Saturday was a Carbon copy of Friday at the Lucas Oil Event ” California Classic . By noon the wind put the event on hold. 3 hours of wait and the racing continued. Saturdays qualifying and Sunday at 9 am eliminations will begin. The weather is forecast to be light winds with clouds and a chance of showers by mid afternoon. There was a top fuel jet boat that crashed and sunk but. The driver was ok but the boat sunk.
I spoke to Lucas Oils Logistics and Event Planning Manager, Todd Talyor and he sent the following:
We are setting up and all is looking good for today. Its a bit overcast but today is so far the best conditions of the week, We did get a bit blown out yesterday and had a big wind delay but we were able to get in two full rounds of racing.
Look for Toxic Rocket, http://www.toxicrocket.com/home1.html this weekend at Lake Irvine May 2nd – 4th in the biggest and baddest class in drag boat racing, Top Fuel Hydro. PBN invites you all to check in on how things are going for the Lucas Oil Drag Boat Series.http://www.lucasoildragboats.com/
On 1 Apirl PowerboatNation.com’s Don Heldoorn met up with Top Fuel Hydro Team Toxic Rocket at their San Francisco headquarters to follow up on the progress of the new Bullet Hulled 22 foot hydroplane race boat. Don was given a tour of their awesome facility located in South San Francisco which covers more than 60,000 sq. feet. Owner Joe Cassidy is the owner of Granite Construction a demolition company that contracts services including the demolition of old buildings and the construction of below ground parking garages.
Don gives us a overview of his tour.
After a few cups of freshly brewed coffee, which Glen Wilson brewed up for us we were off to the fabrication area where the boat sat. We set up so video gear while Sean and Glen unloaded the transport trailer of its contents which were 30 feet of custom tool boxes custom fabricated by Sean and painted by Glen. This labor of love for the sport is what it takes for this team to compete at this level. Glen told me that we have to get this boat on the water. I need my speed fix. He quoted to me that “my addictions are not drugs but coffee and drag boat racing”.
I asked Sean a few questions about Lake Ming and if there were able to get any answers to questions about the boat while there. Sean’s reply was ” yes we are happy with the placement of the twin screws and feel that the boat (smoke on the water) took a good set on the final test run” Sean felt that they need to throw more horsepower to the engine to get a harder launch which will produce a softer landing on the sponsons.
Looking at the boat without the engine I noticed the stainless steel fuel line coming from the fuel cell, a 3″ stainless steel tube that splits into a “y” adapter before going to the blower. That carries the 14.5 gallons of fuel needed to start the engine at the line and allows it to idle for 30 seconds and launch off the line and hammer down the track for 4 seconds or less 1000 foot pass.
Looking at the fuel cell there was a bit of black soot on the back side facing the engine. Sean was laying out a piece of aluminum to put in front of the fuel cell to act as a deflector. I asked him what that was for and explained that on the last pass at Lake Ming that the motor ran to lean and blew a head gasket and the fire from the hole that it created in the block blew open flames on the cell. So as a precaution I’m making this diverter as a safety net. Nitro methane is burns hot and fast. We got lucky and fortunate that there was not more damage to the boat.”
Glen was removing the prop shafts and checking alignment in preparation of the upcoming race. I had more questions but felt the need to let these men go on with their work. I’ll have more to the story in my next article. Time to get out of here before they put me to work.
Look for much more from this weekend at Lake Irvine!
The outcomes from the Desert Storm Poker Run at Lake Havasu highlight and brought home hard what can go wrong on the water. We have now seen the video of the DCB M35 going over during the actual event too many times.
Safety? What does this really mean, we read about and hear people talk about it. Safety for the most part seems to be people talking about life jackets, kill switches, and having rescue divers at recreational boating events. Aka “Poker Runs”
In every instance of a boat crash that I have witnesses or reviewed the boat was never the problem. Now you can say it was a mechanical failure, the drive, the steering, the tunnel tab stuck, the hull came apart. Well in every instance of this occurrence the human was responsible for the design, engineering, replacement part, repair, or modification to the part and is really where the responsibility rests. The failure of the human to properly maintain and manage what they are riding is where the failure occurred.
