Hot Multi's - Pictures

Would love to have a color poster of the 1st one......Joe Habay at Havasu in 1969. A 20' Jones with stacked 1250 Super BP's. Looking at that shot, it's not hard to believe that he went over that day, broke his ankle.

I had totally forgotten about the 2nd one.....Bill Sirois, also at Havasu in 1969. A 21' Molinari with stacked 1250 Super BP's. This is the same boat he won with in 1970. However, at this race it was it's original orange with black trim and carried the #99. I think Merc assigned that number for Parker that year when Bob Thompson took it for a drive. Sirois finished 3rd behind Cesare Scotti's Molinari with a pair of Evinrudes and Johnny Sanders' Glastron/Molinari with a pair of Johnsons. Just think of it, a 3rd - 1st - 1st three years running at The World Championships......outstanding!!

Note: I guess full face shields were not the "in" thing " way back then "

Sirois in the #99......

Here's a couple more of the #99 boat, but now with Bill's #998 and a new black with grey paint job ( I know you've seen plenty of photos of this boat, but like Raceman says, You can't get too much of a good thing :) This is Havasu, 1970, this time with water injected 1350 stackers and speedmaster gearcases. In 69 it had BP lower units and the speedmasters alone gave it 8/10 additional mph for 1970.

Story time.......It's spring of 1970 and we are having a "stalling" problem on the tight turning tunnel boats. Jim Meininger from Tillotson comes to Oshkosh with some new carbs. We install them on this boat and Garbrecht tells me to grab a helmet, I'm driving the carb test. I had never driven that boat, but Gary had run it several times. The idea was to run flat out and then make a hard turn around Jim and Gary in the safety boat to see if these carbs would stall out.

I make a few passes and Gary waves me over and asks what's wrong. I said "nothing, why?" He informed me that I wasn't even close to getting this boat up and running the way it should. I knew how high off of the water I felt at speed in the 18's and knew I was much higher now, thought that was all this setup had. He said that he would demonstrate and ran the carb test. I asked what pinhole he was running in ( remember those cable power trim indicators ) and he said about 5 - I had been running in about 3 1/2.
I got back in and slowly pushed the trim past 3 1/2....the boat went up and up and at 5 it felt really high, but it ran much better.....over about a 2' chop. I was fortunate enough to get to do a lot of testing in that boat. When we had it painted black, I remembered that initial experience and decided I'd give the boat a name.....that's the day that "Up, Up and Away" was born. :)

By the way, the carbs didn't work, I think the fix was to add an idle tube to the original carbs.

Can't access these pictures.

T2x

A couple of shots from Lake Tahoe 1970...


The 1st one is Ed Stewart in an 18' Wing followed by Kenny Baker in his Sidewinder.

The 2nd one shows some Glastron/Molinari's and a 9 x 22 Jones coming out of the turn on the far right.

Just tried to fix the problem, would you please try to access again and let me know if we're good to go........thanks

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Originally Posted by T2x

Can't access these pictures.

T2x

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I am getting them fine. Great history here, & great pics.

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Originally Posted by willabee

Just tried to fix the problem, would you please try to access again and let me know if we're good to go........thanks

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The second set work fine.........

If at first you don't succeed..........

T2x :D

I got nothin but drool to offer to this thread, but I love the pics and history. THanks for the contributions,

fish

A couple more.....


The 1st one is Jim Merten in the reverse "S" Molinari finishing 2nd at Havasu in 1970. If this shot had just a little less left side spray, we would have the shot of cowbells that Mark75H has been looking for. Can't tell who is in the Jones behind him, but it looks like the driver is wearing goggles.....Pruett or Habay ?

When I look at the 2nd one, I wonder if T2x has dispatched anyone to go " in search of " this wing.......the article called it a " ram wing " of Levi design. It raced in Australia with 1350's. It also said it never looked good in calm waters. It was named " Banana Split ", maybe Bert Serra was doing the driving :)

I had heard somewhere that the boat Sirois won with in 1971 was the boat Merten ran in 1970. Is that correct???

Correct, changed the name......." Wet and Wild " in 1970 and " Up, Up and Away " in 1971..... cowbells in 70 and TI's in 71. Here they are side by side..........
Attachment 498612Attachment 498613

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Originally Posted by Bruce Washburn

I had heard somewhere that the boat Sirois won with in 1971 was the boat Merten ran in 1970. Is that correct???

