Joe Swift

[Ron Hill]

My brother had a Big Bee Swift, that we later sold to Jimbo McConnell. Ron Loomis had anAtomic "A" about the same time...As I recall th cowing on the ATOMIC "A" was longer than the Big Bee....

I ran my brother's Big Bee in A Stock and made th fastest time in A Hydro at the 1957 Western Divisional Championships... Boat had almost the same dementions..I took th bottom fin off and ran full links air traps...

[Danny Pigott]

If i remember right in SEBA most all Hydro's around 56/57 had full airtraps some of the Swift's had thin steel airtraps added behind the short wood ones that Swift;s came with.The steel traps were about 1 inch deep at back of the boat. Around this time they also went to sponson fins, I have a Papsts(sp) Hydro of that time that has them on it i will try to take a pic. Some people made full steel traps like Ron said an replaced the wood ones

[ezryder]

You are correct Ron. The Atomic A hydro had a longer cowling than the Big Bee. And the "Big Dee" had one that was even longer.

Also, Danny, your spot on! We started running full length air traps around 57. But we were running sponson fins almost two years before that.
By the way, eliminating the center fin and going to the sponson fin
added around 2 to 3 mph. And better cornering to boot!
It also made it a lot more likely that you could "flood out" anyone that
was trying to sneak up inside of you just before you turned in.

EZ

[Ron Hill]

I went to Worchester, Massachusetts, for the Stock Nationals in 1957.The first part of the week was like California, clear blue sky and all. About Friday it started raining and rained like hell.

Everybody turned their boats over to keep the rain out.....Between eating BAR-B-Q beef sandwiches and trying to stay dry, I cruised the pits.

I noticed all the hydros had no bottom fin and one inch aluminum angles added to their air traps..."FULL LENGTH AIR TRAPS". And all had sponson fins.

I came home and told my brother what my dad and I had seen. So, we decided to take the bottom fin off his Thompson Hydro, add full length air traps. We made the sponson fin out of his bottom fin by cutting half the mounting to the fin off and sharpening it. We went and tested and my borther picked up 8 MPH and could turn better....That was with his D Stock on it.

We decided to had for Handford for an Alky race. We got to Handford late, but they gave my brother permission to take one lap before driver's meeting. Russ had never had his Racing C on the Thompson with this set up....Russ roared around the course like he was on a rail, throwing water off the sponson fin, which no one had ever seen, like he was an Unlimited Hydro.

At driver's meeting, Henry Wagner said he would not allow "CRAZY" drive like he's just seen. Russ beat the fire out of those guys that day...Henry was always our friend, before and after....But those full length 1 inch aluminum air traps changed boat racing in California forever.

I went home and started working on the Big Bee Swift! (As I had wrecked it pretty good.....at Long Beach with single bouy turns)....I never ran the Big Bee in Alky A Hydro after Long Beach....

[ezryder]

The first place we tried using sponson fins was racing with the SEBA
circuit. They had a lot of very tight courses to navigate. Walt Blankenstein suggested that we should try the sponson fins.
I have no way to know it we were the first to try the sponson fins, but I know that I had never seen them the first time I tried them.
Same goes for the full length air traps. We made ours out of stainless
steel that Walt bend for us in his brake.

The net result of these two advancements were quite amazing. I'm thinking that taken togather they probably increased our speed by at least three or four mph, not to mention how much better we got through those tight turns.

EZ

[rumleyfips]

A bit late, but I just read this thread today and it stirred a memory.

As soon as I turned 16 in 1964 and started driving I got interested in boat racing. There were 5 wildcat races within a 30 mile radius and I bought an old Carolina alky hydro Z58 through a note on a grocery store bulliten board. A friend's family had a cottage on Newboro Lake, Ontario and the guy next door told us he had an old reaceboat under the cottage and we could use it whenever we wanted. It was a moulded plywood roundchine runaboat with a KG4H and Kamic wheel.

I ran the boat alongside an ASH from Newboro Lake , Indian, Clear to the locks at Chaffeys on the Rideau canal and back day after day until the bottom gave way. Moulded plywood boats were known for having a rot problem. I tried to buy the stuff but he said just put it back under the cottage. I wonder if it's still there. Ron you would have liked the motor, 44 block and all matching numbers.

I always thought the boat was a Paceship but Mike's story made me think it could have been a Yellow Jacket. A bit of Googling showed both were Canadian boats and both sold hulls with no transoms or decks. Some were completed as racing boats ( including Morehouse if the web is right). Paceship, Yellow Jacket and Morehouse were all pretty much the same.
It turns out I have more connection to these boats. A good racing buddy had relations who built moulded hulls in Mahone Bay , Nova Scotia ( about 2 1/2 hours from us now) before moving to Smith Falls , Ontario to build fiberglass boats. The last time I was there they were building boats for the US Coast Guard. My father flew Mosquitos a couple of times in the 40's. I drove one of these boat , I met people who built them and my father flew the airplane that inspired them.

For anyone who thinks composites are new, Google de Havilland Mosquito. A mococoque plywood aircraft built with balsa core plywood, using phenolic resin adhesive, clamped with rubber vacuum bags and baked in an autoclave; all in the 1940's. The machinery got from Winnegeg to Mahone Bay through Brigader Roy, exRCAF, the factory was run by Theakson and Richard Coledesigned for them before moving to Toronto ( Yellow Jacket ) and then onto the US.

Sorry to be a bit rambly but it was a long tome ago.

John McManus

[Ron Hill]

In '66 when I started driving for OMC, I was "BLOWN AWAY" by the the concept that I could get paid (Not real money but expenses) for driving a race boat.

As time went along I met Joe Swift. Of course, I asked him ifhe had anything to do with "SWIFT" BOATS". For those of you who now me, I'm seldom without words, but meeting "JOE SWIFT" in person, I was speechless.

A couple of years later (Joe worked for Mercury) as Joe and I had become friends, we got to talking politics. He said, "You know, Ron, I was reading a government survey about boats, and I learned that all boats over 50 feet that were trailerable were made of CEMENT!!!

I said, "CEMENT"??? Joe said, "Imagine, you are BAR-B-Qing some steaks and some guy for the government calls and asks you if you have a 50 foot trailerable boat. You say, 'SURE'. Then he asked what it is made out of. You say, 'Cement'."




Joe said every boat in this GOVERNMENT STUDY that was over 50 feet and trailerable (HOW MANY 50 footers are trailerable???) are made of cement.

Joe said, "I'm sure this guy Bar-B-Qing steaks says, "Yes, my boat is made of cement..." then, hangs up...

Joe was a great guy, very funny, seemed much younger than his age!

The OUTBOARD WARS were interesting years!