Lets talk about your youth.....

[Formula Jr]

What was the highest HP engine you put on a boat, that really was not set up for that engine... We were all kids once...... I just want to know, cause thats maybe why we turned out this way.....being Donzi Addicts.. What did you put on your prams, your jon boats, your, home builts........?

I'll step up.
I put a 10HP on a 6 foot 14 degree Vee Hull, punt, that proablably went 30mph when I was 11. Chinewalk was a bitch and you had to climb up on the bow, and control the tiller with your feet after that. Steering was by leaning, side to side on plane.
This was my first "Performance Boat." Though this only happened over a month or two - the time (in memory) - seems to have happened forever.......

[Shanghied Again]

I had an 8ft pram when I was 10 put on a 9hp motor and sunk the boat, She broke apart it was all plywood. The best boat I got when I was 16 a 10 ft GW Invader 25hp did 25mph. Then my sister wrecked the 18ft Glaspar that we had so I took the BIG White 75hp Merc slapped it on the back of the GW to see how it would work. The only way I could keep the boat a float was to put weight in the front it was back heavy. But this boat could screem. Back in the early 70s to do high 60s in a boat was un heard of. That boat did it but chine walk was putting it mild.

[Formula Jr]

I think every kid wanted one of those GW Invaders. The one I got to ride in had a 90 Merc. ya just kinda grit your teeth and held on............All the times we got that thing sideways and all the times we had it straight up and down.... if only the parents knew...


This is why I didn't have kids.............you are supposed to care about them right?.....

[Tony]

We had a 13' Glastron with a 65 hp Merc on it, and topped it out at about 45 mph by using the top notch on the motor tilt, almost empty gas tank, and sitting in the middle to steer. We learned how to barefoot behind it (much lighter back then), and could even go double behind it but we had to wear old tennis shoes!

Just to say we did it, we had a rowboat with an old 20hp on it, and in a whip we would step off and barefoot behind it.

[Crazy Horse]

We had a 13' Whaler with a 20 Merc on it but we put our neighbors 50 Merc on it one weekend for kicks. Almost died! :eek:

[Danny]

When I was 12 I had a 12 foot tin boat with 40hp Evinrude Lark on it, had a dead man throttle on it and even raised the motor (can't believe I was already playing with the X dimension back then). It went in the mid 40s which was pretty fast for the mid 60s on Georgian Bay. We used to go play in the big waves in what was know as the Gap near our cottage. The boat was so stern heavy that when you caught big air the wind would catch it and flip you over backwards. My father would have to come out and drag us back in. I don't think he appreciated it much but I learned quickly how to get a submerged engine running again.My father owned a marina so over the years I had lots sea fleas, small hydoplanes and needlenose racers. Awe to be a kid again and the neat thing is that my children are learning in the same fashion I did. Also had one of the first Sea Doos must have been the early 70s about a 10 hp Rotax engine, It had this bizarre belt drive that was always flying off.
Danny

[EricG]

That was my 13' Whaler.....and that's a 65HP Evinrude......any questions? :D

http://www.donzi.net/photos/egudgel07.jpg

[seano]

put a 6 hp on my 8 foot dinghy(rated for 2hp_
put a 60hp on my 13 Whaler(dont remember what it was rated for)

and for the topper---put a 235 Johnson on the back of a 15 foot Traveler or Winner...I forget which, but I was about 12 and my pop owned a marina. He and his mechanic had just rebuilt the 235 looper and had no boat to upt it on to test it...so we had this old fiberglass boat sitting there and dad says, "what the hell?..." They bolted it on, and just hooked up the steering, fuel and battery. We launched the boat(and unbelievably it did not sink! I was elected to steer while my dad and the mechanic sat in the back and "throttled" :eek: :eek:

man that was some funny day...we took a trip around the bay without incident but the looks on peoples' faces were priceless!

[Formula Jr]

".....could even go double behind it but we had
to wear old tennis shoes!" ----- love it! Only a kid would remember that kind of detail!

Eric, that must have gone 50 easy!!!!!


This is all leading up to a story ( the "who's chicken" story- and i'll tell all of it), but I want to know what you guys ran first...........

[EricG]

We ran it full throttle, trimmed in the last hole once....It was basically uncontrolable :eek:

So, it lived most of its life trimmed way too far under to get any real speed... It was a great ski boat, could pull my 220# brother up on a single pretty quickly.

