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MAN AND MACHINE AGAINST THE SEA
Hailed as the ‘the world’s most rugged ocean
race’ the fabled Miami-Nassau races brought powerboat
racing to the attention of the general public and signaled
the beginnings of modern offshore racing. These races
also provided the sport with its first hero - Sam L. Griffith.
The first Miami-Nassau race, run on May 6, 1956 was the
brainchild of American race car promoter Capt. Sherman
‘Red’ Crise and yacht designer, Dick Bertram.
Of the eleven intrepid pioneers who entered this now famous
184-mile race, eight went the distance to complete the
race. The first boat home after nine hours 20 minutes,
at an average speed of 19.7mph, was the Griffith-Bertram
entry, Doodles II, a 34ft wooden Chris Craft with two
215hp Cadillac Crusader engines.
Griffith was a larger than life character who made the
sport his own in those early years. He was regarded as
‘the man’ and before his untimely death in
1963 he would win four Miami-Nassau races, break Gar Wood’s
41-year-old Miami-New York powerboat record and capture
the Around Long Island Marathon. Many have since sought
to emulate his skills and when Class 1 came of age with
a sanctioned World Drivers’ Championship it was
his name that was selected to adorn the trophy that is
today the sport’s biggest prize.
During the 1950s the Americans had the sport to themselves
laying claim to the three major offshore races in existence,
the Miami-Nassau, the Around Long Island Marathon and
the Miami-Key West. But in the early 60s Europe entered
the fray to challenge the Americans. Publisher Sir Max
Aitken, inspired by the Miami-Nassau, established the
Cowes-Torquay on August 19, 1961, with victory in the
inaugural 179-mile race going to Tommy Sopwith in Thunderbolt.
A year later the Italians added their challenge with the
staging of the 198-mile Viareggio-Bastia-Viareggio, which
was won by an Italian ex-navy submarine commander, Attilio
Petroni, in A’ Speranziella. Over the next thirty
years an enduring struggle ensued between the three founding
nations for racing supremacy.
In the 20 years following its recognition by the Union
Internationale Motonautique (U.I.M.) and the inception
of the Sam Griffith Trophy in 1964 the Americans were
at the forefront of the sport’s technological development.
Jim Wynne, Dick Bertram and Don Aronow led the way with
the Daytona, Mercuiser and Aeromarine powerplants reigning
supreme. During this period the Americans posted thirteen
champions and the Italians just six. The lone exception
was Wally Franz, a Brazilian who lifted the title in 1975,
but he succeeded with an American boat, engine, transmission
and throttleman – hardly a Brazilian affair! Indeed,
it was not until Italy’s Francesco Cosentino took
the 1978 title in a boat designed by Don Shead and built
on the Mediterranean at Viareggio, the spiritual home
of Italian offshore powerboat racing, that a Class 1 World
Champion won the title in equipment not of American origin,
nor assembled and tended by American engineers.
In the 1980s the pendulum swung to witness a period of
European design dominance. Don Shead’s Aluminium
monohulls from Enfield, Italian manufacturers Picchiotti
and CUV and the James Beard-Clive Curtis Cougar catamarans
set the pace. The European resurgence was completed by
the genius of Fabio Buzzi, whose quantum leap into Glass
Reinforced Polymer (GRP) hulls, turbo-charged Aifo Iveco
and Seatek diesel engines, and integral surface drive
transmissions through his FB Corse concern proved unbeatable.
The decade of the 90s witnessed the emergence of the Michael
Peters designed, Tencara and Victory built hulls that
dominated the honours lists with the American Sterling,
the Italian Lamborghini petrol and the Seatek diesel engines
sharing the power battle.
The last year 30-years have not only witnessed an evolution
in the technical side of the sport, but a major overhaul
to the overall make-up of the championship, becoming a
far more international affair. In the early years, it
was commonplace for teams to field two boat entries, competing
in as many as 18 races at venues across America, Australia,
South Africa, Sweden, France, Italy and the UK.
Although the financial austerity in the 80s seriously
hit the championship leading to one event hosting three
races in a single location, the number of competing nations
nevertheless continued to increase to include Argentina,
Brazil, Finland, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Monaco,
New Zealand and Norway.
In 1992 the Championship reverted to a multi event competition
and more importantly in the following years the diversity
of nationalities claiming the World Drivers’ Championship
swelled in numbers including America, Great Britain, Italy,
Monaco, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Fourteen titles have been won by Americans, twelve by
Italians, six by competitors from the UAE, seven by a
Briton, five by Norwegians and one each by representatives
from Brazil, Monaco and Saudi Arabia. Five champions have
taken their titles as novices in their first season in
Class I racing and only three driver/throttleman partnerships
have managed back to back titles, Bonomi/Powers in 1973/4,
S Al Tayer/Serralles in 1995/6 and Gjelsten/Curtis in
2002/3.
Gjelsten and Curtis are the only partnership to win the
title four times and Steve Curtis the only man to clinch
the world title seven times. The world title was not awarded
in 1990, as a mark of respect for Stefano Casiraghi who
died whilst defending his title in Monaco.
Twenty-three titles have been won in monohulls and eighteen
in catamarans. Of these winning boats, 29 have been built
in GRP, eight in aluminium and four in wood. Petrol engines
have powered 34 winners and diesels the remaining seven.
Three early titles went to boats using conventional propeller
shafts but the more efficient, fully trimable Mercruiser
stern drives have accounted for twenty titles while the
more recently introduced surface drives make up the remainder.
Propeller design has seen the early three-bladed bronze
wheels superseded by stainless steel props of up to six
blades for maximum efficiency and a top team might carry
twelve pairs of props of differing pitches and diameters
to accommodate differing sea conditions, fuel loads and
handling characteristics.
Speeds have altered beyond all recognition. In the early
1960’s, races were regularly won at averages of
below 30mph (48km/h) but it was the advent of catamarans
in the 1980’s that allowed the magic barrier of
100mph (160km/h) to be regularly exceeded and now, winning
averages of 125mph (200km/h) or more are not unusual.
This quest for speed has produced boats, engines and transmission
systems which are inevitably more sophisticated and the
use of Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) with advanced composites
using Kevlar and carbon fibre has happily made them safer.
The crews of yester year stood up to the elements as they
struggled with navigation, throttles and the wheel, taking
a battering from the elements with little protection.
Today’s drivers and throttlemen enjoy the advantages
of being strapped securely into body-hugging seats within
safety cells beneath lexan canopies borrowed from the
aerospace industry, whilst monitoring their progress on
equally advanced global positioning systems (GPS).
Yesterday’s racers were amateur sportsmen and women,
pioneers who looked the part. Today’s crews wear
fireproof overalls, driving boots, have helmets plumbed
with intercommunicating radios and do battle in boats
that only go afloat to test or race and are prepared and
maintained by a crew of professional engineers.
These and all the other factors have shaped Class 1 powerboat
racing into what it is today. But one aspect hasn’t
changed in the past forty-odd years of action - the sea.
And for all the progress made, and the highly professional
sport that it has become, Class 1 still shares the same
ingenuity and ethos of its founders – man and machine
against the sea.
For information about the Class 1 World Powerboat Championship,
contact:
Nigel Quilter, Media & Communications Director
tel: + 44 (0)1252 713223 mob: +44 (0)7785 325346
e-mail: q@q4media.com / q@class-1.com
www.class-1.com
