Belle A-66 Belle was a 135 cu in class hydro built sometime in the early to mid 1950's by Fred Wickens. Johnny Landaiche won 3 National Championships and set 3 speed records with this hydro in the 1960's.	Wilton T. "Will" Farmer Sr.  Builder of hydroplanes - passed away - Dec 11, 2006.	Buccaneer E-101 John Leach returns to Lake Sammamish with his freshly restored 280 cu in hydroplane Buccaneer E-101, 34 years to the day that he set a UIM World Competion Record. John hadn't planned on actually running the boat on the water that day but one of the racers who knew John went home and got a life jacket for him and persuaded him to it take out the for a spin. What a spin it was. John called it a "white knuckle experience" after being retired from racing for 17 years. When John alighted from his world famous Buccaneer the crowd roared and gave him a big applause. Photo by Karl Fortner
Country Boy III, N-8 1981 Nationals - Dayton, Ohio Jim Kropfeld setting up the 1979 Staudacher for the start of the final heat. He takes the win for his 5th USA National Championship in a row in N class. Photo by Gary Todd	Woody Jr's Special A-120 Woody Pleiscot, Jr.	Stardust 21-E Randy Wold just acquired Wes Knudsen's famous Fred Wickens' designed E Class Racing Runabout.
Best Wishes 222-H Doug Whitley's restored 7 Litre Jones hydroplane's first outing at Lake Sammamish 2006.	Henry was from Portsmouth, Virginia  and passed away June 1, 2006 at age 87. Henry driving WaWa Too and Rowdy	Flying Tiger F-726 Phil Mitchell pilots his newly restored John Gibbs hydro on it's maiden voyage at Dayton Testing.
Wildcatter H-40 Burnet G. Barkley	As the years went by, the Tar Heel Regatta was one of the events we all looked forward to every year. The Weaver & Murray families always did everything needed to make a great regatta and a race to be remembered and enjoyed by everyone. The best racers in the country would make an appearance at least once during the mid 1970s to late 1980s. I remember George Woods & Ken Muscatel with a 5 Litre from the west coast racing at Raleigh, making their way to the Unlimiteds, they had to race in the Inboards to get there. Dave Villwock also came with Flat Bottoms which were amazing to watch just skim on the water with such speed. Gordon Jennings and the K boats made an appearance which lasted for years as the regatta became the Eastern Divisional for many years to follow. Henry, Larry, Norman and Hank Lauterbach were also very involved at the Tar Heel with their own boats as well as many others who were lucky enough to own a Lauterbach hydroplane. Lake Wheeler, a beautiful body of water was the site and few race courses were as much fun or as beautiful. The photo is one of the 5 Litre starts at an 1980’s regatta with Roy Wilson in Southern Comfort leading the pack to the line. So many great memories from this event, every year we went back, the best racing was at the Tar Heel Regatta. Gary Todd	Mama's Mink F-22 The bottom of the hull was a a copy of Paul Sawyer's Alter Ego. My Dad straightened out a coupling problem for Paul and he was thankful enough that he loaned the hull to my Dad for a couple of weeks during the winter. He and Pop Shroeder copied it to a tee. Pop went on to build a lot of these copies making small changes as he went along. My Dad built his own version and put a different deck on the boat making it one piece across the entire width, sponson to sponson. The hull was all Sitka Spruce and marine Birch plywood. Strong as an ox and just as heavy. This was a 266 hydro and started with the old Chevrolet Flathead that he took out of his E Racing runabout, My Baby. A little ways down the pike he switched to a destroked DeSoto Hemi overhead valve engine. My Dad originally drove the boat but gradually moved out of the seat as I was able to win more races than he. The boat was pretty fast for a Northern rig but had a lot of trouble with the likes of WaWa, Chromate & other southerners. We ran mostly the Canadian races at places like Brockville, Gananoque, Trois Riveire, Valleyfield, Arnprior, Kingston, Cornwall, Alexandria Bay, Smiths Falls, Rideau Ferry,  Picton, Belleville, etc. We won a lot of these, in fact I just threw out all of the trophies, many of them wins. Don't hold me to this now, but the life of the boat in our hands was roughly 1948 to 1956. - By Don Less

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