Professionally safety protocols are broken down into two principals; prevention and response. Boating safety and event safely plans are primarily based upon antiquated response plans rather than prevention plans. You carry or wear life jackets, in case you get thrown into the water. You have fire extinguishers in case you have a fire. Well what about preventing yourself from being thrown into the water or prevent the fire from staring in the first place.
Prevention of the BOAT CRASH! In most cases the boat seems to get into trouble all by itself, rarely is it a collision or allision, typically the boat is being run with either too much positive or too much negative trim for the speed and conditions and will either trip and stuff or be turned with too much transom lift and swap ends which typically ejects all the occupants. This scenario happens all too often and it occurs in many different segments not just high performance boating; center consoles, tow boats, small runabouts; it seems the HP segment just gets a little bit more attention when it happens and the boat manufactures get a undeserved black eye. Sometimes it appears or is in fact true that a particular boat has a higher frequency of incident and the boat gets a bad reputation because of it. In one case a particular boat hull was impossible to insure because of its reputation and in reality the boat was not at fault the drivers were.
It is true that some hulls are less forgiving than others, this doesn’t mean the boat is bad it just means it requires educated and trained skill set to drive rather than the narcissist attitudes that believe if they can drive a Lamborghini they can handle a performance boat. Reality! Some hulls are very forgiving and will let the operator get away with stupid moves again and again and others are not and won’t let you miss at all, but it’s still your fault, not the boats fault. You can go to sea in a ship that should be condemned and a well trained, motivated, and incentivized crew will make the crossing and fulfill the mission, conversely you can have the best ship in the world with the most sophisticated equipment on board and the failure of the human will run it on the rocks and kill souls aboard.
The interesting and sad thing that happens when all goes bad is the lawyers, the surveyors, the insurance adjustors, and the public pontificators all assemble and begin the process of finger pointing and discovery to see who has the deepest pockets. The innocent and clearly non responsible parties usually have to pay dearly to defend themselves and pay to prove their innocence because they are not and were never responsible.
Insurance companies accept years of ownership to mitigate risk and allow this to be a measure of skill. RIDICULOUSNESS! Demonstrated Human Performance is the only thing that can help us if we move forward out of this mess. Knowledge without skill is only words on paper and performance without understanding fundamental knowledge is a precarious perch to which the human will eventually fall from.
Don’t blame the boat, Don’t blame the conditions, Don’t blame anything other than the human that was in control and the other humans that enabled them to be there. I am so very thankful for those who have lived and remain saddened by those who have not. I have lifted the body bags, I have towed the upside down boats, I have removed the drain plugs and stepped through the bloody water from the dead body in the cockpit, I have been the impromptu preacher at the poker run celebration asking for a few minutes of silence to remember those that died today. I have listened and supported to great friends who no longer boat because they have been so negatively affected by the mess of this all. In all of those cases I got to the person and to the scene too late to help. The prevention planned failed and I am tired of FAILURE and I am furious at those who silently and cowardly inhibit our efforts to bring a professionally based safety solutions.
Lake Havasu is a place and especially the Desert Storm Poker Run has become an event you must do at least once if you are into performance boating. I have been many times and I trailered by own boat out to the Lake last July just to go boating and be able to say I did it. While some may think Lake Havasu is a rather unlikely place to draw such a crowd of performance enthusiasts, it does draw them and that is all that matters. The Desert Storm Poker Run was certainly different for me this year. Tres and I only had a few people signed up for the Performance Boat School, and I did not have a boat to run during the event. To maximize my time over the weekend and get back to Fort Lauderdale to participate in another event, we flew in on Wednesday and Flew out on Friday. I raced to the lake on Wednesday after landing in Vegas and making the now customary stop at “In and Out” Burger. This year we dined with our South Florida neighbor and friend from Marine Technologies, Tim Gallagher. Then we were off and of course, just my luck, just before the speed trap at Searchlight, Nevada I got pulled over by the highway patrol and got a nice speeding ticket. Tim who was behind me in his rental got off with a verbal warning and he ended up winning the rental car race from Vegas to Havasu.
I did get to spend all of my time at the street party talking about boats and boating with everyone who came buy our PBN booth. I was thrilled to see people I didn’t know wearing our Power Boat Nation T- Shirts at breakfast at the hotel. This may not seem like much but to me it means the word about what we are doing and how we are doing it is getting out. Of course the PowerBoatNation.com girls got a bunch of attention and they were happy to stop and take pictures with everyone on the street.
