NOTES: 
V & H member Jim Hawver of Rochester, NY dropped us a line regarding The Wine County Classic Boat Show and Regatta held on July 14th thru 16th.  It features a 20 mile race around the Lake for Antique Boats. Last years' winner was one of our members Curt Brayer in the Dancing Bear. This event is open to both outboards and inboards. Thanks for dropping us a note! Jim has quite a collection of both vintage inboard and outboard boats.

CHALLENGES: 
Charlie Strang from Antioch, IL  wrote us a letter. He has identified the F-3, Bad News from the March Propeller challenge.  This was a 225 hydro owned and driven by Gibson Bradfield of Barnsville, Ohio. Charlie dug this information out of his well worn 1940 APBA yearbook. APBA used to print the boat numbers as well as the driver’s name back then. He then verified it by looking at the driver in the photo with a strong magnifying glass. It was indeed a fairly youthful Gib Bradfield. Bradfield, incidentally, was elected president of APBA for 1952-1953. Charlie states that he enjoyed the article greatly, Red Bank and the Albany to New York Race were highlights of the year for him as a teen-age boat racer!
 Michael Nadeau from San Diego, CA is looking for pictures of Gene Hawthorne’s B Utility.  The number of the hull is B-11-M, and the boat was known as Roving Kind.  The hull was either a Sid Craft or a Speedliner, era 1950’s  and had a Mercury Marc 20H. Can any of our members answer the challenge?
 Cassandra Dimick of Reno, Nevada has a 20 ft offshore racing boat built in the late 1950’s with a V-Bottom. Topsides were red and hull was white. It also has a V-drive with a single big block Chevy. Quite possibly this might not be the original engine power plant. The boat is mostly wood with a fiberglass cover over the engine. There were only 7 Ankarrows built as a prototype for a racing circuit in the Long Beach, CA area. Cassandra does not know if this is where the racer lived or if this is where the boat was built? If any member has any information on the Ankarrow boats, please contact Cassandra at (702) 827-0747.

VINTAGE HOT BOAT OF THE MONTH: 
Walt Struzek’s The Vagabond E-103 was one of the nation’s hottest 280’s in the sixties and seventies. This boat was designed and built by  Dick Sooy, and was powered with a strong Walt Stevenson engine. This combination achieved  multiple National High Point Championships, two National Championships along with a World Kilo Record. Walt was also a Region 3 Inboard Vice Chairman. Walt’s mascot “Flaps," a basset hound whose likeness was characterized on his hydro’s tailfin was a constant companion with Walt and Cammie at all the regattas.

BOB MOORE’S EAST COAST REPORT: 
 85 degrees, bright sunshine, classic and vintage boats, southern hospitality and “old” boat racers; all were prominent at the 8th Annual Classic Boat Show held in Mt. Dora, Florida, March 24 - 26. Although the show was not APBA sanctioned it looks like it will be in 1996, thanks to Henry Lauterbach and Tom D’Eath.
 Tom and Henry brought the Wa-Wa and the “new” old Lauterbach Special to Mt. Dora and were the big hit at the show.  Seeing Tom and Henry out on the water doing Fly-bys brought back many fond memories to this writer as the many former (and current) boat racers on the shore.
 I’m really looking forward to next March. The organizers of the show want as many race boats as we can bring down. They would like to make it a major Vintage Race Boat Show, the Clayton of the South. If it works out, it ought to become another event like the old St. Pete race.
 Speaking of Florida, I’d like to take this opportunity to bid a fond farewell to my good buddy, Doug Apy. Doug, along with Skip Gillam and me formed the first Vintage club to join the APBA, the National Sweepstakes Vintage Boat Racing Association back in the fall of 1992. Doug restored Sonny Jones’s old Colcock 48 cu.in. hydro Sis  that was renamed  C-U Later. Doug who has been showing it off here in the East, is leaving Jersey and headed to Florida. Good luck Doug and Penny, we’ll miss you. 
 Skippy by the way has picked up yet another old hydro, Lou Schnieder’s Lloyd 150 cu.in. hydro and has also picked up a Falcon to power it.  What does that make now Skip, 5 or 6 boats to restore?
 I’ve been contacted by the Race Committee from the Greenwood Lake (NJ) regatta. They want some Vintage Race Boats at their May 21 & 22 event. Time permitting, we will be able to do some fly-bys also. This is a good site and goes back a long time. 
 We’ve been invited to several regattas this year so it is up to us to get the boats together and support these events. The Race Committees thought enough of us to invite us, so lets support them and attend these events. Please let either Tom or I know what events you’ll be attending so that we can let the Committees know what kind of turn out they can expect.

JACK VAN DEMAN SR. SPECIAL REPORT: 
I know that the 48 cu.in. and the 91 cu.in.  hydro classes are no longer in existence today but they are a part of our APBA history. I thought that you might be interested in the origins of the 48 cubic inch hydro class.
 The first boat, M-1, Shorty was built by John Peek of Port Arthur, Texas. It was a 9 foot hydroplane powered with a tin block 44 cu. in. Crosley. At that time there was a probationary 48 class whose rules were outlined in the May-June APBA News Letter, page 7.
 John Peek was racing this boat during the 1948 season in Texas against the 135’s with some success.  My father, J.N. Van Deman, was in Texas on business when he went to a boat race. This was quite natural since our family had been involved in outboard racing since 1931. My father was so impressed with this hydro that he bought it on the spot!  It was shipped by rail to Red Bank, NJ where it was picked up and brought to Fair Haven Yacht Works in Fair Haven, NJ. The hydro was paid for with winnings from a Daily Double won at nearby Monmouth Park. My mother, upon seeing the boar for the first time, asked “Why?” so many times that my father renamed the boat Why? 
 The first time we raced was at the 1948 National Sweepstakes Regatta in Red Bank, NJ. There being no 48 class scheduled I was allowed to run with the 91 hydro class with the understanding that I could win no prizes. Racing, I led to the first turn, but had to drop out when I lost my cooling water. Everyone was quite impressed with the boat.
 At the 1948 APBA National Meeting in Cincinnati, my father, John Peek, and Eddie Campanella proposed the formation of the 48 cu.in. Hydroplane class for the 1949 season. This was adopted and 1949 became the first official season for the class.  The specific rules can be found in the 1949 rule book on pages 150 and 151. The first Technical Committee is listed on page 42. Most of the races during the 1949 season were run in Maryland and Virginia, and by 1950 there were many more 48’s in Texas and on both coasts as well as a group in the midwest. In 1951 I was able to win the National Championships in this boat.
 In addition to being the originator of the 48 hydro class, John Peek was also a great innovator. He built a 91 cubic inch hydro for my father which he guaranteed would break a record. This boat which we called Red Witch was powered with a Wildcat 88 which was an engine Peek built from two 44 cu. in. Crosleys. The boat set several records during the ‘49-‘51 seasons and won three consecutive National Championships as well as virtually every race it finished over the same three year span.
 My induction into the Gulf Hall of Fame in the fall of 1949 was made possible by John Peek, one of the major contributors of technology and improvement to our sport.

©1995 Tom D'Eath