The Vintage Hydroplanes

“Eastern Competition Boat Builders” was an article written by Jack Sweeney for HOT BOAT QUARTERLY in 1966.
If you are on a desktop computer – the best way to view this book is to click the “toggle fullscreen” button, then use your arrow buttons on the keyboard to advance to the next covers. I scanned this at a larger format, so you can “enlarge the pages” to read by clicking the “zoom in” button. When you are done with reading the book, just press your “Esc” (escape) key and your monitor will go back to your normal view.

I received this email from Sean 10/1/2023:

Hello sir and good day.  My name is Sean Zeiders.  I am an auctioneer in PA and I had the absolute pleasure of spending a little over a year going through and selling the Lloyd estate after the unfortunate passing of Mike in ‘21.  I’m sorry to say I just now read through your history with one of Charlie Lloyd’s boats.  I finished up there some months ago but I’d have to believe you would have found a lot of interest in that place just as I did.  I was actually in the shop as a kid about 10-12 yrs old. We were getting ready to build a micro sprint and needed some design help.  Back in those days, where did you go when you needed help with torsion tube heights on a chassis?  Turn to the master craftsman at Lloyd racing enterprises.  I had been racing 2 strokes and was building everything out of another racers shop.  Freddy Ricupero’s R & R machine shop in Enola. Freddy and Mike raced together in the Sprinters. When I asked Freddy if he could build me a micro chassis, he said we will need Mike and Charlie in on this. That’s how I first met them. Roughly 35 years later I found myself back at that shop

In Highspire, now Middletown.  It was very sad to see all that racing history come to an end. Those guys were true artists, craftsman, innovators.  

After all those years, all the auctioneers that Michelle could have found in the state, I got the call. She was referred to me because of my knowledge in what was there but not because she knew me. We had never met. I was only at the shop a couple times and I was really young at the time but I had a connection with it.  I had looked up to Mike and his work.  A Lloyd chassis was hard to beat in those days.  I was excited and honored to do the project.  And a project it was indeed.  They kept everything from Charlie’s stuff in the 50’s and on up.  I don’t know if you ever ventured down to their shop or not.  As passionate as you are about that boat, I’d bet you have been there.   If you haven’t been there, you might not believe the amount of racing history was contained in all those buildings.    Endless.  I could go on and on boring you for hours with the stuff I turned up there.  Or talking about the millions of unfinished projects.  Just to look and figure out what they were going to build was an adventure itself.  I spent waYYYY TOOOO MUCH TIME THERE  but I couldn’t help but to be thorough. Some friends had bought various thing from the estate and I gained custody of them because i supposedly have space. There is some pictures here, maybe a ‘50’s  hydroplane trophy.  I have one or possibly multiple of Charlie’s block for the 2.5 liter class I believe. I was told they were racing with iron dukes as engines.  Innovative Charlie took the all aluminum Buick / Olds 215 cu inch V8 and sleeved it down to 150 cu inches.  That added some weight to that block but that was still a V8 advantage.  I was told they cleaned up the class for some time. He sleeved them down so far he had to cut a valve relief in.  I’ll send a picture of the block up on my shelf of “cool old stuff” in my warehouse (see below).  I couldn’t see it go to scrap when I knew this was Charlie’s work. Definitely had his hands on this machine.  

I’m sorry I hadn’t found or actually took the time to read it or I would have invited you down.  Lots of chief’s stuff was still there.  The tables he built boats on, the hand planes, rasps, fiberglass molds, on and on it went.  You likely knew they were into airplanes also. They even had a 1/3rd scale wind tunnel there that they built themselves.  51 or 52 small tubes hooked up to a model of the sprint car named “pocket rocket” and the other ends led to monometers.  That’s getting it done!   That’s how you design and build something that goes to the track and shatters the track record time by nearly a second on its debut run.   Oh my the stories that’s place had to tell.  Heck maybe I’m not telling you a thing, you may very well know all this and have been there more than me. But feel free to reach out if there is anything I might be able to help with.  I had my hands on a lot of history there and I remember were many things went. A lot of Mike’s friends bought stuff at the various sales.  I found your story fascinating and think it’s just awesome.  I’d love to see your boat one day.  How cool is it to have one of Charlie’s first boats. Are you the one who convinced him to built that last hull I heard about?  They said somebody convinced him to make “one more”.  He did it, blind and all.   Thank you and God bless

Kindest regards,

Sean Zeiders R.I.C.E. Auctions LLC

I saw your website and want to share a photo I have of my dad’s hydroplane from 1950-1955. My dad was Dr. Ralph Beare of Celina, Ohio and our driver was Larry Kruger of Neptune, Ohio. Larry died from a swimming accident in August of 1955 at a race in Petoskey, Michigan. This is a class D hydroplane, Lou-Jan II, named for my mother, Lucinda, and me, Jan. Larry was a very talented driver and many of the young drivers we knew, went on to make brilliant careers, ie Dean Chenoweth.
We also had Lou-Jan I but it was not the big winner that II was. I do not know what happened to it, as we sold it in 1955 after Larry died.
Jan Jones guitarjan@att.net