PowerboatNation.com is so much more than a online forum and the comments and conversations I had with many members booth new and old who stopped by our booth to say hello reinforced that what we are doing is appreciated and valued by all and these comments were repeated over and over again.
Brad Schowenwald
Here are just a few of the boaters we captured:
Peter Hledin Douglas Marine “SKATER”
Wayne Schaldenbrand from Sunsation Powerboats
Erik Christiansen and Mike Griffiths from Mercury Racing
During my very long and very good conversation with Peter Hlendin, the owner of Douglas Marine, Inc and brain behind the incredible builds that come from Douglas, Michigan. I always learn so much when I talk with Peter and it rarely has anything to do with boats or boating, it is usually a bit of wisdom and life and I am a better person after. During our conversation about Desert Storm Peter told me he had a great time at Havasu, this was his sixth or so year coming out to the desert and has always enjoyed the event. SKATER has a strong presence on the west coast and some very loyal customers. This year Peter actually got aboard one of his boats and ran it in the shootout. Working the trim as owner Gary Colledge throttled and steered, they got the boat to 141 MPH. Peter said it was the first time in about 30 years he and ridden in one of his boats. I then had to remind him that a few years ago he did ride in one of his V-Bottoms with a friend of mine.“Remember your run with Todd in the 39 V in that poker run up by you” Peter laughed and said “that was one of the worst ride I have ever had’, my kidneys were beat, Catamarans are the way to go.” Todd Welling was the owner/racer of the Spiderman Race team that propelled Skater to numerous V-Bottom wins.
The fastest speeds of the day came from 388 Skaters both with similar but different Carson Brummett Power. John Roth’s 388 ran 179 MPH and Don London’s 388 ran 180 MPH
Lake Havasu draws all the top of the line powerboats and it is hard to stand out in the crowed. This year the “Best in Show” award went to Gary and Rosemary Colledge, owners of the spectacular SKATER 388 LE. The boat features a unique enclosed canopy, custom appointed interior,and air conditioning. Powered with Mercury Racing 1350 M8 package it is a high powered fast catamaran with a certain refinement and distinction unlike any other.
Look for much more to come out of Michigan from Skater. It looks like I may be making a trip to the factory in June following a Boat School I am doing in Detroit June 1st.
We’re packing the trailer and getting things ready for Havasu! It has been about nine months since I have been to Lake Havasu, the last time I was there I had my boat with me and I was truly on a Nation Wide Powerboating experience. I had a great time running around the lake with my west coast friends and can only wish I had the time to bring the boat and the entire entourage back for Desert Storm.
This time we come officially as PowerboatNation.com and we are bringing the fun with us for the street party. You will find us on the street with the PowerboatNation.com Playmates at our vendor booth! Stop by and say hello. Sign up for membership and get your PBN T-Shirt on site! Take a picture with the PowerboatNation.com Playmates and see your picture on the website! Don’t forget to be ready to catch a free shirt from our one and only PBN Custom T-Shirt Cannon! We are also bringing out some new merchandise and apparel that will be available as well. We’re going to rolling out a load of new PBN merchandise which will soon be available for purchase online if you can’t make it to Havasu!
Powerboat Nation.Com is a online platform designed to support the Powerboating lifestyle and experience nationwide and the boating community at Lake Havasu is an important part of our base. We look forward to meeting some new and old friends! Stop In Say hello and if you can’t make it to the desert, come back online and check out what we bring back with us!
A huge part of our Powerboating life is finding the boat, the parts, the equipment, the services, the hauler, and sometimes the waterfront home to keep the boat at. A new exciting and different Classified Offering is now linked to PowerboatNation.com. PBN Classifieds offer something different, with a variety of placement options, photo attachment capabilities, and VIDEO options. Both commercial and individual advertisers can upload videos of their offerings to bring a new dynamic to the presentation of what they are offering for sale.
PBN Classifieds are just another example of how we look to bring everyone something innovative and better than they can find anywhere else. One of the most aggravating things that can happen with any online experience is when the selected media doesn’t deliver the request in a simple and easy way. We didn’t just copy what was already out there we looked hard to find a solution that works easily and is intuitive. Please enjoy our new offering and let us know what you think of it.
