8 cylinder Konig outboard

[Mark75H]

I'll try to get a more legible version up in a few days

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Thanks Sam...I know we can depend on you.

As for Bill Van...You don't always understand what you've been told. If you don't believe me...I think Eileen may back me up.

[Mark75H]

[Mark Suter]

Given the problems Marshall encountered with the 60 cubic inch LF motor, that undoubtedly discouraged any interest in the 80 cube LX that is listed on the chart.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I have looked at those spec sheets in passing a hundred times, but never studied them. I pulled out some old NOA rule books Johnny Dortch gave me and now I know where the H, HRA, HRE etc come from. I haven't looked through all of them yet, but it appears the FA, FB etc came from around 1964-65. Thanks Mark & Rog for the lead.

Here are pics of that boat behind Dieter's shop that Jeff was referring to. I took them after Lars Strom got his Volvo-Konig loaded up. I will E mail Peer Krage to see if he knows anything about it. It's hard to imagine the configuration of a 12 cylinder Konig. It looks like the motor well is too narrow, but then again a beefed up tower would have fit. I couldn't imagine that much weight so high though. If this was the boat, then maybe part of the hull design at the rear was for flotation. I have no doubt in my mind that Hans would have driven that monster, but he never mentioned it to me. However, Hans had so many tales and experiences that I doubt that any one person would have heard them all.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Maybe this IS the boat. Just some clues that are making me think that it might be. The boat looks like it has seen racing action, but I can't think this thing could be competitive. It's possible that this was a futuristic, far out design that Dieter came up with just to get the motor tested. Just imagine this. You can't run a 12 cylinder on a conventional proprider. So Dieter builds this long tunnel with a pointed bow, (maybe just to get more weight forward, but with not so much lift). The wide deck and bottom at the rear serve as both an afterplane, lift at the back, flotation and to help keep the boat from rolling over in the turn because of the weight stacked so high on the transom. Anything that worked could be kept, the parts that didn't could be scrapped on the next generation. What made me think of that was the patches on the right side of the boat bottom. When you first drive something like this you have no previous experience with the handling. I think Dieter tested it in the canal, and sometime during the initial trials he ran it up on the rocks in the canal.

All this is just conjecture on my part, but it's fun thinking about what might have led to the development of such a boat.

[JIMKIRTSM-3]

Hello gang. I must tell you that I have really enjoyed reading all of the stuff in this article. It has been great. I spent a lot of time with dad on this motor. It was an animal. Tim has part of his guess right on who roped the beast. My uncle Tom was one of the guys. The other one was me. There wasn't anyone else out there that wanted to try. Anyway, great story. Just thought I could add a little input.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Jim...thanks for clearing that up. Another thread sometime back said that it was always started with the electric starters. I had this picture in my mind though of two guys simultaneously gritting their teeth and leaning into the rope with their muscles bulging.

[JIMKIRTSM-3]

I know it was thought that it was always started by electric start, but you know my dad. He was always looking for that edge. In this case, he thought that he could get rid of some of the weight by doing away with the electric start, which he did. However, it didn't last long as it was always such a bear to rope and you always needed two tough guys. Eventually we went back to the electric start because it was easier and more dependable to get it fired. It was fun though. We tried a lot of different things to compensate for all of the horsepower. We even had a rear wing on the boat in Hinton, WV trying to dump some air out from under the boat in order to keep it on the water at the speed the thing wanted to run. It always came down to the weak link, the lower unit. When it ran and everything held together, it was nearly unbeatable. However, that didn't happen very often. We lost a many good props off of that thing. If the gears didn't let go, we broke the prop shaft off. It was a good experience working with that motor. To this day, I still wish I would have gotten a ride in it. It would be a heck of a two man runabout motor. Anyway, if I think of anything else, I will try to add it as it comes to me. Now that I am back racing, I get to kick around all of those old stories with people from time to time.

[Jeff Lytle]

Do you have any pics of the old days you could share with us Jim?