Byers' race boats

[Tomtall]

Richard Byers race boats of Paw Paw Michigan held many records as this news article explains from 1968.

Article courtesy of Jerry Oberlin II. Thanks Jerry.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Thanks to Jerry for sending that newspaper article to you Tom, and thank you for posting it. Besides those mentioned in the article Marshall Grant also had some Byers hydros. I never looked closely but "A BOAT NAMED SUE" was probably a Byers. I never knew that Byers first name was Richard and certainly didn't know what he looked like. Thanks again for posting that info.

[epugh66]

Nice piece of history. As I was reading, I was thinking you could change some names, dates and speeds and the story would apply to just everyone that ever nailed a boat together.

[Composite Specialties]

I totally agree with you Eric. If it were not for Tim Butts, John Yale, Carig Selvedge, Marchetti and others, I would have never been able to learn the history and evolution of the hydroplane and learn what if took to create my designs today and going forward. I think the most important part is the fact that everyone takes something from everyone and no one individual is responsible for any designs out there today. Those that choose to deny this are only fooling themselves.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

There were a couple of Byers class D pickelfork hydros here that proved to be sweet handling in their day. Their construction was first class, the building materials were quality. There is still one here where the other one went isn't known. There was a Byers conventional here earlier that went down the straights with a kind of a "tick" to it but none the less it handled well as a conventional. Some tell me that "tick" was a trait those Byers conventionals were known to have.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I don't know how to cut and paste snippets of that newspaper article, but I was really thrilled at his comment on the fact that hydros use an airfoil principal to get the hydros off the water. I had never seen a comment like that before dating back to the late 60's. According to the rule book all modern hydros were illegal for utilizing aerodynamics. When Tim Butts built SHADOWFAX for us in 1976, he utilized 45 degree airfoils at the transom which he had to disguise as braces for the thin portion of the boat. A number of us racing commissioners had been pushing to eliminate that outdated rule. It was finally gotten rid of in 1978 or 79. Byers was obviously knowledgeble with what he had to build according to the power of the engines and the speeds they would achieve.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

When I first saw those transom braces I thought it was to stabilize some twisting at the transom of the hydros I saw them on because their design was flawed so it was said. Not a flaw at all, it was part of a plan all along!

There have been a couple of hydros sold on Ebay at recent times that had those braces though some were bigger than others area wise but placement was pretty much the same. They were part of the scheme to get more airfoil aerodynamics into hydros too?

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The first two that Tim Butts built were thicker and had a longer wing section. If the ones you saw John would look like a cross section of a wing if sawed in half, then that's what they were. The underside was flat. The leading edge was thicker than the trailing edge with an upwards arch and thinning down at the trailing edge. The later models on the Butts' were thinner and less wing area from front to back. Dan and Jerry Kirts had some of these first designs, and I had them as well on our boat QUIEN SABE. At some point Tim had changed aerodynamics and bottom configuration to match power and prop designs to balance the boat where he got away from those "struts" as we had to call them. Once lift restrictions were taken off of hydros, Tim didn't have to worry about where he wanted to put the lift.

I never look at E Bay for anything unless someone has a link in a post. I would have been interested to see the boats you are talking about.

ADD: John, I just remembered and had to laugh about the time we received SHADOWFAX at the Kilos at Kaukauna and Tim told my Dad and I that if the inspector asked what they were, we were instructed to say we needed them to set the boat in the water after it was started because we had no handles on the transom.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It turns out that one boat with real big struts is hanging on the wall of my recroom with some other raceboats beside it. One that sold on Ebay looks exactly like a Quincy Welding hydro pictured on this website by Looper One that has a Merc 4 cylinder hanging from it that has no stacks. Dave Storleen out of Minneapolis used to have a strutted Butts with a OMC 45SS FE on it. The struts were smaller on it in comparisson to the one hanging on my wall which looks like it has a quarter sheet of plywood for struts on each side so even in the last decade I must have seen at least 4 variants of struts at the transom of those hydros. Yet you look close at them and those transoms looked very strong but then Dave's OMC 45SS is no featherweight engine either.

[Tomtall]

A photo I took at Dayton this year of struts on a FE.