Imagine running accross Lake Washington at about 40 in that thing on a weekend - that was a wild ride....wait....I once saw formula Jr. do that too, never mind ;)

EG

[SundanceKid]

Whn my dad was 11, my grandpa bought him a 13 Whaler with a 40 Merc that had a padlock on the throttle so he couldn't go very fast. He ended up advancing the timing because it would go faster and blew up the engine. Later he had a 12 foot Archercraft with a 50 Merc that ran about 50. Later, his buddy's 85 Merc found its way on there and the boat sunk at the dock! I had a 12' Zodiac with a 20 Merc that i popped, ran about 30, and was always ready to blow over in a strong head wind. My cousin has a 13 Whaler with a 50 Yamaha that we always take out of Hillsboro to jump the wakes of the sportfishes coming in the inlet.

[EricG]

This one only had a 10HP Merc, but I was only 5 Years old, so I think it qualifies as a hotrod!! And Owen, it did have a wannabe firebird painted on the bow - so I guess you could call it my version of who's chicken :D

http://www.donzi.net/photos/egudgel08.jpg

[Sam]

A 151/2 ft Ebco Semi Tunnel rated for 85 hp, hung a 115 Merc on it. I painted the cowl black so the marine patrol couldn't ticket me. When your only fifteen that was the cats %@##$#^.

Sam

[Sam]

Frank there was only one thing I like better than a GW Invader when I was in my early teens. That was my Playboy collection that I kept in the woods behind my house. I would love to see some pic's, of the Invader that is.

Sam

[mattyboy]

When I was younger a buddy of mine and me fooled around with a 16' sidewinder and 175 merc worked ,a wild ride, while it lasted the transom fell apart one day while planing off . oh when we were young, no fear, this is the same guy who towed me behind his kawasaki 125cc dirt bike on my skateboard, we rigged the skateboard with the boots from a water ski, tow rope and all going down the road at 30 mph at 31 mph the ball bearings in a skate board turn to mush! at 32 mph you get road rash that scrapes all your feckles off! I'll show you guys when we get a chance to met a a donzi gathering

Matt
if my son does half of the crazy stuff I did I'll be lucky to see 45 :eek:

[PaulO]

Matty,
I am with you! I think back to all the boats that were unsafe and the motorbikes we built and I think "how could my father walk right by us out in the yard building this stuff and not stop us?" We found so many ways to mount a Briggs on a bicycle it is amazing. Nothing ever had brakes or a clutch so everything was "push start". We didn't have throttles, we ran a piece on monofilament to the carb and routed it around the handlebars!! I remember acquiring my first centrifugal clutch in some kind of trade and thinking that I finally hit the big time. Somehow we survived. My wife is already asking me how I will handle it when my sons want boats and motorcycles. I don't know. Sorry about this one Chris but, last year I had Chris' father in my cigarette while we followed Chris in his Donzi. After some wild wake-jumping I turned to Chris' father and said "how can you watch your son do that" and he replied "It's as difficult now as it has been for the last 15 years".

I think I know what he means.
PaulO

[Shanghied Again]

I have to go to my sisters house one day and look through the old pictures, I know she has a couple of photos of my GW with the big M-44 on the hood and there should be a picture of my 21 Stevens Drag boat with 1200hp blower motor, The Fury my first 125mph death boat.

[Ross]

How about a 10hp Merc Huricane with a quicky lower unit on the back of a little 3 pointer hydroplane. What a screamer !! Probably showing my age !!

[CDMA]

Ummmm this is my youth. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Well I guess the 8 foot inflatable when I was 75 lbs was some ride too..

Chris

[smoothie]

Ross,
I had the same boat and motor,flipped it and the motor is still at the bottom of the lake never to be found.Im going thru my pics over the weekend for that hydro and two others that I had.

[oldLenny]

Had an 11' Sport Boston Whaler, (right center console) 1980, in 1982-3, had a 3 cyl 70 HP MERC on back, boat rated for a 10HP, used to go to Roche Harbour and buy beer during the Local Brewery Strike and bring it back to Sidney and then to my folks place. (I was 21). Used to go to Vancouver across the GEORGIA STRAIGHT many,many times in this arrangement. Only problem was coming off a plane. It would swamp ALWAYS and needed feathering off a plane in an insane way.

MAN!!!! was that fun...!!!

[Formula Jr]

Legend of the "Who's Chicken."

