HARM J Hydro Project: Week 1

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This week was kick-off week at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum's J Hydro Project.

For those of you unfamiliar with the project, The Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum (HARM) in Seattle is working with six new J Drivers and their families to construct and ultimately race 6 new J hydros for the 2006 racing season.
The boats are being built at HARM south of Seattle, as a joint venture between HARM, Seattle Outboard Association and a lot of other great folks donating or greatly discounting time and materials.

This week, Darrell Sorensen arrived in Seattle with five of the six kits and was present for the first 2 hr building session. This week, parents and drivers took a quick inventory of each part in the kit to make sure all the pieces were there, and went through the process of dry-fitting the frames and stringers. Next week, the real fun begins as the Systems Three and fasteners come out and pieces start getting fit for real. We have Darrell up here for one more week, and then we are on our own. We are fortunate enough to have a number of accomplished boat builders assisting, such as JW Myers, J Michael Kelly, Tony and Mike Perman, Ric Montoya, Rocky Peterson and Jimi Oberto there to help and offer technical advice to the fledgling boat builders. Rumor even has it we may see Ed Karelsen down some weekend, if we can get him to put his RC Airplane in the hangar for a weekend.

Attached are a few pictures from the session. You can find the complete photo album at http://community.webshots.com/album/499201500DErQPs

As you can see, there's something that's just way cool about seeing a row of 5 J hydros on their jigs in the shadow of the Atlas Van Lines, Miss Bardahl, Miss Burien and the Miss Budweiser.

I will try to post photos each week so that those who are interested can track our progress.

R-19

[G Stillwill]

Looks like a great project and my hats off to all the people involved in it devoting time and money to get new kids involved in racing.

[Abbott Racing]

what an outstanding project! My hats off to the museum for coming up with a project like this!

[Matt Dagostino]

Very Cool.....

Neat project. The Unlimited Hydros in the background look like UFO's!!

J Dad

[BP125V]

Very cool

Where did the 6 new J drivers come from and how does one become eligible for this project?

Bill III

[G Stillwill]

Going to show my age here I saw those unlimited run back in the 50's and 60's

at the Presidents Cup Regatta in Washington D.C. The likes of Bardahl. SLO-MOTION, Miss THRIFTWAY and more nothing like the sound of those V-12 open stacks howling away down the streights.

[sponsonhead]

Where did the 6 new J drivers come from and how does one become eligible for this project?

Bill III

Good question, Bill. Most of them are involved in the Hydro Museum already, or have very close ties to Unlimited racing. Some of the participants include David Williams, HARM's director and his stepson; Scott "Pyro" Raney and his daughter; John Lynch, the "Voice" of the Unlimited Lights and his son; a few other guys from the U-8 team, and one gentleman and his son who basically after attending a couple of SOA races, 'walked in off the street'.

While these people aren't total strangers to boat racing, they make for a very good "beta test group" for this program. Depending upon the success of this year's program, we may do it again, and open it up to the general public.

Williams has a great perspective on this from a number of levels. He has a number of people with kids coming to the museum who ask him "how do you get started?"....he has stepkids of his own who have been around the vintage unlimiteds and now want to race.....he understands that kids these days have a lot of competing interests for their time in Scouting, Soccer, Little League, Video Games, whatever, and we need to reach those kids and parents....and he worked for a number of years with Ed Karelsen building boats so he knows his way around a woodshop too.

If anyone is in the Seattle area near the airport on a Saturday between noon and 2 and has a couple of hours they need to kill, drop on by. Get there early enough and you can have pizzas and sodas with us .

R-19

[BP125V]

Hats off...

to everyone involved in this project. It is very ambitious but is the RIGHT way to do it. Think of the ownership that these kids and their families will have after completing this project. Should go a long way towards keeping them involved in the sport.

Bill III

[csh12M]

Thanks Pat and all involved

That is one of the coolest things I have seen or heard regarding outboard racing in a long time!!

PLEASE keep us posted Pat, I really want to see and hear more about this project.

Later,
CSH12M

[seanp3]

Good question, Bill. Most of them are involved in the Hydro Museum already, or have very close ties to Unlimited racing. Some of the participants include David Williams, HARM's director and his stepson; Scott "Pyro" Raney and his daughter; John Lynch, the "Voice" of the Unlimited Lights and his son; a few other guys from the U-8 team, and one gentleman and his son who basically after attending a couple of SOA races, 'walked in off the street'.