PowerboatNation.Com Classifieds is now open. Check it out review it and fill it with what you want to offer for sale. We are offering for a limited time FREE 2-Week listings on the site as a launch special. We are also offering a variety of paid listing packages to suit your selling needs!
Are you a boat dealer? Then Contact us about your own dealer account on the site!
This week brings the first of the PBN member profiles. The heart and soul of any enthusiast driven sport or activity rests with the enthusiasts themselves. While it might be interesting to see are read about a 50 foot new Catamaran with huge new factory power, the reality of our world is rooted with greasy hands wrenching in bilges rather than writing checks and signing deals in board rooms. I am an enthusiast; I have a passion for boating and messing about with boats. I am not a professional journalist, photographer, or businessman. Call me a boat bum, water rat, or whatever you want. I am the one who believes as the rat in the mind of Kenneth Grahame believed “There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of ‘em, it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do.” I am urged by no other motivation than my passion of Powerboating and to spread the world and develop a platform that enables all of us the ability to buy, build, repair, and rebuild what we love without having to pay needlessly let’s just say it’s more of a. “Built not bought” attitude.
The only thing that outweighs the fiberglass and iron is the band or brothers and sisters that have assembled as we bust knuckles together and actually do what we do. One day all the stories will come out, crashed rental cars, strip clubs, road trips, plane trips, and boat tales The good and the bad; in the end we can say that we didn’t just talk about it we do it, we lived it and we did the best we could with what we had.
I want Powerboat Nation to be the place where from minor mods to major overhauls we will give you what you need to make your ride the best it can be for the lowest cost it could be.
My first member profile is about two guys who have known each other since they were young. I had the privilege to meet them when they enrolled in the Performance Boat School after buying a Catamaran. These guys and others like them are the fuel that feeds the future of Performance Powerboating from where they came from to where they are now at to what the aspire to go to. The progression is now under full acceleration and they are turning up at winter Poker Runs in the south before the boat goes north for the summer.
Mathew Gordon from Greenwich , Connecticut and Edward Dawson from Cross River New York met over 27 years ago when in their twenties they both got jobs working as lifeguards while they were paying their way through college. These guys are unusual as they have maintained a friendship for so
long and it has been surrounded by activities. Surfing, life guarding, and Powerboating beginning with a 16 ft Crestliner pushed with a 115 HP outboard and since then they have gone through a bunch of boats. A, Mako, Grady White, Scarabs, Formula PC Cruisers, Donzi and now a 377 Hustler Talon Cat powered with 750 HP Naturally Aspirated Cobras on B- Max Drives and when I talked with them at the Florida Powerboat Clubs Tampa Bay poker run a hint of a possible move to a MTI slipped out.
Matt and Ed have at least six Florida Poker Runs under their belt and are now planning more before the boat goes back to Connecticut for the summer. They do as they have done for years they work on the boat together and travel together. They have known each other for so long they know each other’s every move. The whole Powerboating Lifestyle they share is grounded in the boat. Their wives don’t really like the boat but it doesn’t matter because it is what they enjoy and what they do and I don’t think the boat type or speed really has anything to do with it; it is simply the idea that they are actually doing it. They removed the drives and had them rebuilt/replaced did some minor work to the boat and now have had a series of trouble free runs. Now they are having fun with the boat and maybe having more fun looking, thinking, dreaming about the next one. A MTI? Maybe, we shall see!
Full schedule for Gulf Coast Offshore I cant believe I am going to miss Tickfaw again. Next year we may have to not go to Havasu
Upcoming Events
April 20 & 21 Prop Stop – Grand Re-Opening Weekend – Come by and see the changes we are making! Games & Prizes !