Being a Wharf Rat and growing up on the Magothy River, Chesapeak Bay in the late sixties, early seventies, the Who's Chicken was a boat and a way of life you were expected to live up to. I don't know where the Who's Chicken is now, it was passed on to younger Wharf Rats and maybe down the generations - I can only hope. But this was a boat that always lived larger in the mind and was the center of all my local, crazy, boat-kid lore. I happen to have been a part of that story, in my youth.

We were members of the "First Wake Club." To be come a member you had to jump the first wake of a cabin cruiser heading out of the Magothy. And you had to get all the way out of the water; skeg and all to be initiated. It was no problen to do this with a 14 foot Lone Star and a 10 HP Merc. The older brother had made the grade before me with a 20 Johnson and a 16 foot Ochatall before it was taken away. I was just following his foot steps to the covenant. Other members, like Freddy, had made it in a Sport Yak with an 8hp SEA KING. The main perk to the First Wake Club, was access to the Who's Chicken. No one owned this boat. It was the communal property of the Club. As received, it was passed down by earlier First Wakers and I never knew who started the tradition. She was a rounded bow, flat bottom hydro with all of 6 inches of topside at the transom. The steering was cable, reversed and the engine only ran in forward. It was painted bright yellow, because that was the best color to find the boat after it had sunk in the murky waters of the Magothy. And it sunk, many, many times when a First Waker could not get to ground, ran out of gas or stalled because the singular most important feature of the Chicken was that it could not float with the ancient, heavy, 35 HP Evinrude bolted to its transom. Sometimes it took us as long as a week to find it again if she went down in deeper water.

The Chicken had an entire etiquette that came with the boat. You had to keep it on your beach for at least one week a year. This was the only way to continue the tradition, as no sane parent would have ever sanctioned this thing. If a parent did ask about the boat, you would just say "Ah, its so and so's boat." And as long as there were more than ten members in the First Wake Club, the boat was always gone by the end of the week. Bailey, a senior member of the Club, keep the engine over the winters. The Chicken would stay hidden, tarped and grounded in the cat-tailed. upper swamps of Mill Creek till Spring; back when there were upper swamps no one ventured into.

Launching The Chicken required a crew as well organized as any NASA lift-off. After dragging the boat off the beach, two guys would hold up the transom while the driver climbed in. With one hand on the steering wheel, the driver would pull the engine to life, quickly stuff the throttle and climb up on to the bow as the boat started a long, anxiety filled few seconds as the boat tryed to plane off. Even with the engine set on the lowest trim hole, there was no cruising speed. Anything less than 3/4 throttle would porpose so badly you couldn't steer it straight. The modifications we made that spring, made the Chicken all the more exciting. We learned to thin the gas mix to 75:1 and to by-pass the internal throttle stop screw. No one was brave enough to try full speed now, cause the bow would plant itself about an inch above the surface of the water, and there was a little curtain of spray that came over the bow. To end any run, you had to fully beach the boat, which gave new meaning to the term "Landing."

Our sacred meeting ground was the sand bar at the enterance to Mill Creek. Where we bided our time, aqua-planeing behind various small runabouts and pursued the three main currencies of earliy teendom: Cigarettes, Beer and Firecrackers.

During the summer of '71, the property directly across the creek from our sand bar was bought and developed and a new pier was built. Attached to this pier was a Donzi, like no other we had ever seen. This was no ordinary Donzi. It was a Yellow Classic 18 Vee Drive with a Big Block engine and a super charger. The hatch opening had been permanently widened and re-glassed like that of a typical open, flatbottom Vee drive. Mostly, I remember the organ pipes of the exhaust that shot up like those on Grandpapa Munster's dragster. It was called the Tiki Tiki and was instantly considered the badest boat on the River - if not the whole world. When Tiki started, birds would fly out of the trees. She idled with a rumbling cacophony of sharp blasts that you could feel on your skin from 300 feet away. Little ripplets of water would form and telegraph across the creek. Tiki could shake the world around it.

In retrospect; Tiki's owner, a 40 or so year old guy, must have regretted the proximity of his new home to the santuary of the First Wake Club. Every time he set foot on his pier, there was a small flotilla of pesky kids rowing over to ask endless questions about his boat. How fast is It? Is it scarry? Can I have a ride? Do you have a spare cigarette? Can you buy us beer?

At some point, he got alittle pissed at us, cause he blewup one day after scrapping his knuckle on a tool and shouted at us to "Get Lost!", and to take all our little kiddy boats with us.

