Powerboat Racing: Madness off Miami

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They aren't taking volunteers for the Alamo any more, and it is getting harder to find cannibals to invite to lunch. So what does a man do when he's bored and restless (and maybe a little masochistic) and has $50,000 or so to spend? He races powerboats.

Offshore powerboat racing is no delicate art like trying to steer a skittery hydroplane around the smooth surface of a protected lake. It is simple, straightforward stuff: slamming headlong through the open ocean in anything from a souped-up outboard to a PT boat—until your ribs rattle and your face is white with salt. It is madness, of course. But as Ohio Millionaire Merrick Lewis, 41, explained on the eve of last week's Sam Griffith Memorial Race from Miami to Bimini and back: "Once in a while, you have to force yourself into doing something that petrifies you. If you don't, pretty soon you turn into a chunk of Jell-O."

Too New for Money. Lewis, alas, was unable to compete in the 172-mile race himself because he had four broken ribs, three cracked ribs and a gash on his skull—mementos of the Houston Channel Derby two weeks before. But he sent out no fewer than eight of his boats, including Thunderbird, a 32-ft. aluminum "hot dog" powered by two 500-h.p. United Aircraft gas turbines and piloted by Designer-Driver Jim Wynne. So radical that it was classified as experimental (and therefore ineligible for the winner-take-all $3,000 prize), Thunderbird had been clocked at 65 m.p.h. in practice runs. That was enough to make it the prerace favorite, but there was no shortage of high-velocity competition. Miami Boatbuilder Dick Bertram was at the helm of his diesel-powered Brave Moppie, the 1965 world champion. Following in the example of his father, a champion hydroplane racer, Gar Wood Jr. was driving Orca, a needle-nosed, 47-ft. monster that packed 1,200 horses under its deck. British hopes were pinned on Surfury, a molded plywood 36-footer with twin supercharged engines that generated 525 h.p. apiece.

The rest of the fleet consisted mostly of standard inboards and outboards that might have come from a showroom window. But Jerry Langer's No. 10 was strictly do-it-yourself. An out-board-engine dealer from Miami Beach, Langer had borrowed a Fiberglas mold, poured himself a hull, tacked two ordinary 90-h.p. motors on the back. Just before the race, he decided that he didn't like the pitch of his propellers, so he took a hammer and pounded away until they looked "about right."

Two Minutes to Swim. On race day, a 20-knot crosswind was kicking up 10-ft. swells in the northward-flowing Gulf Stream, and visibility was down to half a mile. But away they went anyhow, 31 boats roaring out of Biscayne Bay into the heaving Gulf Stream. Within minutes, last year's Griffith winner, Bill Wishnick, was back at the dock: his co-driver Allen Brown had smashed both ankles on the jolting deck of their 28-ft. Broad Jumper. About the same time, Gar Wood Jr. bounced Orca onto a sand bar off Cape Florida, clambered out, and watched helplessly as his $150,000 craft split open and sank.