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Hey Bill, have you seen the shots I posted 8-24-04 titled Havasu 1970. They are on page 9. These are ones that Joe Swift attached captions to. He must of had a few done up as GG had the same set. Notice in the one shot of GG, Bill Sirois, Renato, Mert, and Ceasre that Renato is the only one still with us.

The shot of Mr. T coming in for fuel has some interesting faces in the background as does the shot of Bill Sirois on the trailer.

Keep your stuff coming. You are getting into the details of the Racing Division that very few know about.

If you go into the pictures of the boats and engines back then, 1970 Havasu, you can see the transition to newer rigging. Take the steering, Renato had cable steering on the new twin and others still had ride guide. Also the three twins were not the same. Bills, Merts, and Renatos were all different. Maybe you can get into the nitty gritty on who got what and who designed all the stuff. When Hi Perf opened most of this ended up in the catalog for sale to all.

Yes Mike, I have seen that thread, but had forgotten it was there. Thanks for the reminder, I was going to post pictures from that same booklet, but now I won't duplicate what you have already done.

The picture of Stickle coming in for fuel includes the following - Jim Emerson - from Lake X offshore group, stepping onto boat wearing yellow racing jacket, Dennis Robbins - team gearcase mechanic, holding pole, Richie Powers - team powerhead mechanic, behind Robbins, Roy Ridgell - Mgr. Merc. racing / Europe, to the right of Powers in heavy coat, a non-team member in hat to right of Ridgell ( I just can't remember which driver he was with, it was either Carlo Rasini or Dick Sherrer ), and Ralph Seavy - team boat rigging, on far right in white hat.

You're right about the different equipment, I'll try to get into some of that as I post more stuff from " The Golden Era " :)

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Originally Posted by mbd29

Hey Bill, have you seen the shots I posted 8-24-04 titled Havasu 1970. They are on page 9. These are ones that Joe Swift attached captions to. He must of had a few done up as GG had the same set. Notice in the one shot of GG, Bill Sirois, Renato, Mert, and Ceasre that Renato is the only one still with us.

The shot of Mr. T coming in for fuel has some interesting faces in the background as does the shot of Bill Sirois on the trailer.

Keep your stuff coming. You are getting into the details of the Racing Division that very few know about.

If you go into the pictures of the boats and engines back then, 1970 Havasu, you can see the transition to newer rigging. Take the steering, Renato had cable steering on the new twin and others still had ride guide. Also the three twins were not the same. Bills, Merts, and Renatos were all different. Maybe you can get into the nitty gritty on who got what and who designed all the stuff. When Hi Perf opened most of this ended up in the catalog for sale to all.

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A question from the ignorant-On many of these historic threads, I see the name Molinari. Was that a designer for other companies boats or did he (????) build for himself?? Based on the number of times I see that name, he must have been pretty good.

A couple of 18' Wings from the Parker 9 Hour in 1969.......


The 1st one is Jim Merten and Boots Spellman with 1250 stackers on SSM units. They finished 1st outboard and 2nd overall, by far the best ever finish for an outboard at Parker ( I don't think one had cracked the top 10 prior to this ). Merten was not a factory driver at this time, however, because he lived in Oshkosh, it was kind of easy for some factory guys to help him prepare for Parker ;)

I lost my Shooting Star because of this race :( I had bought the boat, fixed it up, installed a DSH assy and was out of money for any more pieces ( remember, I worked for Merc......we had alot of fun, didn't make any money ). Merten. a plumber, had an 1100 powerhead, a SSM and a prop. Spellman owned a Marina. We pooled our resources and had a complete boat that we could all drive and store. We sold the Star so Merten would have the money to buy the engines for the Wing. After the race he was told that he didn't have to pay for the engines, but the Star was already gone.

The 2nd shot is Kenny Kitson, also running 1250 stackers on SSM's. We had brought a pair of new BP's to Parker for Kenny, but he decided that he didn't trust the gearcases for a 9 hour. We loaned them to someone else. Kenny finished 4th, driving by himself! Ed Stewart, in a 20' Wing finished 3rd.

This was the last year that they used a real Lemans start. When the gun went off, drivers actually ran from the fence, climbed into their boat and took offf!!! What a dumb idea :eek: You had guys that slipped and fell, got hurt and didn't even start - how many of those guys do you think really took time to hook up kill switches?