Well, there's an addage as old as time, and applies just as much to 13 year old captains as it does to salty sailers - you never insult another person's boat. And in this case, he insulted our entire fleet. But there was one member of the fleet he had never seen.


"Oh Yah. We can beat your boat any day of the week!," We shouted.
Some what amused, Tiki's owner said, "With What?, Now, get off my pier and stop bothering me!, I'm not buying you any beer or cigarettes."

"You be here next Saturday at 1, and we'll race you on the Creek for a carton and a case." - we chirped.

"Yah right. Groovy, kids. I'll be there, now get lost before I start tossing you all off," Tiki's master said.


So in our little minds the challenge was made and the appointed time set. Now the worry began to dig in.

What the hell did we just get ourselves into. "Freddy! Why did you open your big F-ing mouth. And you Saffell, why didn't you just leave when he wanted us too. We'll never get a ride now. There's no way we can beat that boat. How are we going to get a carton of cigarettes and a case of Black Lable?" The pressure of the group had pushed us beyond what we really were - just a bunch of kids with little kiddy boats. But Bailey was unswayed. He had run the Chicken more than anyone else, and knew what she could do. With a slight glint in his eyes, he said, "We're in this now, lets see it through."

That Saturday, we gathered at the sand point after each of us had stuffed down balony and cheese sandwiches from the family lunches. The Who's Chicken wasn't there yet, but we had picked a good day. Calm, flat water and the Coast Guard would not patrol till Sunday as was they're usual rounds. We waited and waited, and waited some more. The locust of late summer sang. One O'clock went by. Then 1:30. None of us had watches - 13 year olds in 1971, did'nt have watches. We just knew what time it was.

Then we saw Tiki's owner with a buddy of his, walking down to his pier. Where the hell is the Chicken? They both had beers, Hawiian shirts and shorts, and were just standing by the boat talking.

"Quick, somebody go get Bailey at his place", I commanded - whats taking him so long?? Bailey was the only guy that could single hand launch, as his shoreline had a concrete step you could prop the skeg on. Scott Olivevich hopped in his boat to head up the creek to Bailey's as the Tiki guys started unsnapping the cover off her. We had no backup plan for losing, no carton or case. We would just have to eat dirt if we lost.

Olivevich had just rounded the bend on the creek and was out of sight when we heard the Tiki fire up. They cast off and proceeded to leave the Mill Creek Channel heading for the open Magothy. They were ignoring us. They can't do that! We're the First Wake Club! We ran out to the end of the bulkhead, shouting and waving our arms. It was just then we could see Bailey, flying down the creek in the Chicken. The nose was right on the water. He made a perfect landing on the sand. And we started to drag her off for another launch. "I'm not doing this alone! Says Bailey! I need a rider for Ballast." I was in the boat in about three seconds. "Today, is a good Day" - alot of you may associate this phase with Star Trek Klingons, but we were refering to all those Westerns we had been raised on and how TV Indians talked before entering battle.

The guys in the Tiki noticed something going on and they started to turn around back to Mill Creek. Bailey said to me, "I want you to get as far back as you can after we plane off. " The Tiki was right at the Channel enterance marker and could see us takeoff. Two guys holding up the transom, the 35 gushed water and sand out as we climbed right up on to the bow to wait out the slow process of getting on top of the water. After two big jumps we flatten out, and could hear an explosion of raw power from Tiki behind us. We're running three-quarter throttle and I get as far back as I can, right up on the engine cowling - buzzing on my back. Bailey is stretched out a far back as he can get and still steer. The sound of Tiki's engine grew louder in our ears, till all we could see was a flash of yellow and a wall of water flying from the back of that boat as it flew past us. As we rounded the turn on the creek, there was Tiki stopped in the water. We fly by and started our turn, in the only area wide enough to let us turn. Olivevich in his little dingy was looking on. The Chicken did'nt like to turn. You had to slow enough to get it porposing, and then yank the wheel on every jump in kind of a ratchet motion. We barely made it as the bottom keel skeg was alittle worn from all the groundings and we damn near clipped Olivevich.

