Roostertails Unlimited:
[1973]
Chapter 3 - The Evolution Revolution
On the west coast, in a city called Seattle, a man named Ted Jones came up
with a very radical design for a speedboat based on a principle that was unheard
of in powerboat circles. In 1948, Stanley S. Sayres, a Chrysler dealer who had
been racing boats for many years, commissioned a shipwright, Anchor Jensen, to
make this new idea a reality. The concept was worked over in every detail;
experienced boatbuilders were dumbfounded by her radical means - some swore it
was an airplane rather than a boat.
She was finished and launched early on an October morning in 1949, they
christened her Slo-Mo-Shun IV then Ted Jones and Stan Sayres flipped a
coin to see which would be the first to drive her ...Jones won. Off he went
wandering about Lake Washington and waking those who lived along the shoreline,
a crowd of spectators gathered in their nightshirts and wondered what that thing
was. The word quickly spread that a monster had been created. On June 26, 1950,
the Slo-Mo entered the record books. Ted Jones sat behind the wheel with
Stan Sayres at his side and together they pushed the boat to 160.3225 m.p.h. in
the measured mile. In boating circles throughout the nation she had suddenly
made a large impression.
The crew gathered their equipment together and headed for Detroit to seek
fame, fortune and the Gold Cup. She arrived under much curiosity and skepticism
from the established clan together on the banks of the Detroit River. "That
boat might be fast", they reassured each other, "but she'll never be
any good in the turns." The defending champion My Sweetie and an
up-and-coming contender called Miss Pepsi were the favorites of the
Detroit fans and on the first day of qualifying they were pleased to see the two
reaching speeds of over 100 miles per hour in the straightaway.
Ted Jones climbed into the cockpit of Slo-Mo-Shun IV on the second day
for a little "spin". As he drove her into the straightaway he decided
to show the spectators just what she was capable of. He stepped on it and hit
150...160...170 m.p.h.! Those previously confident fans couldn't believe what
they saw. And that spray of water behind her ...that roostertail...nothing like
that had ever been made before!
Slo-Mo took the race with ease having lapped second place Miss Pepsi
once and everyone else twice. When it was over, Sayres agreed to let the other
camps take a closer look at her. They clambered over the top of the boat and
each other with their tape measures and rulers. As Ted Jones remembers,
"They took dimensions of the bottom. If they had asked me I would have told
them that the angle and shape of the deck are more important than the
bottom."
A new breed of Unlimited Hydroplane had been created and with it a new era of
racing had begun. The basic design that Slo-Mo introduced would become a
standard for all hydroplanes in the future ...the 3-point suspension.
(Reprinted from Roostertails Unlimited by Andy Muntz, 1973)
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