First things first - Detroit was a very well planned and very well run
APBA vintage event, and many thanks go the the event organizers - Tom and
Jacq Bertolini and Alan and Lisa Radue.
This was a very large gathering of beautiful vintage race boats -
including 3-point hydroplanes, Jersey Speed Skiffs, Gold Cup fast steppers, fire
breathing grand prix hydros, and monster piston powered unlimited hydroplanes.
The Vintage boats were
on display
all weekend, and also ran demonstration heats on the
historic Detroit Gold Cup race course.
This year we were located in the "Piston Park" area, close to the
start/finish line, and the logistics were just superb - nice job organizers. We
had lots of space, with 3 cranes for just our vintage boats, and over 100
feet of good docking on the water. All the boats were crane launched, and the
docks were so long that we could actually pre-stage our vintage heats at the
dock. The boats were then released all at once - great fun and very dramatic -
especially on heats with 14 vintage boats ???!!!
And this year our vintage boats had TONS of water time - with lots of vintage
heats on Friday,
Saturday and Sunday. Yup - we had a ball, got all the running time most of us
could handle, and left Detroit with empty tanks and very tired bodies !!!
The constant crane launching also gave spectators a chance to view and
photograph the unique bottom designs, that illustrate the evolution of Gold Cup
hulls.
The oldest boat at the event was "Scotty"- an absolutely stunning
1929 Hacker Gold Cup hydroplane. This mahogany "fast-stepper" actually finished
second in the 1929 Gold Cup, and ran some pretty hot laps on Saturday.
Click here for the Story of Scotty
And again the year, we hauled some of our vintage boats for display at a
fundraiser at the Grouse Point Yacht Club. There are some photos below showing
showing our boats out front, the freshly restored APBA Gold Cup, and Tom D'Eath
doing a superb job auctioning off the donations. And the scotch was pretty good
too!!!
Yup - this was a grand celebration of the 100th anniversary of our
beloved APBA Gold Cup - and the sights and sounds of our vintage race boats were
just magnificent.
Vintage
Race Boat Shop