We passed right by the Tiki, and oddly they were just looking at us with somewhat wide eyes and open jaws. "They're going to pass us again." I said with resignation. "No they're not" Bailey quiped. "We're going surfing." It was then I could see that the original wake made by the Tiki had washed a shore and bounced back into the channel. But we would have to take the left side to follow it back to the beach landing "Go for IT!!!" I crammed my little frame as far back as I could, and Bailey planted himself right over my feet. We leaned in to the wave and stuffed the throttle. We heard the eruption of Tiki starting back up and could feel the roar get louder, but the the immediate sounds and senses overrode this. The bow was up as we continueously fell off the old wake, the engine screamed like it was going to fly apart. My vision tunneled to just the beach as everything in the peripheral turned to blurr. Time was compressed and the next thing I remember was us hitting the beach and riding up a good ten feet. The Club was cheering, jumping up and down. Patting our backs. We showed them.

We got out and looked back. Tiki was at idle, back up the creek. Then we saw them turn into the Ferry Point Boat Yard Gas Dock.

"What the Hell is going on!" We waited. And we waited some more. "They were right behind you and then they just stopped" - observed the on lookers, and was confirmed by Olivevich when he got back. "The Driver got hurt", Olivevich said, "I saw him winceing and holding his side like he broke a rib." "How did they do that? Lets go see." I said. We started to head off the point to go see what's what at the Gas Dock, when we could hear Tiki start up yet again. They headed right for our sand bar.

Tiki Tiki, glid up to the beach and both guys jumped out. Beers in one hand and Cigars in the other. They strolled over to our little boat and started laughing. Deep gut, belly laughing. One asked in a stammering half laugh, half query, "Does this THING even Float?" "Well, no. Not really." - we replied with proudfull smirks. And another wave of uncontrollable laugher came over them till they held their sides in pain. "Hey Bill maybe they'll trade it for your Boat?" More laughter. Coming in fits now. They asked what we called her, and with that they couldn't laugh anymore. Just occasional cackling. "I've seen enough." Tiki's owner says and he reaches in to his boat, pulls out two six packs of National Bohemian. "Don't you tell anyone we bought these for you, and we're never going to do it again."
"Hey, what about the Cigarettes?" we asked.
They looked at eachother and the co-pilot gets a grin, looks at The Who's Chicken and says. "Kids, don't you know Cigarettes can KILL YOU." Tiki's owner caught the gist of this and yet another round of Cackling was set off. They fired up Tiki and headed out to face real boats and real races.

I moved at the end of that summer to another location and quickly found another set of Wharf Rat Friends. The story of the "Whos' Chicken" was told and retold many times, sometimes by those that were there, and sometimes I would hear an embellished secondhand version, which I would never correct. Cause Wharf Rats have their own culture. Part of that culture involves stories of boats that lived larger than life. Though the currency of an early teenager may have changed in our health conscience world, I know for certain there are still Who's Chicken's out there that are only run far from the prying eyes of parents. And this makes me smile. ;)

[Dr. Dan]

Owen, That is a great story! :D ,I could picture it all! It's a wonder most of us are still alive! When I was a kid, we lived near a lake,not on it, when my brother bought his first boat I thought it was the baddest looking thing I'd Seen! We called it "Thumper", cuz it was a Glastron Tunnel Hull, 14' or 16', but it was small, with a 60HP Johnson, it broke down alot, but it was a riot to ride in! I was the eternal skier, we always tried to be the last ones on the lake who skied that season, In Michigan that can amount to sterility later in life! They would pull me around that lake on anything that would float,an actual 14" car tire inner tubes that were way over inflated, it was always a challenge to get those things to plane out, otherwise you resembled a Torpedo and drank alot of Lake water. One year, they tied up to the boat,what I'm now sure was actually a Snow Sled with 3 wooden skies, the center one was a little lower, I nearly drowned getting that thing to plane out, but I did it! Wow, I was an idiot, but it sure made for fun times, because when your young, you're immortal! :rolleyes: ...Doc

[RedDog]

priceless

[khm]

okay, had the flat bottonm 8ft hydro with a mk 25 hurricane on it, insane for a first boat,. the merc found its way to a GW Invader I finally sold last year, and the invader had several motors finally ending up with a 45hp. Now after a couple of tounament ski boats the kids are grown and I can have my Donzi. After lusting after a classic for almost thirty years I will be ordering an eighteen to arrive on my fiftieth birthday two years from now.
What I need to know is how fast is a stock eighteen with the scorpion., and how fast can an eighteen "safely" run

