Rich, do you happen to remember the weights of each of the 2 boats? As I recall, Rolling Thunder was a lot lighter and it handled the rough water very well.
Rich, do you happen to remember the weights of each of the 2 boats? As I recall, Rolling Thunder was a lot lighter and it handled the rough water very well.
The hull weight comparison was not what you might think....... In fact the Chris Cat was Fibreglass with a single Balsa laminate while the Rolling Thunder was Aircraft plywood and Fibreglass, with multiple laminates. There was more glass in a Conquest than in a Shadow or Chris Cat. The Conquest was probably 10% heavier overall. The engines were a whole different story..... The 2 liter T3 Outboards were about 300 Lbs each or 1200 lbs total with lower units and props included. JJ had Mercury's best small blocks and #3 drives...probably 600 lbs heavier overall. Horsepower was a draw. The Conquest carried an extra passenger, seat, etc......
Bottom line: The power to weight ratio was probably within a whisker of each other and the Conquest was 15 to 20 mph faster in calm water.......and handled the rough stuff better as well.
That boat is still one of the best kept secrets in Offshore History.
Shown below some years later in Europe with stock engines....More than competitive, but not the application it was designed for. (Bow rails????)
Rich, is this Rolling Thunder in this photo? The trailer looks like the trailer Cap'n America is on now, but the deck looks like Rolling Thunder's deck.
Rich, is this Rolling Thunder in this photo? The trailer looks like the trailer Cap'n America is on now, but the deck looks like Rolling Thunder's deck.
Ryan..It could be...I can't see the number of steps in the photo.
If it is Thriller...That boat was not a Conquest, it was built on the side by Ken Adams for Jack Clark without any input from George or I. On the other hand Jack did own and race a 30' Chris Cat prior to building the boat . The Thriller plug raced once...and sunk.
The subsequent Jaguars did pretty well (at least the 35 footers did).
In any event the picture is definitely NOT Rolling Thunder.
I was talking to Tara about that run. She said it was the most fun she had boating even though she had nothing to hold on to. I don't think there were many boats that would have kept up with us in those conditions.
I remember only two...Point Pleasant and Traverse City, Michigan (shown in the video). The transom needed additional reinforcement after Point Pleasant..so it went back to South Carolina for a quick upgrade between the two events. The really sad thing is that Vinny was under tremendous pressure from his crew to switch back to inboards (They had nothing to do since Mercury Racing had a full time tech, Mark Baier, handling the outboards and the boat needed virtually no work). The fact is the whole group were 4 cycle motor heads and had no idea how to test or setup an OB hull....this was also their first cat...... Which makes the footage seen here all the more amazing. Just imagine if they understood what they had...... They probably would have led a number of races overall at that time.
If you are talking about the video, it's the original Systems boat. That was top speed for that boat. Definitely the slowest boat Bob Kaiser ever owned.