By the way, when you look at Kenny's picture, you now know where the famous shot used in the Champion spark plug ad came from :cool:

[QUOTE=willabee]A couple of 18' Wings from the Parker 9 Hour in 1969.......


We sold the Star so Merten would have the money to buy the engines for the Wing.


The main issue is....where is that wing now?.....or the Star?

T2x

Angelo Molinari was a designer/ builder of his own hulls. As I remember it, his shop was in downtown Como, Italy. They built sporty pleasure boats and early versions of the racing tunnel hulls at that location. He is widely credited as the " inventor " of todays racing tunnels. His oldest son, Renato, had a shop on Lake Como, in Tavernola ( sp ). All of the race boats were built, rigged and tested at that location. I'm sure people will disagree with me, but I would say that Molinari was the best in the world from at least 1967 through 1972. They had an arrangement with Mercury that worked out very well, and as the horsepower went up, the design changed along with it.

Come on you guys, help me out with this answer.

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Originally Posted by triple dude

A question from the ignorant-On many of these historic threads, I see the name Molinari. Was that a designer for other companies boats or did he (????) build for himself?? Based on the number of times I see that name, he must have been pretty good.

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Sadly, they're both destroyed.......the Wing at Galveston and the Star on Lake Butte des Morts ( a guy that tried to go fast on a rough lake ) :(

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Originally Posted by T2x

The main issue is....where is that wing now?.....or the Star?

T2x

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Thanks. Now I can say I DID learn something today. ;)

Not exactly the type of multi's we're talking about, but.......


Just wanted to slip this in for Parker, don't know if he has already seen it, but thought he might enjoy anyway. The caption says that "rookie" Randy Rabe (his father) took 1st outboard and 5th overall in the Sam Griffith Memorial off Ft.Lauderdale in May of 1971 :cool: ( Powerboat, July 1971 )

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Originally Posted by willabee

Angelo Molinari was a designer/ builder of his own hulls. As I remember it, his shop was in downtown Como, Italy. They built sporty pleasure boats and early versions of the racing tunnel hulls at that location. He is widely credited as the " inventor " of todays racing tunnels. His oldest son, Renato, had a shop on Lake Como, in Tavernola ( sp ). All of the race boats were built, rigged and tested at that location. I'm sure people will disagree with me, but I would say that Molinari was the best in the world from at least 1967 through 1972. They had an arrangement with Mercury that worked out very well, and as the horsepower went up, the design changed along with it.

Come on you guys, help me out with this answer.

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There were actually two competitive Euro designer builders who "pioneered" tunnel boats....Angelo Molinari....and Dieter Schultz.....As I recall the Schultz hulls arrived about 6 months to a year before the Moli's in the U.S....and the first Molinari's were open cockpit hulls....as were the Schultz's. Regardless of the timeline there can be no doubt that the Molinaris were the "creme de la creme" of their time. Later, Molinari's nephew, Cesar Scotti,until his death in Paris, began building boats for OMC as Mercury had an exclusive contract with Molinari.... Later yet, Cees Vandervelden began building hulls for OMC..... Neither the Scotti's nor the Velden's were in the same league with Molinari when it came to craftsmanship but they ran very well. Billy Seebold entered the picture after the Molinari/Mercury contract expired in, approximately, 1974. At that point Billy, benefiting from all of the testing and knowledge that Mercury had ...... annexed this information and signed a contract with Mercury guaranteeing him a minimum number of race boat sales to private individuals or Mercury themselves........... In response Molinari signed a contract with OMC.....and Cees V. made Mercury's European hulls........ the rest is history.

It is my humble opinion that roughly the time period that Willabee refers to...... (I'll lengthen it just a bit) 1965-1973 (the inauguration of V-6 race engines)....... remains to this day as the single most significant development period in outboard racing history.

T2x

A little design comparison.....


Picture on left shows Molinari's thinking for a 21' to handle a pair of 1250 BP's in late 1968/early 1969 - the one on the right is his thinking for a 21' to handle a pair of 1350 water injected stackers with SSM's in 1970. The 1970 version was easily 15 mph faster and got over the same water.

Another comparison......


The " engines over sponsons " twin that Renato drove at Havasu in 1970 was the class of the field. Borrowing a line from Sherlock, "he would have won, but"....he did lose a gearcase late on Saturday and just couldn't make up the 1/2 hour in the pits. That boat was converted to a KT in 1973 and was the class of the field in all 4 races it entered.......it won 3 and was leading the 4th when it broke. At speed, it carried itself the same way it did as an outboard......I guess it was a great design.

