1952 Harwood Trophy
New York, New York, September 7, 1952


Leiber-Kraemer Speed Boat Wins Harwood Trophy Race Second Year in Row
Davy Jones Scores With Record Speed
Leiber Pilots Boat at 59.8 M. P. H. in Capturing Race Around Manhattan Again
By Clarence E. Lovejoy

bullet Around Manhattan at a Mile-a-Minute
bullet Leiber-Kraemer Speed Boat Wins Harwood Trophy Race Second Year in Row
bullet Statistics

Two Long Island North Shore neighbors at Port Washington, Bill Leiber and Jack Kraemer, decided yesterday to make it a habit. A year ago they won the Harwood’s Trophy and a 31,000 savings bond for circumnavigating Manhattan Island in their 21-year-old speed boat runabout Davy Jones at 54.2 miles an hour. Yesterday they had a repeat performance with the now 22-year-old long black hull bearing the racing number 20-K, Leiber moving over to the driver’s seat in the cockpit and Kraemer becoming the mechanic for the exciting afternoon,

Their speed jumped upward to a new record for their class of 59.8 miles per hour, along a tough, rugged, twenty-eight-mile course, whipped into a froth in many spots with white caps and churned by tides and currents moving against the twenty-mile, wind out of the north.

More than six minutes astern and as many miles came the runner-up, Lou Eppel of Cedar Grove, N. J., in the Hel-Pat he owns jointly with Roy S. Foyle of Lake Hopatcong, clocked at a speed of 49.2 miles per hour.

In third position at the finished scant two seconds behind Hel-Pat and timed at the same speed of 49.2, was the big white Jennie Lee II from Longport, N. J., owned by J. Elwood Lee and piloted by Richard R, Lovett Jr. of Margate City.

An Interesting Pair

There has been an official protest filed by the team of the third boat, the Jennie Lee II, that she, not Hel-Pat, finished second. The committee will consider it after the movies are available.

The Leiber-Kraemer team is an interesting pair of boat loving twins. They are not professional speed-boat drivers, hardly even amateurs. They don’t "soup up" beats and, spend their week-ends on regatta courses. They are working men, Leiber a radio technician with Grumman Aircraft and Kraemer a customs house broker.

Their boating is sheer, unadulterated pleasure. Host summer week-ends find them cruising down the Sound to Lloyd Harbor or Eaton’s Neck for a day of picnicking and relaxation with their wives.

Theirs is a famous ship, never meant originally for racing but intended only for runabouting and safe and sane joy. They acquired Davy Jones fifteen years ago, in 1937. Its previous owners had included Caleb Bragg, once a Gold Cup regatta winner, and Keenan Wynn, actor son of Ed Wynn. Over their years Leiber and Kraemer, who do most of their own work because they can’t afford fancy shipyard prices, rebuilt much of the Gar Wood hull and repowered Davy Jones with one of the Allison aircraft engines that are so popular today.

They took command of yesterday’s race soon after the start off West Seventy-second Street. The river was rough. Wales and wash from the leaders gave the boats back in the pack a bad time. By Fifty-ninth Street Davy Jones was in front and had things her own way until rounding the Battery. Then Chaz, the former Etta, bought last week by Charles Klein of Atlantic Beach, L. I., and also Allison-powered, drew abreast.

Duel in East River

It was an exciting duel up the rough going of the East River where are excursion boats further churned up the waterway. But near the Navy Yard Chaz went out of action and Davy Jones won as she pleased. At Spuyten Duyvil she led Eppel’s Hel-Pat by three minutes and was widening the margin with every rev of her propeller wheel. Most of the time she was doing 2,600 r. p. m’s. Davy Jones steers easily with a rudder about twelve inches off center to port.

Out of twenty starters only a dozen were scored as finishers. There was damage and disaster along the course as tiny racing creations tried to buck water and wind too much for them. Leston Cloak, who has been in every around-Manhattan race since the first back in 1912, essayed still another trip in his tiny Class E ship Pancho, this time carrying as a passenger for the thrill a newspaper camera woman, He conked out at Pier A.

The riding mechanic, Robert Maddison of Ocean City, N. J., for the medical man from Philadelphia, Dr. George E. Firth, whose Class F runabout Medico III finished twelfth in the slow speed of 19.6, did a bit of pantomiming as he crossed the finish line. He wore no safety or crash helmet and no "Mae West" or life jacket, both of which are required. As an alibi he held up in view a bent propeller for the referee and finish judges to see and because he was wringing wet, his act was mute but clear evidence he had been forced to jump overboard somewhere along the course to unscrew a bent wheel and install a replacement.

In addition to winning the race, Davy Jones was also the victor in Group I. Other categories were headed by Al Kirwan of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in Half Fast in Group III; James Camp of Newark in Slo-Poke for Group IV and Lovett in Jennie Lee II for Group V. There were no finishers in Group II, comprising the 7-liter, 266 and 225 cubic inch craft.

Speed-Boat Race Finishers

Repeat Performance
1952 Harwood Trophy winners: Bill Leiber, Mrs. June Leiber, Mrs, Alice Kraemer & Jack Kraemer
Bill Leiber, Mrs. June Leiber, Mrs. Alice Kraemer and Jack Kraemer with the Harwood. Trophy after the two men triumphed for the second time in the 28-mile speed-boat race around Manhattan Island.
 

Boat and Driver

Elapsed Time

M.P.H.

1

Davy Jones, Bill Leiber, Port Washington, L. I

29:10

59.8

2

Hel-Pat, Lou Eppel, Cedar Grove; N. J

35:20

49.2

3

Jennie Lee II, Richard R, Lovett, Margate, N. J

35:22

49.2

4

Beaver II, George K. Miller, Margate, N. J.

36:50

47.5

5

Half-Fast, Al L. Kirwan, Fort Lauderdale, Fla

39:40

43.5

6

Minit-Man, Chuck Hickman, Philadelphia

42:15

41.2

7

Pepper-Pot III, Bill Ammann, Philadelphia

44:25

39.2

8

Hornet, George Reynolds, Brockville, Ont

59:20

29.3

9

Slo-Poke, James Camp, Newark, N. J.

59:26

29.3

10

The Fox, Sam Griffith, Miami, Fla

1:21:50

21.3

11

Baby June, Frank S. DuBeshter, Jamaica

1:25:46

20.2

12

Medico III, Dr. George E. Firth, Philadelphia

1:28:25

19.6

[Reprinted from the New York Times, September 9, 1952]


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