So how fast is your boat?

[kickingfrog]

The Miss Supertest III went over 184 MPH 50 years ago, and is on display at the Toronto Boat Show.

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/miss-supertest-iii-is-a-blast-from-canadas-sporting-past/article1868002/

 

 

STEPHEN BRUNT

Miss Supertest III is a blast from Canada's sporting past

STEPHEN BRUNT

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 8:37PM EST

Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 8:59PM EST

 

In this country’s centennial year, a slim volume was published by two very fine writers, Trent Frayne and Peter Gzowski, spinning the greatest sports stories of Canada’s first century. Here’s betting it can still be found tucked away on many a bookshelf.

 

The cover image, though, would seem strange to those too young to remember: not a hockey player or a football player, not a rower or a runner, a swimmer or a skier, but a boat, a power boat, with a tail of spray boiling behind it.

 

That magnificent craft was called Miss Supertest III, and through Sunday it is on display at the Toronto International Boat Show. Though it raced only four times between 1959 and 1961 before being pulled from the water for good after its driver died in a terrible crash, in a very different Canada, its triumphs were splashed across newspaper sports sections and resonated for the same reasons as Sidney Crosby’s golden goal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

 

“Well, we beat the Americans,” Jim Thompson says, by way of explanation.

 

We beat the Americans, we outthought the Americans, we were technologically superior to the Americans. Think of the Avro Arrow jet interceptor, another triumph of that time, another symbol of national smarts, from which the Canadian government sadly walked away.

 

Miss Supertest III at least had its day.

 

Thompson, whose father, Gordon, founded the petroleum company from which the boat got its name, entered the world of unlimited hydroplane racing in 1950, taking over from another Canadian group which had attempted unsuccessfully to win the Harmsworth Cup, emblematic of supremacy in the sport. The boat was rechristened Miss Supertest. Miss Supertest II followed, an original design which briefly held the world speed record of more than 184 miles an hour, and then Miss Supertest III, the pinnacle, powered by the same Rolls-Royce Griffon engine that had been used in the last versions of the Spitfire fighter aircraft.

 

Thompson did some of the testing, but wasn’t a speed demon by nature, and for other reasons opted not to race.

 

“I had a young family,” he says, sitting in his living room in London, Ont. “I didn’t bring the racing to the marriage. So to me, with young children, it wouldn’t be fair, because of the risk as much as anything.”

 

Instead, the driving duties eventually fell to a round-faced chicken farmer from Embro, Ont., named Bob Hayward, who was already working on the boat as part of the mechanical crew before Thompson found out about his reputation as drag racer. When Hayward took the wheel, it became the perfect pairing of man and machine.

 

They first raced in the Detroit Memorial in 1959, a practice run before challenging for the Harmsworth, which had been in U.S. hands for 39 years. Hayward won it with Miss Supertest III on the Detroit River in 1959, then repeated the feat in Picton, Ont., in 1960 and 1961, the first boat ever to win three times in a row.

 

A little over two weeks after that third victory, Hayward was back racing again, this time in Miss Supertest II (Miss Supertest III being reserved only for the biggest races) on the Detroit River. Jim Thompson was watching from a waterside hotel on the U.S. side.

 

“He had a poor start. He was back. And then he just stepped on it. There were two boats out in front of him. He passed them just before the first turn going very fast. About half way around the turn, he rolled like that – right around and came up again. That’s all it took … I knew it was bad right away. … There was very little damage to the boat. That was the crazy part of it. But that’s all it took He would have been travelling well over 100 miles an hour.”

 

Hayward was dead, and no Miss Supertest would ever race again. When Thompson made that official six months after Hayward died, most believed he had simply lost heart following the accident. But he says it wasn’t only that.

 

“I’m sure it [was interpreted that way],” he says. “But I surely wouldn’t have been at it much longer even if Bob hadn’t been killed. We had other lives to live. This was 10 or 11 years. Very intensive. A tremendous amount of work. It wasn’t easy [taking the boat out of the water]. But I think it was the right thing to do.”

 

There was no Canadian willing to carry on the tradition, though Thompson was more than willing to pass on his accumulated knowledge. The boats went into storage until then-Ontario Premier John Robarts asked if they could put Miss Supertest III on permanent display at the newly-opened Ontario Science Centre. A few years back, the Science Centre was redesigned, and the boat again disappeared from public view. Now, it comes out only for occasional appearances, like the one this week.

 

It will be on display again next summer, back in Picton, for the unveiling of a postage stamp commemorating those triumphs long past, and largely forgotten. Not just because it was once the fastest boat in the world, but because of who built it, who designed it, and what that came to represent.

 

“Let’s face it,” Thompson says. “We Canadians are no slouches.”

Edited January 13, 2011 by kickingfrog

[LucG]

Thats crazy!

 

My 30 HP Honda on the back of my 16' Lund may reach 25mph....lol

[aplumma]

I love that era were fins were big and they made the cars and boats run just a little faster. I hope to some day restore one of the old boats modeling it after the "Batboat".

 

 

Art

[kickingfrog]

Thats crazy!

 

My 30 HP Honda on the back of my 16' Lund may reach 25mph....lol

 

 

The "most scared" I've been in a boat (that I was in control of, which is an important difference) was a 12ft aluminum that had 20hp engine on it.

[aplumma]

I did it with a 12ft boat and a 1967 elgin 9.9. The fun part was it has a stick to steer with and the throttle was a slide lever from the left to right. Every time I shifted my weight to reach the leaver the boat did a hiccup and got squirrelly Boy was that a scary ride....then I did it again.

