Miami Herald

July 28, 1985

POWERBOATS REV UP FOR THEIR SUPER BOWL MIAMI-N.Y. RACE BEGINS MONDAY

DAVE HYDE Herald Sports Writer

Thinking of several things at once and nothing in particular, Popeye's powerboat team captain Bill Sirois sat slumped over the desk in his North Miami Beach office while the phone kept ringing. It was the fifth call in as many minutes, and Sirois' desk bore a littered testament to his thoughts: Over here an unscrolled map of the Eastern seaboard and a notebook stocked with ideas, and over there a well-worn engine catalog with accompanying loose papers. A half-eaten chicken sandwich sat by the phone.

After ring No. 6, Sirois looked up. "I think this race thing is starting to get to me," he said, chuckling as he reached for the phone. "If I didn't think we could win it . . . Hello, Popeye's."

The "race thing" is the inaugural Miami to New York Chapman Invitational Championship, which is scheduled to start at 9 p.m. Monday at the Government Cut buoy off Miami Beach and end 1,257 miles later under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York Harbor. At stake is a winner-take-all $500,000 purse and the 11- year-old record of 22 hours 41 minutes 15 seconds set by Dr. Bob Magoon of Miami Beach.

Sirois certainly has the powerboat credentials to consider himself a contender. He is a two-time world outboard champion and considered one of the sport's top throttlemen.

But that star-spangled background is standard for this five-boat race. Virtually every crew has a champion of some sort. Al Copeland of Metairie, La., will drive the Popeye's boat. Other drivers in the field are Tom Gentry of Honolulu in the Gentry Eagle, Ben Kramer of Hollywood in the Team Apache, George Morales of Fort Lauderdale in Maggie's MerCruiser Special and S. Sandy Satullo of Hillsboro Beach in the Copper Kettle.

"This is a race of the best and for the best in our sport," Sirois said. "It's strictly a professional race. It's our Super Bowl in a way, and that's the intrigue of it all."

It's being billed as the biggest, richest, longest -- pick your favorite superlative -- offshore race since the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria did the Atlantic.

For proof of the all-out means being undertaken, consider that 20 aircraft will be launched by the crews to locate competition and to check navigational or mechanical breakdowns. Morales said that his team will launch seven planes and three helicopters.

"I've been in racing 32 years, and this is the biggest event I've been in," said John Crouse, one of the event's organizers.

Down the line in what he plans as an annual event, Crouse predicts this race will have a $1 million purse, corporate sponsors for each boat and heavy TV exposure.

For now, the $500,000 purse comes from the $112,000 entry fee, up from the original $105,000 because of bills incurred by a month's delay in the race. Only Team Apache, which most experts list as a tri-favorite with Popeye's and the Gentry Eagle, has found a high-profile race sponsor in Harrah's Casino of Atlantic City, N.J.

Team Apache also has a name that transcends powerboat aficionados: actor/backup driver James Caan. Caan, who has never raced a powerboat, already does a pretty mean impersonation of a racer when he says, "We're the team to beat."

Morales, who drove to consecutive Superboat-class world championships in 1983-84 and whose 46-foot Cougar catamaran is the first cat to try this trip, is so confident that he has planned what he'll do after winning. Morales said he will take the victory stand brandishing the $500,000 check and flatly state: "I'll race anyone back to Miami for that much."

Rich Powers, the four-time world titlist from Miami and throttleman for Gentry's 46-foot deep-vee Scarab, said this: "Any of these boats can win on a given day. We just expect it to be our given day."

Satullo, the 1975 U.S. national offshore champion and driver of a Tempest 44-footer, said this: "Honestly, I think there's only one boat that will survive this race, and you're talking to its driver."

While all this talk is somewhat presumptuous considering different weather conditions will favor different boats, Satullo's words harken closest to what most racers expect to happen. The first battle will be to survive the race, the second to win it. The winner must finish within 48 hours to earn the $500,000.

Since Magoon set the record in 1974, none of the 12 attempts to break it has been completed. Magoon has been turned back twice, the second time in 1982 when he ran into storms during the night off North Carolina with Kramer and throttleman Bob Saccenti of the present-day Team Apache aboard.

