Growing up in Seattle in the 1960s there was only one real sport in town: hydroplanes. These monsters would race deck to deck five abreast at 150 mph plus, their drivers only held in by a death grip on the steering wheel and one foot slammed into the bulkhead of the cockpit.
The drivers were my idols. These guys were both crazy and fearless, piloting what now seem to be very primitive boats at impossible speeds. If you’ve never seen an unlimited hydroplane they are about 30 feet long and when at speed, only a couple of feet of the entire boat is in the water. They literally fly above the surface.
Just as baseball fans could quote the statistics of their favorite players, we could tell you everything about Bill Muncey, Mira Slovak, Ron Mussen, Wild Bill Cantrell and later, Chip Hanauer and Dean Chenowith. Many of these guys are no longer with us due to horrific accidents that claimed their lives. Being in an open boat, if you flipped or hooked your boat on a wake, you were tossed from the boat. At those speeds, survival was rarely an option.
I wasn’t alone in my interest in this sport. Every August, a half million people would line the banks of Lake Washington and park their boats along the log boom to watch boat racing. It was an amazing sight to see. This was long before the days when they charged admission. Families would pack their picnics and head off for a day at the races.
As kids, we used to make model hydroplanes out of wood and tow them behind our bikes. If your hydro flipped, you were out of the race. To add realism, some of us added nails that poked downward below the boat. On a dirt loop, this would kick up a big roostertail, just like the real boats did. Today, I can’t imagine anyone putting up with the gigantic dust cloud we kicked up as five of us dashed around the dirt drive of the hermit’s house at the corner of the street. No wonder my father had to wash the car every Sunday.
Back in those days, the hydros were all powered by World War II aircraft engines. The sound of them could be heard all the way at my house about five miles away. The roar of the thunderboats was nothing short of awesome. I would open my window just so I could hear them test and qualify. For those who want a little thunderboat action, turn the speakers way up or put headphones on for the video below:
On race day, there was no need to listen vicariously. The hydro races were broadcast on all the major TV stations. Every bit of the drama unfolded and we would spend all day in front of the boob tube.
As I said, there was nothing else going on in the city as far as sports back then. This was it. And while I never took a liking to offshore racing or even the smaller limiteds, there was something so cool about these monsters, that were basically airplanes flying on top of the water at ungodly speeds.
What happens when a boat doesn't stay "on" the water.
Today, they are even much faster, going about 200 mph and I am still a fan. It took me a while to get used to the changes in the sport. The boats are now powered by turbine engines from helicopters. They make a high pitched whining sound instead of the guttural roar of Merlin and Griffon engines of my youth. The drivers are not really idol-level to me these days; they are more like pilots. To stop the number of fatalities and horrific injuries suffered in the days of open cockpits, boat designers created boats with enclosed cockpits – akin to what a fighter plane would have. They even wear oxygen masks in case the boat flips so they can breath until rescued. And they are strapped in tightly to the boat. The myth that it was better to be thrown from a boat than be stuck in it was shattered when racing legend Bill Muncey was killed when his Atlas Van Lines boat landed on top of him in Acapulco.
Oddly, hydros were one of the things I missed most about leaving Seattle and coming to Florida. The big boats aren’t big news down here. I’ve gone through seven years of withdrawals, only learning after a race what had happened, and only then who finished where.
I used to think the sport was dead. But then, the hydro guys started broadcasting races live on the Internet this year. Every Saturday and Sunday I can tune into h1hydroplanes.com and watch live feeds of the racing. The racing is the best it’s been in 15 years and you can watch some of the races from the perspective of the boat. Big sponsors are coming back, new races are being adde and the 24-45 age group has discovered the sport, the new NASCAR it seems.
If you’ve never watched unlimited hydroplanes in action, follow this link and watch a great deck to deck duel. You won’t believe that these boats can turn so tightly in the turns going 160 mph and still hold their ‘lanes.’ Watch it in HD full screen and see all the angles of the race. It’s pretty cool.
2011 Detroit APBA Gold Cup: U-7 Valken.com in Heat 4A.
In the rare times that boat racing is this exciting and well matched, it’s crazy fun and these two drivers really make it fun. Now you see why baseball is a bit boring to me, eh?
Out on the Treasure Coast, thinking about building me a new race boat for my bike,
– Robb