lightest v bottom of the 80's?????
#61
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Glass Resin & (impregnated) fibers are quite translucent. You can lay it 1" thick & still see light & shadows through, unless you do as some builders did & spray a thin coat of black gel coat behind the outer/surface coat. Also, if there's some sort of opaque material sandwiched between, it's more opaque. Can't recall he name of the thin white perforated sheets we began using at Velocity at some point to stiffen & thicken (without adding weight) thin sides. The stuff made a hull's sides seem like concrete when pounded by hull thumpers at boat shows, and when flattening the waves to show the Cats the way through = :>) (of course, once they found the way through, it was all over..........DOH.....)
Last edited by Ed; 08-04-2008 at 09:03 AM.
#62
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[QUOTE=Ed;2643736]Jay, the white perforated cotton-like material was called "Coremat".
Yes, that's it. I recall the 1'st 22 footer we used it on, ran the Key West race & the rough water & agressive crew de-laminated the sides, and we could clearly see the Coremat- which was now the outer layers of the hull sides. They did bring it back to the docks though, which was quite a site. We did use some Klegecell pink foam coring in the bottoms at one point. I'm pretty sure we "tried" everything there was at some point, especially when I was at the original Pompano shop. We made 2 successful racing 30's that I know of with "Bamboo" stringers & hull/deck stiffeners. We dubbed Walt Beasley's "Scarlett O'Hara's" the "Bamboo Princess". As I recall the hull & deck weighed just 2200 lbs. We did less experimenting in the larger shop where Larry's boat was made.
Where you there when we began building Larry Bishes big sportfish "BishCraft" with the inline six diesels, with the "Stepp" bottom?
Yes, I was there for the initial drawings & all the way up until just before sea trials. You can call me in Jupiter at 561-746-2209 if you want to talk old times, or e-mail [email protected]. Please forgive me if I prefer to
call the pad design what it is --- "Allison" pad bottom. Briefly- Darris Allison invented & perfected it, Steve raced Allisons, When Steve flipped his Mirage & put a stepped & Pad Allison design on it & made a mold, he agreed to give Darris a Royalty for using his design & for his consulting on the design. He never did & Darris is quite bitter about that. I used to be an Allison Dealer & have owned a couple of them. R. Fountain had a 20" Allison with it's distinctive "beak" and his 1'st Fountain 32 looked just like a larger Allison 20. I'm not privy to his deal with Darris, but you can bet Darris got some payback through his helping Reggie. Just a big nautical soap opera. Gotta give Stepp credit for adapting that calm water design to rough water & larger heavier craft. We had endless discussions on all this stuff back then- bottom length, X-Dimension, pad size, pad shimming, props, cupping, bow lift, stern lift, ..............& so on. Some of this stuff was cutting edge back then & is mostly obsolete now. Those were heady times.
Did you work for Steve, or for a Supplier? Remember my late Cousin Gene Roppolo from the Pompano shop?
Yes, that's it. I recall the 1'st 22 footer we used it on, ran the Key West race & the rough water & agressive crew de-laminated the sides, and we could clearly see the Coremat- which was now the outer layers of the hull sides. They did bring it back to the docks though, which was quite a site. We did use some Klegecell pink foam coring in the bottoms at one point. I'm pretty sure we "tried" everything there was at some point, especially when I was at the original Pompano shop. We made 2 successful racing 30's that I know of with "Bamboo" stringers & hull/deck stiffeners. We dubbed Walt Beasley's "Scarlett O'Hara's" the "Bamboo Princess". As I recall the hull & deck weighed just 2200 lbs. We did less experimenting in the larger shop where Larry's boat was made.
Where you there when we began building Larry Bishes big sportfish "BishCraft" with the inline six diesels, with the "Stepp" bottom?
Yes, I was there for the initial drawings & all the way up until just before sea trials. You can call me in Jupiter at 561-746-2209 if you want to talk old times, or e-mail [email protected]. Please forgive me if I prefer to
call the pad design what it is --- "Allison" pad bottom. Briefly- Darris Allison invented & perfected it, Steve raced Allisons, When Steve flipped his Mirage & put a stepped & Pad Allison design on it & made a mold, he agreed to give Darris a Royalty for using his design & for his consulting on the design. He never did & Darris is quite bitter about that. I used to be an Allison Dealer & have owned a couple of them. R. Fountain had a 20" Allison with it's distinctive "beak" and his 1'st Fountain 32 looked just like a larger Allison 20. I'm not privy to his deal with Darris, but you can bet Darris got some payback through his helping Reggie. Just a big nautical soap opera. Gotta give Stepp credit for adapting that calm water design to rough water & larger heavier craft. We had endless discussions on all this stuff back then- bottom length, X-Dimension, pad size, pad shimming, props, cupping, bow lift, stern lift, ..............& so on. Some of this stuff was cutting edge back then & is mostly obsolete now. Those were heady times.
Did you work for Steve, or for a Supplier? Remember my late Cousin Gene Roppolo from the Pompano shop?
Last edited by wolfeguitars; 08-29-2008 at 03:38 PM.
#63
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Jay, yes...I was there with your cousin Gene, quite the character, very funny old man, in a good way... He had already had a couple heart operations prior to his passing there at the plant. It was definately a shock & a big loss for us at the time. He came to us from Chris*Craft, Bradenton, building/tooling their original Scorpion Sportboat line they had at the time. Yup, the first 22' Velocity was all black gelcoat & named "TABU". Won a lot of races. We built & raced a number of 22's & 30's in the mid-80's that were unique. Bill Kaye, of "Captain Maintained" in his 22 & later, his 30...won three consecutive National Championships in race boats we built for him. All with stock 200 Mercury Outboards. We had a great hull design, great hull construction/rigging & and some great pilots. I flew back & forth to Regal to assist in their production line set-up during the sale. They were totally lost when it came to building a performance boat. Remember the "Veloci-Slot"? LOL! Some great memories from Powerline Road.
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