Here is my two cents. I started at Mercury in late 1975, after the strike. I came in during the later stages of, what I consider, tunnel boat racings heyday. It was a real treat to be working there at that time. I had raced mostly local stuff so it was impresive seeing the likes of Hering, Molinari, Spalding, Percival, Seebold, Fountain, Bentz walking through the halls.

Billy had been building boats for, I think, about a year. Dick Ingebretsen/Bob Degrenier got one of the very early full tunnel Seebolds. They ran it during 1975. Seebold really didn't have a contract yet. Molinari was pretty upset that he was building boats as well as Mercury building the "Twistercraft". Here is how I saw things happening. It started with Bob Hering blowing over during the Kaukauna Kilos in mid 1976. I was in the pickup boat and was the first one to Bob. I thought he was gone. He was hurt and spent time in the hospital. At around this time Angelo and Renato were over to discuss a new contract. I remember the tempers were pretty short. I had to drive Angelo, Renato, and his girlfriend to Fond du Lac to meet with Jack Reichert who was the Prez at the time. I think I did this two or three times. Gary drove seperate. Well the last time Angelo and Renato were really upset and you could tell from the conversation. I didn't understand a thing. I whish I had spoken Italian. That was the end of Mercury/Molinari. Hering, Molinari, and Ron Anderson were close so Bob and Ron left Mercury too and the rest is history.

As I understood it there was also some bad blood between Renato and Mr. Bill over Renato generally building 2 boats and choosing the better one for himself ... forcing Mr. Bill to out drive Renato to beat him with an inferior boat time after time ... this was supposedly what lead Seebold to start building his own boats

I don't think there was much time lag between Mercury terminating the Molinari contract and Molinari supplying OMC with boats

I don't think there was either. The way I heard it, mbd29 was rather infatuated with Miss Titti ( Renato's girlfriend ) and drove them directly from the Mercury meeting to Waukegan, just to get a little more "eyeball" time :)

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Originally Posted by Mark75H

I don't think there was much time lag between Mercury terminating the Molinari contract and Molinari supplying OMC with boats

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willabee .....thanks ...for the pic of 202
parker

A couple of boats that seemed to race forever.......


The 1st shot is of Gene Lanham in his 18' Wing with 1250 stackers winning the Roaring 100 from Miami to Key Largo in 1971. He ran the same equipment for a long time and won several races in the Florida area.

The 2nd is of "The Iceman" Harold Eis in what I think started life as a Stylecraft and became an Eis Super Cat. As horsepower went up, he continued to modify this boat to handle it and always ran competitively. Here he is finishing 4th at the 1971 Parker 9 Hour ( he led for several laps ). I think Merc did "loan" him a pair of 1350 stackers for this event.

Did Eis win first outboard a couple times at Havasu with that rig?

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Originally Posted by Mark75H

Did Eis win first outboard a couple times at Havasu with that rig?

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He won the first Outboard World Championships in 1964, then won again in 1965.
Here's another picture of Salty Cat.

Willabee: I have kept that secret all these years and now you let the cat out of the bag. Who told you?

Billy Don Pruett.......


A couple of shots of our favorite guy......in the 1st one he is driving the first 9' x 22' triple outboard with all three engines in the tunnel, built by Ron Jones and winning the Elsinore 500 in 1969. Those engines sat so close together that there wasn't room to run stacked powerheads.

In the 2nd shot he driving a 20' Jones at the 1970 Miami Nationals. He is coming out of the final turn ahead of Jimbo McConnell on his way to a World Record of 76.598 mph in T class.

A couple more from the 1970 Miami Nationals.....


The 1st shot is Pruett again, leading the pack on the start of that record setting run. He is being chased by Johnny Sanders, Jimbo McConnell and Kenny Kitson.

The 2nd shot is Jimbo #191 in an OMC built twin and Kitson #119 in a Kitsoncraft. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with a picture that shows Kitson with two white bathtubs on the transom?

The two white bath tubs are removable cowls~engine fairings. They were either came with the boat or were an accessory, not sure which. Not sure how it worked on a twin though. Kenny was looking for a cowl last time I talked to him.

Twins.......


Dick Sherrer in a 21' Glastron/Molinari powered by 1350 water injected stackers, finishing 10th at Havasu in 1970.

