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View Full Version : Donzi Sportsman 28 List write-up.



Formula Jr
03-23-2002, 09:09 PM
This is what I've got for the Donzi 28 pages.

Sportsman 28.

This is the boat that literally put Donzi on the racing map with Allan Brown's Donzi Baby win of the 1967 Miami-Nassau Race. Using a very unconventional inline tandem engine configuration of two 427 CID Ford side oilers that powered a single propellor shaft, the racing press at the time didn't think this boat was going to finish, much less win the race in record time. The racing heratige of Donzi is essentially based on this boat and to a lesser extent the Hornet 19. A cut-down 28 hull was also used for Aronow's later 007 and 008 race boats. It was a pack of Donzi 28s dogging Jack Mason in the 1964 Miami-Key West Race that inspired his now famous phase, "Those Damn Donzis."

The 28 Sportsman was always and will remain one of the rarest of the production Donzis. And was the largest Donzi available, right up till the introduction of the Genth Z Boat Series in 1987. I've only seen two in person. Most production boats were twins with Vee Drive prop shafts. The interiors are spartan by today's standards, but the boat had ample headroom at 6' 1" for a 28. It is interesting to note that Don Aronow was 6' 3" tall. These boats, were heavy and built like tanks. Seeing one come up to plane from a dead stop is a lifetime memory. This boat belongs to the very exculsive club of the Original Donzi Line Up composed of the Ski Sporter 16, Hornet 19, St. Tropez 19 and the 28 Sportsman.

Other tid bits collected :

Total production 74
The crusader 4000s are not rated for Big Blocks.
Produced from '64 to '70.
That the 008 hull was used to create the 28 Cary.
Few survive due to the economics of restoring larger boats.
Brownie, in this design won the:
66 Hennessy Long Island Marathon, Broad Jumper - Did they still call them "Broads" in '66? :D
67 Gateway Marathon, Blue Devil - I'll leave that to the imagination.
67 Miami-Nassua, Donzi Baby.

I guess the next boat would have been called "Diaper Change?"

Any one. Please feel free to elaborate on this boat. I lost alot of info in a computer crash. So I'm sorry if my info is sparce. But collectively, I think we can pull together a history worthy of this design.