"Driving over the seas at night is like driving down I-95 with your windshield taped up and going 75," said Kramer, who will drive a 47-foot Apache. "The odds of no one finishing are much, much greater than the odds of everyone finishing. I still have nightmares from the 10-foot waves we ran into with Magoon."

Added Powers: "Racing over the ocean at these speeds for this length of time is like stepping into the ring with Muhammad Ali for 20 hours and knowing he can tear you apart."

To help combat this, the racers are training daily. Powers, 39, is following Dr. Robert (Eat To Win) Haas' nutritional diet and exercises three hours daily. He has lost 20 pounds and has a 32-inch waist for the first time since he was 19.

Satullo, at 61 the oldest racer, goes through daily stretching but admits, "Just staying alive through this race is my biggest worry."

Morales, 36, and his two-man crew are going through daily workouts with a four-time world champion in full-contact karate, Alex Kavoosi. "I don't know much about racing," said Kavoosi, "but I know they'll be in shape to win."

Keeping the boats intact is another matter. The Atlantic coastline runs like a sandlot-football pass pattern, zigging far inland along northern Florida and Georgia, then zagging back out to Cape Hatteras, N.C. The most direct -- yet roughest -- route to Cape Hatteras would take a boat about 150 miles offshore at Georgia.

Around Cape Hatteras, the coast retreats along a more-or- less straight line to New York.

While racers keep mum on plans ("The less anyone knows where I'm going the better," Powers said), there are three courses expected for the five boats.

Kramer's Team Apache and Satullo's Copper Kettle are expected to take the straight-line course and refuel about 700 miles from the start near Beaufort, N.C., just south of Cape Hatteras.

Both boats have diesel engines, which are about 30 percent more gas efficient than the other boats' gas engines. That means the diesels need not come into the coast to refuel, and can thus stray farther from the coast if seas aren't too rough.

"We're going to run easy the first night and then when the sun comes up, let it fly," Kramer said. "We're going to average 60 miles per hour over the race, but our first objective is to make it through the night in one piece."

Satullo replaced the Copper Kettle's engines Monday. He started with three 400-horsepower Caterpillar engines, but critics said that the Tempest resembled a tugboat -- in durability and speed.

By switching to the Ford Merlin diesels, Satullo lost 3,300 pounds from the engines and 600 pounds from the steering. Still, others took this change as a sign of trouble.

"It means he's floundering," Sirois said. "You can't change this late in the game."

Sirois' Popeye's crew and the Gentry Eagle don't have the fuel capacity to make the straight-line course to Cape Hatteras. They are expected to run along the Florida coast and top off their fuel tanks near Daytona Beach. From there, they could run in a straight course and refuel near Beaufort. Gentry's Scarab is equipped with basic MerCruiser blocks coupled to Gentry turbochargers with surface drives. It can be boosted to 900-horsepower en route, and as such could be the fastest deep- vee in the race.

Popeye's 46-foot aluminum Cougar monohull was formerly owned by Morales when he won the 1983-84 world championships. It has three 530-horsepower engines with surface drives.

"We have fairly similar boats and experienced crews," said Powers, who is Gentry's throttleman. "The big unknown is the weather, so with that in mind it's going to come down to planning and whose engines keep running. Plus a lot of luck."

Morales needs to run close to shore to protect his less- durable catamaran. He said his four 635-horsepower MerCruiser engines with surface drives will average 90 mph to more than make up the 150 miles he figures will be added by following the shoreline.

The problem could be refueling his four engines. If the weather permits, Morales said he will refuel twice. The first time would be by landing an amphibious airplane next to his boat 40 miles off the Charleston, S.C., shore.

Morales said he will refuel again by helicopter north of Cape Hatteras near Wilmington, Del., about 400 miles from the finish.

Most competitors give him little hope to win.

"If there's any kind of rough weather, he'll have problems with the cat surviving the race and problems refueling," Powers said.

Countered Morales: "It's a gamble, but then everyone out there is gambling on something. The weather. The engines. The plans. This race is all a gamble."