Bill Wiles in an 18' Seajay with a pair of Evinrudes winning the 1970 Elsinore 500. This boat gave us a quick scare at Havasu in 1970. When the race was stopped after the 1st lap on saturday and our boats came back to the pits, Jim Merten said that Wiles had gone by him like he was tied to a buoy and other drivers agreed. We all thought "Oh - Oh !". It turned out that he was quick until the water got a little sloppy, and then all of our stuff went on by him.

If you look at the picture of Kitson just above your post, you will see that the white bathtubs I am referring to are Evinrudes. I've always thought that any picture of Kenny in or near a boat, that boat should be powered by Mercury.

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Originally Posted by Old fiberglass

The two white bath tubs are removable cowls~engine fairings. They were either came with the boat or were an accessory, not sure which. Not sure how it worked on a twin though. Kenny was looking for a cowl last time I talked to him.

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Thanks for the shot of Gene Lanham in the Roaring 100. Gene was one of the most underrated drivers ever.Gene just never got rattled he just kept on coming. I was also in that race in SE class. I won after Bobby Krell broke the bow off his Checkmate/Evinrude out in the ocean off Key Largo on Sunday. Too bad for him since he had a huge time gap on me from Saturday(I got lost) that all he had to do was keep me in sight. That strategy was working until his bow came up and hit him in the face. I spent the rest of the race pushing hard and waiting for him to pass me in the smoother water of the bay. I quite surprised to find out what had happened behind me.

Parker 9 Hour - 1970


This race was significant in that it was the 8th running of the event and the 1st time outboards won.....unfortunately, they were powered by OMC :( I don't recall exactly what happened to our team boats, but, result wise, we were almost no-shows. The 21' Glastron/Molinari out of Glastron finished 6th using 1350 stackers and the first team boat was Bill Petty in an 18' Jones, also with 1350 stackers, coming in 8th.

Jim Merten in a triple Jones was very strong early, but then started to miss-fire. We changed a lot of stuff, but didn't fix the problem and finally put him on the trailer. After the race, I believe we discovered the problem was water clogging all three fuel filters ( you never look for simple fixes during a race :o ). Billy Don Pruett ran the 21' Molinari ( the Havasu winner later that year ) with a pair of modified 1350 stackers. If memory serves, these powerheads had the intake and exhaust porting that was ultimately used on the Twister. We didn't get much time on the powerheads at this race because he kept blowing BP gearcases. While we were replacing gearcases, he would walk off to talk "super-star" with someone. I'd have to go find him and tell him we were ready to race again. On one such trip, Pruett told me he wasn't going back out because he was too far behind and nothing was going to change his mind. I said " Hey big boy, you're running super secret stuff and we need time on it ". I remember that sh-t eating grin he got on his face when he said " why didn't you say so in the 1st place, let's get at it " ( he loved running something that no one else had ). I'm going to need some help to jog my memory about what happened to the rest of our boats.

Here's a couple of shots of the winning DeSilva driven by Allan Stinson and Jerry Wallin. Note in the 2nd picture that it used a single pipe exhaust system.

Parker 9 Hour - 1970


A very unusual and almost comical incident took place at the end of this race. After over 700 miles on this winding 13 mile course and 9 hours of racing, the lead 3 boats come into view on the back straightaway at the same time! Stinson in the DeSilva, Ron Hill in an Hallett hydro with twin Evinrudes and Bob Witt in a 21' Glastron/Molinari with twin Johnsons. When they get to the last turn, Stinson turns first but goes in too hot and is forced to swing way wide. Hill tried to turn inside of him, but hooks and almost gets tossed from the boat. This caused his kill switches to disconnect and he goes dead in the turn. Witt tried to turn inside of Hill, but spun out and did get thrown out of his rig! I figured Stinson was going to end up on shore with that wide turn, so for a moment I thought " Hell, we're going to win this thing yet :)

Well, Stinson got straightened out and comes in 1st, Hill connects his kill switches and comes in 2nd and Witt swims back to his boat in time to finish 3rd ........what a finish!!!!!

Here's a shot a the 2nd and 3rd place finishers........

Parker 9 Hour - 1970


Johnny Sanders finished this race in 4th place driving a 21' Molinari with twin Johnsons and Jimbo McConnell finished 5th in a DeSilva with twin Evinrudes.......he probably would have been in that mix at the end, but he lost several laps due to dead batterys.

Here are a couple of shots of Jimbo.........that boat sure was designed a lot different than the one Stinson drove.