Vintage
Race Boat Shop
Vintage
Race Boat Shop
We maintain vintage wooden boats.
Miss Severn
Miss Severn
Owned by Gerry and Elaine Davidson
Miss Severn was completed in
1994 from a set of plans developed by John Hacker to meet the new rules for Gold
cup racing in 1922. The original boat was built from the same set of plans in
1922 and was called Arab VI . She raced in the 1922 Gold cup races and came in
second to Packard Chris Craft. Arab VI raced for a number of years in the Gold
Cup class but was subsequently purchased by Edgar Dobson of Annapolis Md. Dobson
raced the boat for a year, powered by a Hispano Suiza engine, but with little
luck. He then decided to repower the boat, which he renamed Miss Severn, with a
Curtis Conqueror V12 aero engine, and change the classification to K class (
Unlimited Runabout ). Dobson then proceeded
to win many K class races in the Maryland area. Winning races at
Baltimore, Chester, Havre de Grace and at ST. Michaels where he set a new world
speed record for K class.
The present Miss Severn is 26ft long, 6ft wide and weighs 4300 lbs. She is powered with a World War II Rolls Royce Meteor V12 engine of 1650 cubic inch displacement. This engine puts out about 650 hp at 2700 rpms and will drive the boat at about 60 miles per hour. This combination of hull and power closely matches the original Miss Severn. The marine conversion for this engine was done by New England Boat and Motor, Inc. of Laconia, N.H..
It
took 3 years to build Miss Severn and about 3700 hours of labor. A total of 23
different craftsmen participated in the project. Over the past 6 years, we have
run four different engines in the boat, 2 Rolls Royce V12s and two modern V8s.
The Rolls is by far the most fun.
Miss
Severn was at Detroit for the Gold Cup in 1996 and 2000 - and has participated
in the APBA sanctioned events at Clayton, N.Y. in the 1000 Islands, and
Wolfeboro, NH.