Quote:
Originally Posted by cdavisdb
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.
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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
and a year later . . . the 1968 Bahamas 500 -
http://vimeo.com/5671455