Yachting Magazine /
August 1971
More
Power to You
By
MEL CROOK
The fifth annual Bahamas “500” on June 4 might
have been the final race with the format and sponsorship that have characterized
these fine events. At this writing no one has announced an intention to continue
the requisite financial support. Promoter “Red” Crise promises that there
will be future “500s”. The big questions are where and how.
The Bahamians might have become discouraged from
backing an event that produced 45 starters for its first running in 1987 but
then suffered from declining participation as only 37 showed up in 1988, 28 in
1969, 19 in 1970 and 20 this year. Not apparent to those unfamiliar with the
sport was the great improvement in the quality of the fleet since the start of
the series. Of that first year’s impressively large starting fleet, barely
35% were able to make it to the finish line. This June’s field turned up 45%
as finishers. Even more significant has been the rise in average speed. Odell
Lewis won the 1967 race at a speed of 45.6 m.p.h. The following year he
repeated, boosting his average to 49.2. Don Aronow was the 1969 winner at a
flashy 64.5 m.p.h. pace. Last year all the fast inboards broke down and Doug
Silvera’s comparatively low-powered outboard finished first with an average
of 53. But the same Silvera added materially to the speed rise by winning the
‘71 event at 73.4 m.p.h.
Rules of this “500” contained some progressive
provisos designed to limit the hours required of check boat and communications
personnel. One set a deadline of 6 p.m. on race day (11 hours after the start)
for all race boats to reach Nassau. This hour was chosen as the latest that a
boat traveling at that pace would pass the capital city of the Bahamas and still
reach the Freeport finish line by the official deadline of 7 a.m. the next day.
Another statute along this line called for the disqualification of any boat that
stopped for more than two hours.
The drivers’ meeting elicited the following gem
from chairman Crise. “If you follow an airplane instead of doing your own
navigating, we won’t disqualify you. But your competitors will know you’re a
cheater. So go ahead and follow a plane and be damned to you.”
Carl Kiekhaefer, who celebrated his 85th birthday on
the day of the race, predicted that his boat would average 65 m.p.h. Dr. Bob
Magoon, driving Carl’s entry, made the owner feel younger by taking a close
second place at a 72.7 m.p.h. average. Bob told me after the race that
Silvera’s boat, with highly tuned 482-cu. in. MerCruisers, was a whisker
faster than Kiekhaefer Aeromarine with her strictly stock 482s. Incidentally, Magoon
finished with only 10 gal. of fuel in each tank, having burned just about one
gallon per mile.
Construction of the winning boat was started a mere
37 days before the race. The undisclosed sponsor of the boat is reported to have
paid $46,000 for her—$10,000 of which was a premium for accelerated delivery.
Silvera’s riding companions were two of the tops in boat racing:
Bill
Sirois, who has driven successfully in many offshore races and placed first in
the outboard enduro at Lake Havasu last year, and Mark Raymond, veteran of many
offshore races in Florida and the Bahamas.
Several drivers told me that their necks were
painfully stiff following the race and blamed it on the helmets they must wear.
Air pressure tends to pry the helmets off their heads and fighting this pressure
for seven to seventeen hours is too much for the human neck.
Don Aronow, after watching the scorers post five of
his “Cigarette” boats as the first five to reach Nassau, barely three hours
beyond the Freeport start, turned to me and said, “If those guys keep up that
pace, they’ll burn up their machinery.” (Only two of that five managed to
finish.)
One of the five, driven by current world champion Vincenzo
Balestrieri, passed the final check point at Sandy Point a bare two minutes
behind the eventual winner. Half-way from Sandy to the finish, the flywheel on
one of Balestrieri’s engines disintegrated, severing two water in-take hoses.
Crew member Sammy James immediately reported the accident by radio. Chief race
communicator Sandy Krell radioed Bahamas Air Sea Rescue, asking that a plane be
dispatched to hover over the stricken craft. The official group heaved sighs of
relief when Basra replied, “We have a plane over him now.”
The “5OOs” have done much for the breed. Boat inspector Dave Craig told me that power installations In the boats were “superb”; that the 36-footers were capable of speeds in the high 70’s, carrying moderate fuel loads.