May 14/15, 2004
Friday morning we loaded up the boats and headed for Lake Havasu, site of our now annual gathering. Whether it's been called Boy's Weekend or Hooligans Holiday, the main focus of the trip was running the boats hard on the lake and the Colorado River. The lake provides a extra benefits when compared to our usual haunts, Phoenix area lakes. The opportunity to run for more than a mile or two at a time at near full throttle and typically better atmospheric conditions for the production of horsepower. It's also a gathering place to meet friends that frequent some of the other boating forums, where you might know their screen name, but may have never actually met them in person.
Donnie Henson and myself riding in my 22' Advantage Sportcat. Rick Kinslinger and Mike Hosfeld we're in Rick's 25' Eliminator Daytona. The third boat was Mitch Holt and his 29' Magic Wizard. Tucson/Lake Havasu resident Chuck Foley and Steve Mason were in Chuck's 22' DCB. Coming down out of the hills of Prescott Valley, AZ was Brad Davis and four friends, Kevin, Nick, Damian & Rob, riding in Brad's 24' Vindicator.
The arrival at the lake seems to be always delayed by some roadside dilemma, typically tires. This was my third trip for the event towing my boat and the second blowout. Why do these trailer tires not behave like most tires when they decide their time on this earth is over? They just can't go flat and fade away. Nope, they have to go out dramatically, smoke, flying chunks rubber as well as sometimes taking innocent victims with them, such as trailer fenders or the gel coat on the side of the boat! My first blowout was made all the more frustrating due to a spare tire lock that insisted on remaining locked until we introduced it to Mr. Crowbar, a bottle jack that could have used a shot of Viagra, no decent lug wrench and a spare that had 5 pound of air in it, I was more properly prepared. We were back on the road in about 15 minutes! Brad and his caravan also experienced the same problem outside of Kingman, AZ.
OK, we get to Havasu, check in to our rooms, grab some food for the day (Pringles) and ice down the refreshments. Chuck wasn't getting in to town until later that day so the rest of us we met in the channel. I did get to meet one Hot Boat Forums member, [Alfonso], as we enjoyed the scenery. We also met a couple with a new Ultra Shadow cat. This boat has a lot of room for a cat of this size. After hanging out for a while we decided to head up river to the Sandbar. The river was down just enough to expose a portion of the sandbar. This helps to calm the Colorado's flow and allows boaters to maintain a decent mooring without fear of the boat getting loose or banging into fellow boaters crafts. There wasn't a huge crowd pulled up to the sand, but enough to provide some interesting wanderings.
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1) Early Friday morning in the channel 2) Brad and his crew cruising the channel 3) At the sandbar
4) At the beach by Topock 5) At least Donnie wasn't telling me "That I am #1" 6) Sandbar
7) Rick making a run by Copper Canyon 8) Mitch making a run by Copper Canyon
Later, we decided to venture further up river to the beach ride on the other side of the Interstate 40 bridge. I was running my 31 Hydromotive 4-blade prop and hoping to see some good top speeds. After a few short bursts, I was still stuck in the 98-99 mph range. The Sportcat is really only 20' 3" long transom to bow. It is very sensitive to weight and water conditions. I had Donnie, 76 gallons of fuel and two big coolers in the boat, so I didn't know how much higher the speed would go. On the last run before reaching our destination, we did finally crack triple digits, running 101.1 mph.
You don't see a lot of WPM cat's around. This weekend, we saw three! The one on top was sporting a big Pfaff blower motor. We saw another one leaving the channel and a larger version with twin I/O's.
Beach time was over, it was time to head south, back to Havasu, a shower, then dinner at the Golden Horseshoe. I had brought a couple of props to make sure I was prepared for whatever water conditions presented themselves. Donnie goaded me into switching over to his 30 pitch Bravo 4-blade, having never thought the Hydromotive felt as strong as the Bravo. Changing props in 3 feet of water always manages to keep your attention, having dropped that prop nut before into the abyss! One of Brad's crew, Nick, asked if he could ride with us, as the fastest he had ever been in a boat was about 65 mph. What the hell? I didn't really think the Bravo would help our speed mark that day anyway. All four boats left out of Topock running hard. We probably averaged about 80-90 mph the entire way back to the transition of the river to the lake! Water conditions weren't perfect, but not bad or unsafe and traffic was light. Rick and I ran together most of the way back, what a blast! We did get dusted off at the end of the river by a 32' Skater. Hell, no pride lost there! The biggest surprise came when I hit the top speed recall on the GPS Speedometer and it glowed 104.0 mph! 10 mph under my previous best, but that speed was achieved with a 32 pitch prop, December weather and just myself in the boat. I did however regret not taking a friends offer to borrow his 32 Bravo again before we left town! The 104 was a good way to end the days boating activities! We did finally hook up with Chuck & Steve at the end of the day in Thompson Bay. Kokomo's rounded out the evening.
Some of the other sites that you'll see all over the lake!
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1) 32' Schiada in the channel 2) Nice carry over of the graphics to the bottom 3 & 4) Nice looking 22" DCB running twin Merc outboards 5 & 6) 22' Placecraft cat equipped with a Whippled big block 7) Ultra cat running down past Copper Canyon 8) This 525 SC (with inter-cooler) was in a 25' Warlock cat 9) Laveycraft 10) Nice flames on this cat 11) Jetboat heading down river past the sandbar
Besides a more spirited application of throttle, the only other real difference when we don't have our better halves with us is we are on the lake early the next morning! Again, we met in the channel. We met [Union Jack] who had a beautiful DCB cat equipped with a blown Teague motor.
About noon it was time to run north on the river again. We had hoped to hook up with some of the guys from the Las Vegas Hot Boats group. Turns out they were headed to Steamboat Cove when we were going to Moabi! Go figure. It was quite a bit windier that day, not to mention a lot more boats on the water, so we decided to bypass the Sandbar and go to the protected beach that Park Moabi provided. Again, we had a fun run to our destination once we got past the rough stuff on the north end of the lake. Moabi had quite a gathering of tunnel hulls. We saw a lot of boats whose owners also frequent the Hot Boat Forums. We also ran into Phoenix local, Brian Curnett, [Doghouse], on the beach.
At about 3 o'clock, everyone started pulling out and heading for Steamboat Cove on the south end of Havasu. It was very rough for our "little" boats, especially through Topock Gorge. I really wanted to run with a 27 Lavey cat whose owner, Scott, [6 Dollar Boat], we had met that day, but just couldn't catch him without planning a visit to a chiropractor Monday! South of the Sandbar, things thinned out slightly. We ran with a good running Howard 21 owned by [CustomCruiser] as well as a particularly impressive looking 20.5 Cole V-drive owned by John, [J540]. Just before the end of the river, water conditions allowed both of us to wind up the motors. We hit a click over 101 mph. Not bad given the water conditions. Both Donnie & I were very impressed by this Cole. You don't see a lot of small non tunnel hull boats run that fast in the rough!
We ended the day, briefly floating in Steamboat Cove before heading back to the channel. Back on the trailer, back to the hotel, clean up, head to Chuck's new home for Margarita's before going to Mudshark's for dinner and ending the night again, at Kokomo's.
Overall, a great 4th edition to a tradition. Next year we might add a day on the front end to allow speed runs in better conditions!
Craig
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