Miami Herald

July 27, 1982

BROKEN GEARBOX SINKS BOB MAGOON

ERIC SHARP - Herald Boating Writer

The 45-foot offshore power boat, named Parker Meridien for the New York Hotel that is a major sponsor, reported that it was crawling into Beaufort at five knots after a gearbox broke and damaged an engine before dawn at the 700-mile mark.

Magoon and his four crewmen roared out of Miami's Government Cut at 5:57 p.m. Sunday in their specially built race boat, with a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat in hot pursuit.

The Coast Guard vessel wanted to stop Magoon because he was throwing a huge wake in a ship channel that also is a busy seaplane area, but the patrol boat broke off the pursuit when its skipper was told that Parker Meridien was making a speed- record run.

Magoon, 48, a Miami Beach eye surgeon, was accompanied by heart surgeon Jack Greenberg of Miami Beach, 52, a prominent offshore sailboat racer who serves as navigator; crew chief John Stenback, 41, of South Bay, Fla.; electronics technician Tom Packard, 37, of South Miami and diesel mechanic Cliff Souza, 40, of Ronkonkoma, N.Y.

Parker Meridien, designed and built by speedboat king Don Aronow, was outfitted originally for Magoon's second attempt at a transatlantic speed record. When he could not find financing for that effort, he decided to take the boat on a shakedown trip and break his own Miami-New York record of 22 hours 45 minutes and 15 seconds. Magoon had hoped to make it in 20 hours.

Had he succeeded, he would have tried to establish records for runs from New York to Bermuda (750 miles) and Bermuda to Miami (1,087 miles). The boat, with a beam of 15 feet, is powered by two General Motors diesel engines race-prepared by Roger Penske's shop to turn out 1,100 horsepower each.

Magoon had trouble getting the boat on plane and the engines developing full power just before he started the speed run, probably because extremely high air and water temperatures had prevented the engines from cooling when shut down.

Rod Simpson, who runs the Topsail Marine Service Center in Beaufort, where Magoon had planned a fuel stop, said he got a call about 4 a.m. from a pilot who had followed Magoon up the coast.

"The pilot said when he saw him last, Magoon was really flying. He was running well ahead of the old record. The pilot waited with me here, because we expected him to arrive in about an hour. When he didn't show up by 6 a.m., we called the Coast Guard, figuring something must be wrong."