Miami Herald

March 24, 1985

A LONG RUN FOR $1 MILLION

ERIC SHARP - Herald Boating Writer

With five official entrants and a major sponsor in the wings, the race committee for the June 27 Miami to New York offshore powerboat race says the first skipper to drive under the Verazzano Narrows Bridge at the end of the 1,257-mile run will almost certainly win $1 million. "I'm waiting for the marketing people to tell me when we can announce the sponsor's name, but we're going to have a $1 million purse," spokesman John Falk said of the winner-take-all event, which is scheduled to start at Miami's Government Cut. "It will be the best thing that has ever happened to offshore powerboat racing."

The rules of the contest, which grew out of a bet between Bob Saccenti, who builds Apache Boats in North Miami Beach, and Al Copeland, whose Popeye's fried chicken chain is based in New Orleans, call for each entrant to put up $105,000. The $5,000 is for publicity and other race expenses. The $100,000 goes into a kitty. The boats will start together at Miami, and the first driver to New York -- providing he makes it in fewer than 48 hours -- will get everything in the kitty.

To date, the official entrants are:

* Copeland, who has yet to decide whether to drive a 47- foot Scarab, yet to be rigged, or the 46-foot, three-engine world champion Cougar superboat he bought from George Morales. The Cougar is a proven competitor and is probably the only deep vee in the world that has honestly bettered 100 miles per hour.

* Morales, who twice won the superboat title in the 46-foot Cougar deep-vee but plans to make the Miami to New York run in a new 46-foot Cougar catamaran now being rigged in North Miami Beach. Rumblings of discontent among powerboat enthusiasts, many of whom wanted to bar Morales from this race because of his indictment on drug and income tax charges last year, apparently have died away. The race committee has accepted Morales' $5,000 earnest money and has sent him an official entry form and a letter welcoming him as a competitor.

* Tom Gentry, who has put up the initial $5,000 to make the run in a 47-foot Scarab deep vee, which is being rigged.

* Saccenti and partner Ben Kramer, who won the Class I national championship last year in a 42-foot Apache Thunderchief. They plan to make the June 27 run in a 47-foot deep-vee Superchief that they say they will begin testing next month.

* Former offshore national champion Sandy Satullo, whose 44-foot deep-vee Tempest was popped out of the mold this week and is ready for rigging.

The drivers will be trying to break the record of 22 hours 41 minutes 14 seconds set by Miami eye surgeon Bob Magoon 12 years ago, a record that has withstood half a dozen assaults. Magoon's 36-foot, outboard-powered Cigarette set a startlingly high average speed of 55.4 mph on that first run, and after failing in two subsequent attempts to better it, Magoon recognized his record required more than a small share of luck.

Saccenti says the race has two possible routes. One hugs the shoreline, and although it is about 100 miles longer, it's attractive on the theory that the boats will find flatter water inshore and will be able to go much faster than they could farther offshore.

The other route will take the boats as much as 70 miles offshore on the straight-line course between Government Cut and their first planned refueling point, which for most is either on or near the Georgia or North Carolina coast.

"It's like running four offshore powerboat races, each 300 miles, back to back, without maintenance between them," Saccenti said. In a normal race on the national offshore powerboat circuit, it's not unusual for 60 percent of the boats to fail to finish because of mechanical problems.

"If you ask me, this race is impossible. But you have to figure that if we get a half-dozen boats out there, one of them will make it through," said Saccenti, who began in the high- speed boat business as a protege of Don Aronow, the man who founded the Donzi, Magnum and Cigarette firms.

"There's a lot of strategy involved. The most important thing is to keep a boat running for 18 or 20 hours. Most guys probably will be happy to maintain 65 miles per hour. Then, when it gets down near the end, if you find out you're within an hour or so of somebody else, you're going to need the kind of speed you get in a regular raceboat. At the end, the survivors are going to have to be able to do 85 or 90, get on the throttles and do some real racing."

That's where Morales figures he can take the race in a catamaran by virtually hugging the beach all the way up the East Coast. Cats can't go as fast as deep vees in big seas, but in smooth water, say four feet or less, they are dramatically faster.