1961 Harmsworth Trophy
Bay of Quinte, Picton, Ontario, Canada, August 5 & 7, 1961

Harmsworth Cup is Kept by Canada
Miss Supertest III First to Win Boat Race 3 Times

Canadian Speed Boat Beats U.S. in Harmsworth Trophy Opener Harmsworth Cup is Kept by Canada The Harmsworth Trophy Statistics

Picton, Ont., Aug 7 [1961] (AP) — Miss Supertest III successfully defended the Harmsworth Trophy for Canada today and became the first power boat to win the race three times.

Miss Supertest scored a crushing victory over the United States challenger, Miss Detroit. Bob Hayward shot Miss Supertest ahead at the starting gun and quickly pulled into a commanding lead.

Miss Supertest, for the second straight year on the Bay of Quinte course, needed only two heats to win the trophy.

The ancient trophy, first offered in 1903, was brought to Canada for the first time two years ago by Miss Supertest in a three-heat victory on the Detroit River.

Engine Trouble Returns

Engine trouble again bother Chuck Thompson's Miss Detroit, which failed to finish the first heat — on Saturday — when an oil fitting split loose. Thompson and his crew spent most of yesterday and today repairing her engine, but Miss Detroit encountered more trouble early in the second heat.

Miss Detroit started sputtering on the fifth lap of the fifteen-lap forty-five-mile event behind the Canadian hydroplane, which never has lost a race. Miss Supertest was nearly two laps ahead at the finish.

The deciding race was close for just two laps. Hayward opened up his big Rolls Royce Griffon engine on the first backstretch and pulled 200 yards ahead after one lap. Miss Supertest was 500 yards ahead at the end of six miles and kept increasing her advantage.

Average Speed 98 m.p.h.

By the fifth lap, when Miss Detroit's mechanical difficulties started, Miss Supertest was far ahead, Thompson needed several laps to get Miss Detroit's engine working properly, and he completed the race.

Miss Supertest's average speed for the twenty-fifth Harmsworth — in many years no challenge was made — was about ninety-eight miles an hour. Her clocking in the first heat was 100.334 m.p.h. This time she slowed to 96.102 m.p.h. Miss Detroit, slowed by dirt filtering into the water intake, was clocked at 86.367 m.p.h.

Before the second heat, Dieter Konig of Hamburg, Germany, won the John Ward Trophy for Class C outboard boats for the second time in four years.

Konig manufactures the motors he uses in the races. He finished a close second to Homer Kincaid of Carbon Cliffs, Ill., in the first heat, then wont the second heat.

Konig's over-all average speed for the twelve miles was 67.27 m.p.h. Kincaid was second, Ed Thompson of Winter Haven, Fla., third and Dieter Schultz of Attnang-Puchein, Austria, fourth.

(From the Associated Press)

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