"Videos" didn't exist when these boats were in their prime in the 60's, but maybe Kmoose got some of Terry's boat running at our Anclote gathering last year. Would be neat if we could get some videos of Terry's 21 and the 25 Seafaris of Connor and Dave running offshore up at the Long Point in May! I think Big Shrimpin has posted a link to a movie of an early Bahamas 500 (maybe '67) that showed some raceboats running in 6'+ seas.
Carla's web site has a lot of info on the race results showing the 21 beating a lot of much bigger more powerful inboards and most all of the outboards! .
1st pic below is one I took of the Unohu in the late '70's on a run across the 10-20' deep Little Bahama Bank north of Grand Bahama in the 2' square waves (2' high & 2' apart!) typical of the shallow Bank with the wind bucking the current. Note that owner Bob has his wife sitting in aft facing seat to heal the boat to stbd away from the waves, effectively increasing deadrise relative to waves. (He didn't use trim tabs . . . he just moved folks around in the boat for lateral trim!) I followed him back across the Gulf Stream from West End in 10 kt winds that clocked from the NW, to N to NE and taught me why everyone says "Stay the hell out of the stream if wind is from
any northern quadrant!" Seas were about 2-4' on stbd bow at the start (which had my Seafari airborne at 20 kts on about every 10th wave! This was my first Bahama trip, so Bob called back on VHF and said "I'm seeing and awful lot of
daylight under your boat, like everything but the
prop! Get over in my wake about 2 boat lengths off the transom and you'll be a lot more comfortable!" He also slowed down a bit and that helped me to at least stay in the water!). In the middle of the stream wind was N, producing steep 6-8' breaking seas on the beam, shifting to NE with 2-4' steep breaking seas on stbd quarter for about the last 20 nm. The waves were so steep and close together on the last segment I was concerned about stuffing the bow into the wave ahead and pitchpoling, so when a big one came along, I'd turn up into it and back off throttle. Lots of throttle jockeying on that trip and I sure wished I'd had a solid transom back then! The 60 nm trip took 4 hrs, so we averaged about 15 kts.
This trip taught me a lot about the SeaCraft's robust construction . . . the Wellcraft V-20 running with us was virtually destroyed! The back-to-back seats disintegrated, the saddle tanks broke loose at the bracket welds, there was a big crack in the cabin bulkhead, and there was a 4' crack in the hull where a plywood stringer had come loose. On my Seafari, a few screws at the bottom of the cabin bulkhead were loose, but that was the only problem! Bob, in the 21, didn't think it was that bad of a trip, as he and Beth had ridden comfortably up front sitting down the entire trip!
2nd pic is an early morning flat water shot I took on our return from Green Turtle Cay, running along coast of Great Abaco in Abaco Sound. Last pic is one of Terry's boat that helps you visualize why I think the old 21, along with maybe the 25 Seafari which has very similar hull sections up forward, is the best riding of all SeaCraft models!