Water-injection demo.......
It must be 1969 and it seems like I've spent the whole summer running various tests.....props, gearcase skegs, carbs, etc. on the last of the 18' Molinari marathon designs (just before the 17' sprints came into play). I swear that I had more time in one of those boats than anyone else on the planet. Anyway, I think it was Dick Lanpheer, an engineer from Plt.#6 two cycle R&D that came over with one of their techs and had this hardware to install on the 1250 SBP (1350) I had been running. It consisted of an on/off toggle switch, solenoid, some tubing and three exhaust elbows that had a bracket welded onto them which would accept a screw-in nozzle.....the first water-injection kit for the 1350 stackers.
I don't recall how many times we went out to test different configurations of this kit, but it was a bunch and none of them worked as designed. The idea was to help the the boat get out of the turn and then shut the water off to maintain the top end speed, but nothing we tried seemed to help the bottom end and some installations actually hurt the top end. A few days after another unsuccessful test, they sent over a different solenoid and a set of nozzles and asked us to install them and to test when we had an opportunity. We put them on, but weather kept us off of the water until the next week.
The day we went out to test, there wasn't a ripple on the lake....flat as a pancake and not a cloud in the sky. I figured that this was going to be a very short day because it was very difficult to get that hull with a full fuel load up and running without the aid of some chop and a little breeze. They towed me out to beautiful Lake Winnebago, I fired up and tried to get on plane several times with no success. Then I turned the water on, and with some groaning, the boat popped up and started to run. I shut it back down and repeated the test several times and it got up every time. Then I made some straightaway runs turning the water on and off at different rpms and you could really feel and hear the difference.....we had arrived!
I sent a safety boat back to the plant, they notified all of the proper players and about an hour later several boats with engineers arrived. I repeated the dead in the water start first and then ran some laps around their boats and a bunch of real happy people returned to the plant. :cool:
To be continued...........
Water-injection demo......( continued )
Soon after that successful test, Gary Garbrecht tells me to have the boat ready to run in a race type demo for Renato and Angelo who are arriving that next Tuesday. I don't remember why they were coming.....maybe stackers hadn't been outlawed in Europe yet or maybe this was to help them in designing the next generation tunnel. Wednesday morning, those guys along with Bill Steele (Gary's boss, in charge of Mercury racing at that time) and Billy Don Pruett (who was serving as the interpreter) climb into our 27' Thompson and head for the course that was set up on Lake Winnebago. One of the safety boats tows me out to the lake where I find really bad weather conditions.....the wind is blowing hard and the lake is very rough (I don't think APBA would have started a race in those conditions).
I fire up only to see Gary waving me over to their boat. I pull along side and he tells me I don't have to run today, he says let's wait for better conditions. I said no, everyone is on a schedule, let's get it done today and I head out for the course. I ran 6/8 laps and the boat felt just great. It just skimmed across the top of that rough water and the injection system worked like a charm. When I glanced over at their boat, they were all frantically waving their arms for me to stop, so I pulled along side again to see what they wanted. Gary said that was enough, Renato was smiling and Pruett was shaking his head at me.....I wasn't sure why.
Back at the plant, I was putting the boat away and Billy Don walked down from the office to have a chat with me. He said that he was excited about what the new injection system would do for them on the Miami type courses and that he was impressed by the way I had driven the boat (and he made it very clear that he doesn't impress easily :rolleyes:). He also said that Renato had asked Gary if I could be his co-driver for the Paris Six Hour :cool: and that Gary had already responded with a flat " No " :(. Billy Don had more to say........
To be continued......
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Water-injection demo......( continued )
Billy Don went on to say that he knew I would jump at the chance to run Paris, but that he didn't say anything to try to change Gary's mind because he agreed with him. He said that he felt that I was lucky today and that I should have gone on my head, and, if I continued to drive like that, someone was going to get hurt (I assume that someone was me). I told him how much time I had in that boat and how well I knew it, but he continued to give me "Racing 101". Our conversation ended with him saying that I was going to flip and with me saying "there ain't no f'n way".
My next test was that Friday, and while making a run into the wind, the blue sky suddenly turned all orange (same color as the boat) and I remember thinking " I wonder what this is going to feel like". Well, it didn't feel good.....they fished me out of the lake and rushed me back to the plant so that I could get some medical attention for the cuts on my legs. As luck would have it, Mr. Kiekhaefer was visiting that afternoon and Gary didn't want him to know that I had just destroyed one of his cherished toys, so I was instructed to hide in a bathroom until E.C. left.....soak and wet and bleeding, I stayed there for about twenty minutes before Mike Goerlitz took me to the hospital. I was told that E.C. went to Plt.#5 next, and when he pulled in, they were pulling the Molinari out of the water. When he saw it, he threw his can of pop against the wall, said something about "they don't tell me anything" and left in a huff.
Then, to add salt to the wound, Billy Don found out about it and changed his flight schedule so that he could be at the plant when I returned. There he was, that big sh-t eating grin on his face as he watched me hobble in on my crutches, and he said " Famous last words.....there ain't no f'n way ", then came that terrific laugh - you just couldn't help but love that guy. Billy Don was right and that's the end of this story :D.
The test boat and "Up, Up and Away" (see post #18 on this thread) - same result