April 26 Smokin the Sound – Category V Shootout – 888-808-1188 This should really be exciting to watch and participate
April 27 Smokin the Sound – Poker Run – 888-808-1188
April 27 Baton Rouge Boat Club – Amite 100 Poker Run – See Baton Rouge Boat Club Face Book page
April 27/28 Blind River Bar Grand Re-Opening Weekend
April 28 Smokin the Sound – Super Boat International Races
May 2/4 Tickfaw 200 – Blood River Marina – Need hotel accommodations – check out Microtel Hotel in 727 West Pine St, Ponchatoula, 985-386-8866 (Connie is contact – Mention Randy Cavanaugh for some hook up pricing!) Plenty of boat trailer parking
May 3-4 Smokin the Lake Races in Biloxi
May 25 Tickfaw River Redneck Regatta 2pt at Hwy 22 Public launch at Boopalu’s –
Homemade Boat Race – 225-907-7270 Leesha
May 26 Krewe of Bilge Poker run – Slidell LA
June 1 Beginning of the Summer Lake Bash – Blind River Bar – before & after party
June 1 Mystics of Pleasure – 14th Annual Thunder Run Poker Run – Orange Beach – Mystics of Pleasure Poker Run
June 8 Twin Cities Rotary Club Poker Run – Monroe, LA Contact – http://www.facebook.com/events/309438179179328/
Mark your Calendars
July 19 – 21 GCOffshore annual trip to Horn Island – overnight stay at Palace Casino $89 for members – contact Craig@gcoffshore.com – Rooms are now available to book! – now is the time to book yours
The Sky Parts and the Sun Shines for the Florida Power Boat Clubs Tampa Bay Poker Run. When PowerboatNation.Com and Brand X Hi Performance Marine arrived in St Petersburg ,Florida to prepare for the poker run everyone was talking doom, gloom, and rain. Well the rain never materialized and early Saturday morning the wind was light and the sky was bright and sunny.
The 38 boat fleet was compromised of just about every type of boat. Big High Horsepower Cats, V- Bottoms and 9 boats in the sport class which included quite a few center consoles, the fleet ranged from a 34 foot Powerquest to the 80 foot Nor-Tech “Lady Lisa” The club also welcomed 5 new members during the event.
Stu had local fire rescue resources on hand for the safety plan and said he has made some great new contacts with the local fire department and city management. Next year he is looking to file permits to close the street in front of the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel and Marina, and set up a full poker run village on the street. The location really does lend itself to host an incredible event, there are two large open parks and it is right next to downtown. The Vinoy is an incredibly nice and luxurious property in a perfect location, I remember being here in 2001 with APBA when they were nearly 80 race boats in the pits next to the hotel and that was before they had the adjoining marina, now with the marina docks in place it is the perfect spot for this type of event. It is a little tight but we were able to launch a 39 Cigarette that we hauled over with a toter home and the 388 Skater with the F650 at the ramp next door. When the hotel valet filled up with too many Sport Chassis and F650’s we parked all the haulers on the street across from the park right in front of the hotel, the parking tickets were only $25.00 per day which was 75% less than the hotel value so it worked out perfect.
Thanks to Stu and Jacky as well as all of the FPC members who supported the event.
Last Friday I spoke with Kevin Hellman who is the Product Manager for Digital Rigging at Mercury Marine about the new VesselView 7 SmartCraft Display that we first saw on the New SV 42 MTI Center Console that incorporated Mercury’s Theft Deterrent Device . One of my first questions was how intuitive was the new VesselView because in my opinion the previous versions could be improved upon. Kevin said they were much more intuitive and that focus groups and on water testing with boaters who had no experience with the devices drove the project to make the new products easy to use.
The VesselView 7 features a 6.4-inch glass touch screen, the unit displays more than 30 engine parameters, including fuel level and range, oil temperature and pressure, battery voltage, water depth, generator monitoring, HVAC and more. The ECO mode tells operators what trim and rpm settings will give them the best fuel economy. This feature won a “Green Product of the Year” by West Marine in 2010 and can provide up to 20 percent better fuel economy. The diagnostic scans are also performed when the engines are running and gives the operator all needed information and alarms. The technology is also adaptive, so it will remember user options and provide the information most often or repeatedly used.
VesselView 7 is capable of monitoring up to four engines and can function as a full navigation piece when interfaced with a Mercury unlock GPS puck, or a Lowrance or Simrad chart plotter. The unit will work with any other display with the gateway software and will provide data to those units using their screen architecture. VesselView 7 is compatible with SmartCraft-ready Mercury outboards 40hp and above, MerCruiser engines, Mercury Racing engines and Mercury Diesel engines. I will remember to bring a full follow up when I have had some sea time with the new displays.
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