[khm]

okay, had the flat bottonm 8ft hydro with a mk 25 hurricane on it, insane for a first boat,. the merc found its way to a GW Invader I finally sold last year, and the invader had several motors finally ending up with a 45hp. Now after a couple of tounament ski boats the kids are grown and I can have my Donzi. After lusting after a classic for almost thirty years I will be ordering an eighteen to arrive on my fiftieth birthday two years from now.
What I need to know is how fast is a stock eighteen with the scorpion., and how fast can an eighteen "safely" run

[Formula Jr]

From what I can see, the First Wake Club was far larger than I ever imagined. It spans the country. Though we were not running triple 502s in 30 foot boats.... can anyone say the thrill was less. The senses, less hightened or the ride more memorable than your first "fast" boat......
Sometimes, I think all I realy want is a Sydcraft and a tuned twenty-five. :D

[Barry Phillips]

My first boat which was my own and not the
family's was a 11' Sid Craft raceing runabout
named SO-SLO. I was 13 years old and it
was the coolest boat I had ever seen. The
first motor I put on it was a 15HP striped
down Evinrude, which could push it about
36mph, by the time I retired the boat I was
running a 25HP Mec Thunder Bolt. I should
have never gave it away because I'm shure
its' a classic now, 4 cylinder, 4 carbs
side tube exhaust. I have no idea how fast
SO-SLO went but I'm shure it was over 50mph.
A final note I was in SO-SLO when I saw my
first Donzi an early 70s Classic 18' I was
15 and I knew I had to own one some day, I
used to ride down the lake where it was
moored and look at it. I have had a love afair
with Donzis ever scince. I thought they were
English because of the Union Jack on the early
models.

[ToonaFish]

It must be raining in Miami...

Bunches,

Toona 'and I wanted lessons from the Poodle?'

[Sam]

1970 I was 15 years old and clamped a Mercury Mark 55 on my "B" hydro. A little ass heavy but once I got her on plane it was hammer time.

Sam :D :D :D :D

[mphatc]

Growing up on the shore of Winni we did lots of stupid things . . .
I had a friend who put together an 8 foot Old Town rowboat with an 18 HP Johnson . . painted it black and called it "Run For Your Life" . . scary

Worst and scariest stunt I ever did was with 3 6hp Evinrudes on the old 12" MFG skiffs . . .
I worked for a rental shop near Weirs Beach, and on a slow day we were bored . . . .

very hard to control 3 tillers and throttles . . ultimately at speed the center engine would almost follow the outer 2 . . . leave it to say that this was a short lived stunt . . . .
But when it all was synched WOW did it fly! :D

Mario L.

[MOP]

12 foot Penn Yann double cockpit got it with a 25 Johnson put a 35 Gale on it not real fast. Got me back and forth to Fire Island to party.

[Walt. H.]

Back in 67'Mill Basin,Jamaca Bay area of B'klyn,NY. I had a Glaspar G-3 with a 85 hp Evinrude. The boat was rated for a 65-horse. But Hey that was a rating for amateurs! I was a 15 yr old who thought he knew it all. :rolleyes: I wish I was that smart now!The boat was named the Blue Mouse and was unbeatened until I sold it with a 40 hp Evinrude Lark. Then I moved up to a, wish I still had it today, 68 metal flake Carlson Contender with The race engine Evinrude produced back then.The X-115 5800 rpm red line,it had above water exh a quickie lower unit with dual pinion gear's and a 2-blade mich bronze prop.I still have one as a wall hanger today. It's a solid splined hub.By age 17 it had to go! I wanted my own car and I couldn't afford both. You can't drive to your girl friends with a boat. But you could with a 66 Goat.(pont.GTO)Ok! Who's next?

[DonzigoJR]

Im late but,

My very good friend and I ventured to put his fathers company dingy motor on his john boat. The boat was rated for a five hp and we managed to tie down a fiveteen hp outboard on the back. The boat was out of hand. Not sure how fast it went, but we flipped it with-in a week. My father will now find out for the first time. :p He hasn't heard that one yet. :rolleyes: I had a slim body Geenoe with a 9.9hp and that one rode very good on the sides???Almost flipped.(I'll try harder next time) Had a 16ft proline with a 70 Yamaha(Sunk in the backyard, Dad was watching) 16ft Capehorn 75hp merc; tore the engine of the back jumping waves. Told pops I hit an oyster bed. He knew I was lying. Now my friend has a 16ft action craft with roughly 325hp on a short shaft outboard. Hits about 112mph, Very Scary. Still testing the death wish. Still looking for the next sinker. :D