Motor Boating/July 1969

GRIM GATEWAY FOR A HOT CIGARETTE

By Johnny Wilson

This section’s Cigarette habit is due to the winning form of Don Aronow’s new racer, fresh from her Ensenada victory (MB, June), now the Gateway Marathon champion.

AS OCEAN racing powerboats get better, their courses seem to get progressively rougher. Spring is usually the season for silken seas on the Gulf Stream in the Straits of Florida, but this year, that wonted mildness has been conspicuously absent.

The most recent pummeling of note down there was handed out May 10 to 24 starters in the sixth annual Gate­way Marathon for these seagoing mustangs. Out of 11 finishers in the brutal grind through 12-foot cross seas, the impressive winner was Don Aronow’s sharp-nosed Cigarette, the same new 32-foot Cary Marine hull, powered by twin 475-hp MerCruiser engines, with which he’d won the Long Beach, California, Ensenada, Mexico race in March. Wayne Vicker’s 27-foot Magnum came in first outboard and second.

His time on the 200-mile trip from West Palm Beach to Grand Bahama Island and back—non stop for the first time in regatta history—was 4 hours 35 minutes.

In this punishing sport, in which relatively soft-bodied men hurl themselves in bullet-hard boats against cresting seas at speeds to 80 knots, water has the consistency of concrete. The hull-to-wave impact can twist spines and shatter ankles unless crews brace properly and in time. In those eternal racing moments, when the whole boat leaps clear of the sea, the helmsman can “blow” a highly tuned engine in seconds unless he’s a master of throttle control.

Navigation is an agonizing game of hide and seek with low lying landmarks, seen through salt-blurred goggles while seas, sun and possible rain squalls play hob with visibility in an open cockpit where it takes most of your strength and will merely to hang on and stand upright. Inside quilted, protective “wet” suits, racers bodies, in these Florida gambits, bathe in 90-degree temperatures.

The whys of ocean powerboat racing, besides its obvious competitive and promotional attraction, especially for mil­lionaire Miami boat builder Aronow, are personal. What happens, and what racers feel when the beating stops, is fairly graphic. Burly, six-foot Don Aronow, for example, 1967 world powerboat champion and national champion in ‘67 and ‘68, reported this event was “one of the most wicked ocean trips I’ve ever made. The fight I had correcting for torque in huge beam seas wore out my arms.”

Aronow, who decided he’d gone out front between Free-port and the last turning point off Lucaya, said, “We ran more easily alter that, keeping an eye astern in case someone tried to slip up on us.”

Less aggressive ashore, he fudged at accepting a lip-to-lip victory kiss from the Gateway queen, who had to settle for a polite peck on the cheek.

A fast charging outboard, Wayne Vicker’s 27-foot Mag­num, powered by three 1969 model 140-hp Mercury en­gines, won second overall in 4 hours 42 minutes. The St. Cloud, Florida driver, in taking first in his division, broke the victory run of John Stenback, who finished sixth in 5 hours 20 minutes. Until this race, Stenback, also of St. Cloud and current leader in points for the U.S. ocean racing out­board title, had taken three straight races.

Vicker had a badly bloodied nose to show for his trouble; he’d broken it against the steering wheel on the way home. But he was able to take some consolation in his award for Most Outstanding Performance.

Third went to Miami drivers Dave Stirratt and George Peroni in a 32-foot Maritime belonging to Merrick Lewis. They used her 650-hp Ford engines to make the trip in just nine minutes more than winner Aronow. Lewis, who had been scheduled for this race, dropped out for health reasons. His next was to be the Bahamas 500, on June 13. Merrick, imaginative president of Alliance Machine Co., has a good hideaway for recuperation; he recently bought the remote Everglades Rod & Gun Club, deep in Florida’s “sea of grass.”

Defending champion Odell Lewis of St. Cloud dropped out with mechanical difficulties at West End. Other DNFs on that side were Peter Rittmaster of Miami and Norman Latham of Palm Beach.

Probably the wildest gyrations of the race were reported by Bill Wishnick of New York, who drove Odell’s Mer­Cruiser-powered 31-foot Bertram. In midstream, with throttles wide open, he hit a rogue sea that made his boat swap ends like a wooden chip, flinging the three-man crew to the deck. Their boat rammed wildly along untended for a few seconds till Wishnick fought his way back to the con­trols. He ultimately finished seventh in 5 hours 22 minutes.

One of the best performances in this race was that of Bill Martin from Clark, N.J. Shortly after the start, he and his mechanic had their heads in the bilge of their 27-foot Mag­num, trying to restart their single 496-cu.-in. MerCruiser. Twelfth after correcting this problem, Martin moved up after crossing the Stream and turning eastward from West End to Lucayca. He ultimately finished fifth in 5 hours 16 minutes.

The most unusual entry in the race was Hugh Doyle’s St. Petersburg cat Maui Kai. Driven by Tom D’Eath and powered by twin 427-cu. -in. MerCruisers, she was the last survivor to finish. Sherman F. (Red) Crise, whose Na­tional Offshore Power Boat Association organizes the event, announced Aronow’s time is the official record for the re­vised Gateway Marathon circuit. Cigarette’s skipper also has a solid lead in APBA standings for this year’s national high point title.