The Allison being as loud as they were, (are) made it impossible to hear, (no head sets) so they worked out hand signals. During the race Ted lost track of what position they were in and signed Stan with , "where are we, what position"). Sayers being half scared out of his mind had forgotten the signals except signalling, "go faster, go faster", by shoving his hand rapidly forward, and thus they lapped the entire field twice I believe it was.
My dad on the family's old Chris Craft. It had a MEL motor in it, not sure what size, my cousin says 383 but I think 430 since it had all that power to pull all those skiers.. I used to love the way it sounded idling with the water going in and out of the pipes... That old Ford motor hauled ass too. That boat could pull 15 water skiers around Conneaut Lake, Pa...
Slo-Mo-Shun IV, hull number 1950-27. Has the distinction of always being raced as Slo-Mo-Shun IV, number U-27. Raced from 1950-1953. Slo-Mo-Shun V, hull number 1951-37, number U-37, raced with that name and number from 1951-1953. In 1956, it was sold and became Miss Seattle (1956-1962), and then became Berryessa Belle (1965), then Fascination I (also in 1965), and then Miss Tri-Cities (in 1966). All these names kept the race number, U-37.
It just so happens that Slo-Mo-Shun 5 is residing at the hydroplane museum in Kent Washington. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Yes and no. Webster's definition of the word "hydroplane" is "a powerboat designed for racing that skims the surface of the water." Using that definition, high speed powerboat racing DOE'S go back to the early 1900's. In fact, under that definition, every flat-bottom Ski-Boat would be defined as a "hydroplane". Most boat racing fans do not define a "speedboat hull", or a "stepped speedboat hull" or a "flat-bottom V-drive Ski-Boat" as meeting the qualifications of being a "hydroplane". That popular definition of a "hydroplane" seems to only include a race boat with sponsons, as in the typical "3-point hydro" type hull. Many people equate the first "3-point hydroplane" as this boat, MISS MANTEO II, which was built in 1936. It was not an Unlimited Hydroplane, I think it fit into the 225 Class. While it's true that in the Unlimited Class, there were many non "3-point hydros" running competitively (and winning) in the Unlimited Class up until about 1950, but from that point on, the SLO-MO-SHUN IV style hull remains unbeaten in Gold Cup competition. Of course, I'm willing to be wrong about all of this...
I’m certainly not interested in proving anyone wrong, but the first successful 3 point unlimited hydro was Tempo VI, built in ‘38. regardless of bottom design, the first sanctioned official Unlimited Hydroplane race was in 1903, 1904 in America. Having grown up in the boat biz and then building them for 30 odd years, I love the history of boats (not sail boat) almost as much as hot rods. I could talk about them all day long. My favorite designer is John Hacker, not that it matters, and in a perfect world I’d have a shop big enough to build one of his plans.
This design by Hacker, a childhood friend of Henry Ford, has always done it for me. A modern Van Dam build, I’ve seen many variations in length but this one I believe is in the 22’ range.
Always dreamed of building a mahogany replica of a Venetian water taxi, even found a designer in England who would do a complete set of plans for $1K. Then went to Lake Tahoe for the wooden boat show and stood next to a Chris-Craft, 26', triple cockpit on a trailer in the showroom and quickly lost interest. That thing was ENORMOUS, don't let the boats in the water fool you. Quick tip; go to the GarWood restaurant next door to the Tahoe boat show for a late lunch on the Thursday befor the show starts and park in there lot. Most of the boats are there by 4PM or so and you can just walk around , check out the boats and talk to the owners for free and no crowds.
When teaching manufacturing engineering in Auburn there was a teacher in the group who was involved heavily in the preservation and rebuilding of the old boats. He saw my '66 Rivera on day at the company car show, asked I had done the work on it and then pestered me continuously to come and join their team. I went once just to see the boats, find out what they did, (which was most anything needed). I had just remarried and thought better not. Still think about that and wish I had. Ahhhhhhhhh another wonderful life experience gone. And the last time I saw the IV, she was living in the The Museum of History & Industry'museum down town cesspool city (Seattle).
My in-laws moved to Tahoe in ‘91 and we’d hit the boat show as often as we could. (He passed away in ‘02 and she moved back to so cal.....one block from us) Even got to go on ‘Thunderbird’ once. Amazing boat and a Hacker design.
