Hot Singles ! - Pictures

[Lake X Kid]

Lars photo of Cesare Scotti in boat 23, and Renato Molinari's boat 22 at a South Africa race in the winter of 1969 - 1970.

And then in 1971, things are different and beginning the new rival.
Cesare is building is own Scotti Tunnel race boats.
Renato is now a Mercury Factory driver.

[FUJIMO]

[Lake X Kid]

The "Outboard Marine Corporation" readily admits to spending 1% of it's "gross outboard sales" on it's racing team, and rumours were that Kiekhaefer, maker of Mercury engines, invests as much as $3,000,000 dollars a year to attend Havasu, Parker,Lake Tahoe, Lake Elsinore, Miami, St. Louis, Paris, Bristol, Berlin, etc. for the season!

~~~
That quote above is from the Title Drive link, about the 1969 era of Mercury versus OMC.
I wonder how much money, in USA dollars, is the 1% of OMC gross sales?
And did Mercury spend 3 million dollars a year supporting boat racing?

Title Drive link:

https://www.gosee.tv/boatracing/2010...nal-video.html

[FUJIMO]

[peterse90]

Easy to tell the original 16 Donzi called a Ski Sporter from the later 16's called Sweet 16...original had helm on the port - the Sweet 16's the helm moved over to starboard. Actually if you look most of the Donzi's of this era had port side helms.

[FUJIMO]

Easy to tell the original 16 Donzi called a Ski Sporter from the later 16's called Sweet 16...original had helm on the port - the Sweet 16's the helm moved over to starboard. Actually if you look most of the Donzi's of this era had port side helms.

...do you know what year the helms were moved to starboard & why?...

[peterse90]

...do you know what year the helms were moved to starboard & why?...

As far as starboard helms go I always thought it was to 'counter' the effect of right-hand prop rotation trying to 'lift' the starboard side of the boat that was very noticeable back in the day of smaller boats.

I know by the late 80's when OMC owned Donzi by then the helms were starboard side...so somewhere between 1970 and 1989.
I would say that's not much help at all !!

Maybe if I go back thru some of my 70' and 80's Powerboats but I don't think Donzi were a big advertiser in that time frame with Powerboat.

[GENE LANHAM]

...do you know what year the helms were moved to starboard & why?...

as far as starboard helms go i always thought it was to 'counter' the effect of right-hand prop rotation trying to 'lift' the starboard side of the boat that was very noticeable back in the day of smaller boats.

I know by the late 80's when omc owned donzi by then the helms were starboard side...so somewhere between 1970 and 1989.
I would say that's not much help at all !!

Maybe if i go back thru some of my 70' and 80's powerboats but i don't think donzi were a big advertiser in that time frame with powerboat.

ask freddie!!

[peterse90]

...do you know what year the helms were moved to starboard & why?...

A little research time and this is what I have found so far;

1972's were still port side helms (and mostly Volvo outdrives from what I see)
1979's were starboard side helms...now Mercruiser powered.

Fujimo, surely from your photo collection we can narrow this 7 year gap down even further !!

[FUJIMO]

...do you know what year the helms were moved to starboard & why?...

...1976, the helms were moved to the starboard side. On the 18 Donzi & up boats, MerCruiser TRS drives, with the standard right hand rotation propellers that they come with, were installed with either small-block or big-block(330) MerCruiser engines. The reason being, on smaller single engine inboard boats, a right-hand rotation propellers torque from an inboard, will slightly lift the starboard side of the boat, from half throttle on up while underway, giving the driver a better ride quality. the portside passengers ride quality suffers a bit, due to that side of the boat breaking the oncoming waves first, while the drivers side is up in the air a bit, enjoying a better ride quality. On both the 16's & 18's, anything with a Volvo sterndrive, which were all left-hand rotation drives(no matter the engine in front of it), had the helm on the port side of the cockpit, for like reasons. Left-hand rotation Volvo drive/engine packages, I believe were rigged in the 16's for a couple extra years than the 18's, if my memory is correct, then the 16 was discontinued being made for quite a while...

[FUJIMO]

...all of this info was purely from memory and personal experience, as i owned a few of these when i was younger, as did a few friends. you can probably get more accurate info on the donzi website, which I have never been on...

[Mark75H]

This is the answer I expected

[FUJIMO]

...the first year of the donzi 16's, in 1964, were all eaton outdrives with 4 cylinders, or small ford solid lifter v-8's...

[peterse90]

A little more research. A lot to do with Jim Wynne.
Jim Wynne was a big part of Donzi in the early years and of course was the pioneer of the Volvo sterndrive and thus all early Donzis had Volvo outdrives that were all left-hand rotation.
About 1976 Donzis started using right-hand rotation MerCruisers and Donzi made both port & starboard helm boats.

Getting back to OUTBOARDS and RACING HISTORY and Willabee's HOT SINGLES I thought I would post a few of my favourite tunnel outboard pictures;

[FUJIMO]