 

 

Art

[walleyejack]

Was a great era. loved it. oh how times change tho.

good article

[mercman]

The most thrilled i've been is last summer in my brothers Bass Boat !!! 68.3 mph on GPS.

it practically blew the clothes off my back .I sat on my hat, and when we got to the spot to fish, it was gone !!! never even felt it leave. it still makes my nipples hard thinking about it

 

 

[lew]

Waaaay back in the day I recall seeing the Miss Supertest at the Sportsman Show but darned if I remember if it was 1, 2 or 3. They had it propped up on a 45 degree angle so you could see inside the cockpit and I remember thinking how fast it looked without even moving.

[Governator]

I've been on the BACK of a sea-doo and it clocked us at 67mph lol. That was a crazy ride. Too bad it was my buddy's dads so we scrambled and reset the "record" off the system.

 

Yea I won't do that again.

[craigdritchie]

There used to be a guy up on Lake Simcoe who stuffed helicopter jet turbine engines into racing boats. He was an ex-Canadian Forces engine tech, and his company was called Firestorm Turbines. A few years ago he had this big white boat at the Toronto In-Water Boat Show, at Ontario Place .... 190 mph and 4,000 horsepower.

 

is even faster.

[mercman]

What kinda rod and tackle would you need to troll at that speed

[DRIFTER_016]

My buddies dad used to race drag boats and his boat ran about 135mph in the 1/4 mile.

He had a blow over once at top speed and when his chute pulled him free of the boat his leg tore out the gunnel and gave him 150 stiches down his leg.

[spincast]

? , Yikes. 210? 1 mile every 15 seconds,..... "Hey George, what's that up on the Horizon?" "Where?" "Right there in front of, Uh oh, >>>"

Bet your fule bill woudl not be a pretty site after an afternoon out either

[skeeter]

Waaaay back in the day I recall seeing the Miss Supertest at the Sportsman Show but darned if I remember if it was 1, 2 or 3. They had it propped up on a 45 degree angle so you could see inside the cockpit and I remember thinking how fast it looked without even moving.

 

i guess i must be getting old.

cause i remember that too!

thanks for making me feel old Lew.

[dave524]

Waaaay back in the day I recall seeing the Miss Supertest at the Sportsman Show but darned if I remember if it was 1, 2 or 3. They had it propped up on a 45 degree angle so you could see inside the cockpit and I remember thinking how fast it looked without even moving.

 

Probably saw it at the same show you did Lew.

 

Craziest thing we did. About 63/64 friend's parents had a place on Georgian Bay, they also had one of those Sea Fleas that he and his dad had made from plans from Mechanic's Illustrated if I recall, usually ran with a 7 1/2 horse on it but we get the bright idea to put the 18 horse from the bigger boat on it.

Back end wouldn't support the weight so you had to beach it tilting the motor up at the same time when you wanted to stop and take off in gear with guys supporting the back end, pretty dumb looking back

[Fish4Eyes]

100km/h+ on a sea doo and I didn't think much of it.

[stubbex1]

one of my fav's

 

"whats the matter girls, are you skeered? LOL

[Twocoda]

now i know the rest of the story...as a kid we use to go to the Bob Hayward YMCA all the time...but never knew who he was...i wonder if Thompson road is name after Jim...(more then likely i would think)...we used to love going to the annual Molson Speed Boat Challange on Fanshawe Lake...it was a sad day when they ended the series..

 

My 140h Merc pushes me along at 57 mph...

 

Cheers >>>good article!

[bigbuck]

I've gone 84mph on GBay on a 33ft offshore and that was waaaay too fast for me. I've also done 72mph in a BassBoat and that was hairy. My boat tops out in the high 40's and that's plenty, I usually cruise between 25-30mph depending on which prop I run.

Man, I tell you, what people do for an adrenaline rush..........

I've got buddies on Lake Muskoka who have little racing boats that do 120mph+, they are always bugging me to go out for a blast with them. I'm too old for that!

[POLLIWOGG]

I was told Hayward would take a girlfriend to the local dances in it.

[JohnF]

Speed is good, but it's best when it scares the crap out of you. All my life folks have been more than a little surprised at how I love going fast. In all other things I'm actually kinda timid. But I hate going fast in things like roller coasters cuz I'm not in control. Go figger. Guess that explains my love of bassboats. So far I haven't gone fast enough to want control though. Looking forward to the chance to pilot one of them at 75/80 mph. Then I think I'd wanna be the driver. Of course the owner may have an opinion on that. It's only been about 50 years since we were playing with hot rod boats on the river at home and they weren't exactly blindingly fast but they still did some silly feeling things on the water and we had to be attuned to the shakes and rattles.

 

What was Guy Lombardo's connection to Miss Supertest? Seems to me he owned it or something like that.

 

Way back in the mid-50's my folks would take us north every summer to fish for a week. One time we stayed just outside Algonquin on a lake called Oxbow or something like that, near a Blue Goose Inn(?). Every morning there would be an insane howling noise and a race boat would come ripping down the lake. We were told it was Hayward practising to race the Miss Supertest boat(s). I think we were told someone in his family had some rental cottages up there. I'm pretty sure the boat was not the actual race boat, just a practise thing but it sure ran fast. Anybody else remember anything about that?

 

JF

[jedimaster]

30HP Nissan on my 16 foot Lund does 26mph with full gear.

[lakerguy]

I apprenticed under Scott Hayward,a nephew of Bob's.Spent many a lunch hour talking about his uncle and Miss S.

 

The whole family loved to make things go fast...wether it be a sled,car or boat.

[corvette1]

lund pro-v 1800 dc 175efi 9.9 four stroke with a full load 52 on gps

[jediangler]

My Native Watercraft Tegris was clocked at 7km/h top speed on gps but I can keep up a respectable 3.5 - 4km/h for up to an hour before I need a nap.

 

Edited January 15, 2011 by jediangler