Kinda makes sense to me. Center of gravity is moved forward with less chance of flipping it over backward. Could be a handful if the nose ever caught somebody else's wake just wrong.
If you look at Svensons.com there are free plans for different types of hydros including step and pickle fork. The step hydro used a V8 60 for power. Pretty cool design.
Svensons has all the boat plans I dreamed about building/owning when I was a kid. I do have a couple of sets of plans....we'll see if I get to building them. I also have plywood and a frame kit for a 10' Glen-L "Squirt" along with 2 MK25 Mercs and a Mark 15A Merc for it
My son built a Glen L 11 foot Utility for his senior project in high school. lol, he was a little overwhelmed at just how much work was involved and he barely got it done in time for graduation. Glen L is up Lakewood Blvd from us. When I was a kid in the 60s there were more boat shops in the cities of Lakewood/Bellflower and Paramount than you could count and I worked for quite a few of them. Glen L is the last shop standing although all they sell is plans and frame kits, they were there before all the other shops.
I believe this is the Hackercraft that was owned by Bill Harrah and was restored at Harrah's Automobile collection. After it was completed the performance was not up to Mr Harrah's standards. The boat was brought back to the Boat/Aircraft restoration shop of HAC and we installed 2 Allison V-12's. We took the boat back to Lake Tahoe and it finally performed to his expectations. The Hacker was moored at Villa Harrah just north of Zephyr Cove on the lake. Villa Harrah was a beautiful home Bill Harrah had built on the lake in the 60's. Brasscarguy(Former Employee of Harrah's Automobile Collection)
I have built two Glen-L TNTs, One open and one as designed, and a power-row skiff I noticed they have recently come out with a complete Zip kit. They had done away with frame kits years ago as the cost of materials and shipping made more sense to purchase locally. Good company with good designs and support if that's what you want to build
That's right! the original owner, George Whittell, spent almost 90K in 1939 to have that boat designed and built. It had 2 V12 Kermath engines powering her. During WWII he was so worried that the boat would be pressed into government service, or the engines removed for the war effort, he hid it for the duration. When he sold the boat to Harrah in the 60's the engines had less than 100 hours on them. Thunderbird is again housed at Whittell's Thunderbird Lodge on lake Tahoe.
Didn't know that about the frame kits. We bought our son his in 2004. Little Glen L trivia. The man who's pictures are still featured in the brochures, build plans and so on was Glen's main guy when it came to wood work. He even built complete boats for sale. I asked Glen's daughter once whatever became of him? One day while cutting on his table saw he had a momentary lapse and cut off all the fingers on one hand. Ended his boat building career.
Mine too. John Hacker was one of a kind, for all out race boats or pleasure speed boats. When it comes to Unlimited Hydros in the 3-point era after 1950, it was Ted Jones. A Hacker design, built in 1950 by Andy Marcy and his son in his back yard over 15 months. This is a duplicate of MY SWEETIE, a Gold Cup boat professionally built by Les Staudacher. Andy purchased the plans from Hacker. Photos barely do it justice, the workmanship is incredible. 31' 6" in length, and 7' 8" wide with a double step about mid-ship. Allison powered of course. Just like MY SWEETIE, the engine is mounted backwards, driving into a (kind of) V-Drive, with the prop amid-ship, not under the transom. Although MY SWEETIE won the Gold Cup in 1949, MY DARLING never finished a Gold Cup event higher than fourth. Again, this was a father and son team, not a high dollar racing operation. I have been around the Gold Cup boats since I was a pup, and I've never seen a more beautiful boat than MY DARLING. The unique prop location on both MY SWEETIE and on MY DARLING...
I have this Beaver inboard conversion for Ford Flathead. Does anyone know anything about them? I was thinking I would get to it, but I'm not if anyone is looking for one, let me know.
Awesome! I had almost the same set up and sold it to a friend. Then about 10 years later I found a marine conversion for a Model A banger at the local T swap meet and picked up too. Same friend ended up with it, made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He's got a huge shop with maybe 150 outboard engines on display. He also has 2 of these... George Riley's 5 cylinder
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