The sport misses marathons

[J. Sherlock]

In 1948, 16 year old school boy, Leon Wilton, from the state of Indiana, defeated all other competitors with his 7.5 HP Outboard, to win the Albany to New York (134 mile course) Outboard Pleasure Craft Race. There were 200 entrants, 141 finished!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3VpuD152E

[T2x]

Here are a couple more events from the same publication in 1959.

The article states that the APBA's Special Events Chairman officiated at the Mississippi River marathon and again their were no letter designations.

[T2x]

eeeeeekk, Mark I will have to look up the dates of OPC. I think I was older than 2, lol, when OPC got its start. Rich could give us the dates.

It may have been but I don't remember the Albany to NYC being called an OPC race.. OPC was started maybe late
50's or early 60's. That was a long time ago. I ran Albany to NYC in 1964...........

The early Albany-NY races featured the stock outboard classes. However, I am not sure if old racing runabouts were considered "Outboard Pleasure Craft" by the racers and media in the Forties. It seems to me that the first official OPC Division race was held at Lake X in 1960 or 61, but there were obviously many marathons for decades before that. The narrow issue here is when did the OPC division break away from the Stock Outboard Division? If you look closely at the cu.in. breaks the OPC E and F classes have similar cu. in. designations as their Stock Outboard counterparts. OPC simply had larger motors and more showroom style boats (to begin with). This quickly changed as the Switzers, Stylecrafts, and Powercat folks began making pure race hulls and the SSM upped the ante.

Bottom line I want to race in one more marathon. Perhaps Sherlock will join me....?

[T2x]

In 1948, 16 year old school boy, Leon Wilton, from the state of Indiana, defeated all other competitors with his 7.5 HP Outboard, to win the Albany to New York (134 mile course) Outboard Pleasure Craft Race. There were 200 entrants, 141 finished!

I believe a young Jon Culver from Dayton, Ohio. repeated this feat a few years later.

[J. Sherlock]

Bottom line I want to race in one more marathon. Perhaps Sherlock will join me....?

Thinking,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, thats one Powercat or Wing Twin, one Kitson Twin and the rest will come. We should keep it around the one hour mark, at our age we could not get the help for refueling and stay behind the wheel

Miami Marine Stadium would be fun, but stay in the Stadium, no more outside and around the island for me

Count me in

[seeroy]

Great pics from a July, 1959 magazine. I recall Olgator talking about this marathon, but I couldn't find the thread. There is a tanker truck at the turnaround. Did they refuel there?

Ron - Do you have a copy of the actual magazine article? If so, is there a list of competitors or finishers? I think my brother may have run in that race and I would also imagine that your Dad did as well. 300 miles on the Saint Johns River in 1959 is no small thing! Best Regards - Steve Sirois

[North Island]

Okay, You name the place I will bring our 21' GM twin.

[Ronster43]

Ron - Do you have a copy of the actual magazine article? If so, is there a list of competitors or finishers? I think my brother may have run in that race and I would also imagine that your Dad did as well. 300 miles on the Saint Johns River in 1959 is no small thing! Best Regards - Steve Sirois

I'll get Dad to send the rest of the article to me. Don't know about a list of finishers. He definitely did not participate...was still running stocks in '59. I think this race was run only 2 or 3 times. Seems like Jim Hunt ran it?? Its interesting to see these pics as I now live in Jacksonville.

[Watermark]

I believe a young Jon Culver from Dayton, Ohio. repeated this feat a few years later.

T2x, I'm thinking you may have known did Cliff Reif? Cliff was a friend & former employer of my next-door cottage neighbour, Edna Seibert, in Canada. Cliff would occasionally visit her there (way north on the Bruce Peninsula /Lake Huron), but I was always away racing boats and never did actually meet him - certainly wish I had. Edna knew Tom Stickle as well, since Tom was a friend of Cliff's and hailed from Ohio. There's that six degrees of separation thing...

[Ronster43]

Apparently those 2 pages are the extent of the article.
My comment about this possibly being the first OPC race was reference to where it says ..."first APBA-sanctioned marathon for family runabouts exclusively". They separated family from all other types for the first time. Outboard Pleasure Craft didn't officially exist until '61 or '62. Jeff Titus was a commissioner in the mid '60's when he petitioned OPC to introduce Sport classes. He argued that purely production hulls were unaffordable for many who could build their own hulls. OPC later became Outboard Performance Craft. And...discuss....