While these people aren't total strangers to boat racing, they make for a very good "beta test group" for this program. Depending upon the success of this year's program, we may do it again, and open it up to the general public.

Williams has a great perspective on this from a number of levels. He has a number of people with kids coming to the museum who ask him "how do you get started?"....he has stepkids of his own who have been around the vintage unlimiteds and now want to race.....he understands that kids these days have a lot of competing interests for their time in Scouting, Soccer, Little League, Video Games, whatever, and we need to reach those kids and parents....and he worked for a number of years with Ed Karelsen building boats so he knows his way around a woodshop too.

If anyone is in the Seattle area near the airport on a Saturday between noon and 2 and has a couple of hours they need to kill, drop on by. Get there early enough and you can have pizzas and sodas with us .

R-19

Very neat idea. If this is done again can something be posted ahead of time on SOA's site? (or here). I'd come over from Yakima to participate with my son.

Sean

[BentRod]

This is a great idea

I think what you're doing is a wonderful idea. I truly hope that when the boats are finished and the kids take their first ride in them that they feel the thrill that I did my first time in a race boat. It started a love affair with the sport that has lasted for over 50 years and I've never regreted a minute of it.

[sponsonhead]

Credit where Credit is due

I think what you're doing is a wonderful idea. I truly hope that when the boats are finished and the kids take their first ride in them that they feel the thrill that I did my first time in a race boat. It started a love affair with the sport that has lasted for over 50 years and I've never regreted a minute of it.

Thanks Art....actually, up to this point, I am just the photographer. There's a number of people who deserve the real credit for getting this underway. At the risk of leaving off a few important people, here's the ones who have really worked to make this fly:

• Tony Perman, for coming up with the idea a few years ago
  
  JW Myers, for also pushing it
  
  David Williams at HARM for sticking his neck out and offering his organization to undertake it
  
  Darrell Sorensen, for coming up with the boat kits at a reasonable deal
  
  Compton Lumber for wood (what else?)
  
  Al LaPointe at Security Race Products for agreeing to help outfit the drivers
  
  Chip Hanauer for his ongoing promotion of J class and outboard racing
  
  Many members of Seattle Outboard Association for being there to help, answer questions and provide whatever help is needed. If I left anybody out, accept my apologies. The list of people donating time, effort and resources is growing even as I write this.

The project is just beginning, and we are a long way from getting boats on the water, but we already are having fun with our new drivers, and can't wait to see them on the water.

R-19

[Dr. Thunder]

Not trying to open a can of worms here ... but,

If you are not able to locate a sufficient number of ready to race OMC "J/A" engines for these kids will the project revert to the Merc 15 and who would own the motors?

What are the difficulties inherent in using the Merc 15 for "J"?

[sponsonhead]

If you are not able to locate a sufficient number of ready to race OMC "J/A" engines for these kids will the project revert to the Merc 15 and who would own the motors?

What are the difficulties inherent in using the Merc 15 for "J"?

We are pretty sure we have located a sufficent number of engines for the kids to use initially from a single benefactor within Region 10 who has a number of engines that he has offered to loan out, so we think we are in good shape on OMC engines.

If something should fall through on this plan, I believe David has been in touch with APBA HQ about procuring Merc engines. If this happens, ownership on the motors would be TBD. With the boats, each team is paying for their boat and will own their hull upon completion. From there, they can either race it, or if they decide that after the work if J hydro is not for them, they can sell the hull and recoup some or all of their investment.

I'm sure there's a number of people on this board who have experience with the Mercs, and can discuss any difficulties of using the Merc J. The one thing I am curious about is exactly what has to be "done" to the J motors to make them competitive. It was posted in a separate thread that all you have to do is 'send the motor to Sled' to make them run properly. I wonder what Sled does to make them work?

R-19

[Dr. Thunder]

The one thing I am curious about is exactly what has to be "done" to the J motors to make them competitive. It was posted in a separate thread that all you have to do is 'send the motor to Sled' to make them run properly. I wonder what Sled does to make them work?

R-19

This will be another series of "dumb guy" questions but don't both the OMC and Merc engines require a restrictor for "J" ... does the Merc use a different size restrictor than the OMC so that "out of the box" (whatever that means in this context) you have parity? These six new kids don't have any racing experience yet ... right? So, why would anyone need to worry or be overly concerned about "competitive" engines? Seems to me that just to get them on plane, on the course, heading in the right direction etc. would be the first order of business. Next season ... well, that's another story.

Finally ... who's Sled?