I saw this photo today and thought it it was pretty bitchin,..this is the motor from the new Miss Wahoo that is getting its first launch today in the waters of Lake Washington in preperation for Seafair. http://www.misswahoo.com/ http://www.thunderboats.org/
Allison huh,............................... Well its no Merlin but under present world economical stresses l am willing to site this as cool. l do hope that garden hose is long or its gonna overheat real quick when it pulls offa' the tap, where are ya gonna get another hose with water enough out on a lake to keep it cool?? Doc
Good one, Rich - let's see how many people on the coasts figure this one out. And, yes to those of you outside of Nebraska, Wahoo is a real town.
A guy I work with is part of this build. He planned to tape the maiden spin around the lake today. If he did, I'll to post it. It's been cool to follow and have updates from him over the last few months.
The Miss Wahoo DID make her maiden voyage today on Lake Washington 3 laps,.... here is the link to their website,.. http://www.misswahoo.com/
If it is Norm running the engine , it sure looks like Carrol Shelby on the Left. Some new Shelby boat in the works ? Great pic. Thanks for posting.
I watched this boat run when I was a kid. In 1992 or about then I painted the Miss North West Construction in 10 days 4 colors by my self, it was an old Budweiser hull & the win ingest piston boat hull at the time just as they were really getting the kink's worked out of the chopper turbine motors Danny.
There is a movie that tells the story of the original Miss Wahoo, made for TV like 'The Californian Kid' was. Not a bad flick, where else you gonna see these things whenever you want? From memory the team had blown there last motor and were out of racing for the season, the township pitched in, they rebuilt the boat and won the championship or some sort of Grand National race. (I don't know shit about boats! They were just big gray taxi's that took us to shitty places, gray funnel line......) Doc.
I too watched Mira Slovak and the Miss Wahoo as a kid growing up in the Puget Sound. He was a terrific driver and had NO fear...he flat hauled ass!!! Great to see a recreation of the boat and to see he is still alive and well. Those were the days when hydroplane racing was exciting to watch, unfortunately the life span of the drivers was pretty damn short due to the danger & speed involved.
Heck Ya! When Seafair would start and the Thunder Boats would start practicing on the lake, we could hear the roar all the way over in white center. Heck, we'd watch the races on TV and run outside to hear the engines going around the course. Awe yes, the days of the Miss Bardhall, Miss Budweiser, the PaynPak machine, and the u-boats! Those were awesome days! Larry
Thanks Landseaandair - - MORE!!! please. The guys that drove these boats truly must have had big ones. Cheers, Art R.
The movie "Madison" is one you want to see. It tells the story of the boat Miss Madison and how it came from underdog to winner in 1971. The story is part fiction but some facts still remain. A beautiful movie any motorhead should see. Here is a little article about the movie and how it was made and how the boats were obtained and used. http://www.seattlepi.com/movies/221256_hydro23.html Here is the trailer for the movie showing the restored boats in mock race. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_-y6NOvfug
Unlimited class should have stuck with the internal combustion engines. Granted...turbines are faster, but what a stupid sound...whoooooosh. I love them big V12s....years ago Chrysler Crew ran two Hemis....there was a neat sound too. If you've never peeked inside one of these aircraft engines, find one and look. Forked connecting rods, roller bearings...super precision stuff. Plus...they're beautiful inside AND out. I've repeated this before, but a gentleman named Bob (last name is out there somewhere) had several surplus Allison 1710s and I believe a few Merlins also in a warehouse out in the part of Bothell, WA that is now a high-tech corridor just N of the 405. He was a major gearhead - had Tbucket mods...dunebuggy bodies all over. Took a couple of trips out there when I was involved in boat racing many eons ago to pick up parts and drink beer. dj
I used to either listen to the Seafair races on the radio or watch them on TV back when they showed them. And back when they ran the piston engines. And yes you could hear those boats for miles. One of the reasons they went to turbine engines is that they used up most of the surplus piston engines and the cost of engines went sky high. <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
I went to my first Seafair/hydro races in 1999. Sat on the over-crowded west side shore along the park road, cheek by jowl. The crowd was the typical state fair type of crowd, basically uninterested in anything other than hanging out at some event--any event--all day long, eating and drinking. Turbine boats ran a few times as did the lesser V8 boats and the crowd was basically unmoved. Blue Angels: zoom, boom, ooh, ahh. Then around 4:00 came the vintage V-12 hydros. The first one cranked with a big WHAAAP and two clouds of exhaust shooting up from the stacks and the place came alive. Pretty soon there were four or five "thunderboats" cruising around the Gold Cup course warming up and everyone was on their feet. Then they pushed it up and ran a demo race at maybe half speed--80 mph or so--and some guy grabs my arm and says, "That's the Atlas boat! I made of model of that boat when I was a kid!!!" The whole crowd was electrified and pointing at the boats as the "thunder" roared. Then it was over. A few of the boats idled past the shoreline and the drivers waved and then all was quiet. The crowd went back to its indifferent we-are-all-strangers eating and drinking state fair thing. Gold Cup Final (turbines) was the typical anti-climactic Miss Budweiser show.
I grew up, well not really, ..but on Kents East Hill near the Ad Lib Tavern, you could hear the boats when they made the turn into 1 & 2 when the winds were out of the north, Kent is about 26 miles from the racing circut,... In 1975 I was 10 yrs old, and let me tell ya Seafair back in the 70`s and early 80`s could never ever be topped again, 200-300,000 people lining the shores another 10,000 boats on the log boom, those were the best days ever, and is real compariable to the drag races seattle had in the 70`s, God I miss those days,..in mid 1980`s they put up fences, and you couldnt bring your coolers,..by 1988-89 it cost money to get in the gates to line the shores,..I am very fortunate to have been able to experiance the thunder boats on Lake Washington, and all the cool Drag Races in the Northwest, I will cherrish the memories forever. LONG LIVE NOSTALGIA RACING,... Vic
Ok here it is,.THE VIDEO.....Its only 1 lap but as it comes back around torwards the end of the vid the sound is awesome.... Miss Wahoo maiden voyage Lake Washington July 14, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlUXSnJgJtI&feature=email Vic
My dad took us to all the races in and around Washington state...also Idaho, British Columbia, and twice to Lake Tahoe back in the mid/late 50's. Bardahl, Thriftway, Exide, Budweiser, Madison, Wahoo, Tahoe Miss (Bill Harrah's) I used to have them all memorized as a kid! Seafair & the Gold Cup, great memories...never to be duplicated!
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