[mark benson]

The 1949 - Albany to New York Outboard Marathon, with a distance of 138 miles, drew 315 entrants, from 18 states! There were six classes, that look suspiciously like," APBA OPC Classes!" A Class- 10 Cubic inches max. B Class- 20 ci. C Class- 30 ci. D Class- 40 ci. Class E- 50 ci. & F Class 60 ci. Mercury's biggest engine at the time, dominated D Class (40 cubic inches Max.) Evinrude dominated E & F Class, which were 50 & 60 cubic inches max., respectively!For the record, Dick Scott, with the largest engine permited, won with a 60 cubic inch Evinrude Twin in a time of 3 hours 28 minutes for an average speed of 37 1/2!mph!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3VpuD152E

[lilabner]

South Florida Outboard Marathon Club was the club responsible for OPC being added to APBA, and was the first sanctioned OPC club.. Dave Craig, Herb Reeves and Phil Young, among others, were the driving force behind this. Of course Mr Kiekhaefer and Charlie Strang were twisting arms for us. Jimmy Jost was also a big player. I was one of the original members as was (then) Leonard Wolff.. The leaders worked pretty hard on it..

[T2x]

South Florida Outboard Marathon Club was the club responsible for OPC being added to APBA, and was the first sanctioned OPC club.. Dave Craig, Herb Reeves and Phil Young, among others, were the driving force behind this. Of course Mr Kiekhaefer and Charlie Strang were twisting arms for us. Jimmy Jost was also a big player. I was one of the original members as was (then) Leonard Wolff.. The leaders worked pretty hard on it..

Okay, but do you know when the Outboard Pleasure Craft races ended their designation as "Special Events" and convert to the newer "OPC" division of APBA? Those were the most magical of times. I was a kid looking up from outlaw hydro races in the northeast and yearning to drive one of those cats pictured in the article.

[T2x]

T2x, I'm thinking you may have known did Cliff Reif? Cliff was a friend & former employer of my next-door cottage neighbour, Edna Seibert, in Canada. Cliff would occasionally visit her there (way north on the Bruce Peninsula /Lake Huron), but I was always away racing boats and never did actually meet him - certainly wish I had. Edna knew Tom Stickle as well, since Tom was a friend of Cliff's and hailed from Ohio. There's that six degrees of separation thing...

Cliff Reif, owner of the Dayton Stamping Co. ( a big supplier of stamped parts and emblems for GM) was originally a customer/friend of Jon Culver's at Dayton's Culver Aeromarine back in the 60's. He and John teamed up in "The Stamper" a 17 Glastron with dual Merc 1000's and pretty well dominated the JJ class in marathon racing. They won the Hudson River marathon among other races. Later, in 1965, they put a 16 foot JJ Glastron together. I copied the setup on mine directly from theirs with great success. Culver Aeromarine was the midwest distributer for Mercury as well as a retail dealership. Jon Culver had access to this huge parts inventory so he was said to be able to "parts bin balance" his engines and affix a factory seal to them after assembly. He also modified Mercury's two blade props with his infamous "Culver cup" and sold them to many racers. I could never get a pair of the damn things to plane off, even with identical boats and setups...but a little more HP might have turned the trick.... . I have asked Jon about this over the years and he instantly has a memory lapse... We did race against them in the Albany-NY race a few times, in the Orange Bowl Regatta, at the Lake George Nationals, and other events. I think we only beat them in the Orange Bowl. There were a number of fiercely competitive JJ teams in Ohio and Kentucky at that time including Dr. Charlie Scruggs whose boat "The Pig" was identical to Cliff's (and also came from Culver Aeromarine) but was the most unkempt rig I believe I have ever seen. Charlie owned a string of nursing homes and his patients were said to cheer him on when he raced. Another JJ competitor of note was "Handsome" John Keller, who was their closest competitor. John Depietra from Northern Kentucky was also in that group and the OPC races in Ohio back then (which seemed to be almost every weekend in the spring, summer and fall) were amazing.

Cliff Reif and Jon continued the partnership with their final collaboration being a twin Stacker/20 foot Jones tunnel hull that raced only a couple of times in the late 60's. That boat was probably Mercury owned. As I recall Cliff passed away a few years ago. He always wore a snap brim hat and looked the part of a successful 50's-60's entrepeneur. He was there at the beginning and he and Jon brought a lot of class to the sport and set a high bar for others to compete against.



T2x

[Powercat]

One of the last marathons my dad ran is probably not known to many of you outside Texas. Rich's mention
of the Glastrons running twins reminded me of it. The race was from Corpus Christi to Brownsville and follows
the Intercoastal canal down the Texas coast probably about 150 miles. This was around 1964 and in
those days much of that part of Texas was uninhabited and was part of the King Ranch estate. In those years
we did a lot of our testing of boats in the intercoastal around Port Lavaca, and Port O'conner area. The canal
can go from super slick smooth water in the protected areas, to rougher than a cob, open bays that if the wind
whips up can turn to 6ft chop. My dad and a couple other Power Cats were running with 4pt and 3pt hydros
betting on the speed advantage in smooth water over the guys running the Glastron V's. Well we had our head
handed to us by the Glastron team as the rough water sections made up about 80 of the 150 miles.
I remember how quiet that drive home from Brownsville was and that was the last race my dad ran.
Danny