Terry - Your observations are correct. Production 21 = I/O's. Racing = outboards.
Guess he was just an "outboard" guy... and he liked Mercs.

Since he was really focused on demonstrating the performance of the stock Variable Deadrise hull, I suspect that running the same stock outboards everyone else ran also made it easier to demonstrate the SeaCraft's superior performance! There are so many more mods that can be made to soup up an inboard that running one of them might have been less convincing.

Outboard = less parts to worry about breaking = pilot thinking :)

strick

The Pilot`s enemy is also weight. Twins also offer better balance, shallower draft, and less fatigue. As Carla mentioned, a brutal race and the elimination of P factor or prop torque is an arm saver. It also allows more focus on navigation. Long before plug n play.

Great stuff Big,
GFS

I can just imagine doing that race today even with today's newer boats and tech it would be a killer on you and the boat....and in a 21 with a little wind kicking up the waves...ouch!!!

Great video!! Thanks.

As I watched it, I was thinking, "that's rough, but not that rough. I been out in worse." Then I remembered, speed isn't 15-20 knots, its 30-40 knots and not just an hour or so, Its 14-18 hours. Beyond my ability to even imagine how those guys stood up to that kind of punishment.

I always wondered how they navigated over 500 miles in fog, rain, heavy seas (and at night in some cases) at 30 - 40knots . . . around reefs and shallows with just a compass and chart (no loran or GPS). The videos just shows the start and not much of the race.

This was the beginning of the time magazine article. May 19th 1967.

If Monaco was a dice with disaster, the Bahamas 500 ocean powerboat race last week turned into what one contestant aptly termed "a demolition derby." The general idea of ocean powerboat racing is to take a boat out into the deep, open her up to 50-60 m.p.h., and pray. The Bahamas 500 was designed as the granddaddy of them all—a 512-mi. circle around the islands from Grand Bahama, and all for $50,000 in prize money. It should have been $1,000,000, considering the carnage.

On race day, a stiff 22-knot wind built up 6-ft. to 10-ft. waves. But out they...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...840909,00.html


Here's another SSI article - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...49/1/index.htm


http://www.wellcraftv20.com/gallery/...m07/cap043.jpg



and a year later . . . the 1968 Bahamas 500 - http://vimeo.com/5671455