Yesterday afternoon I went down to the marina with the plan of moving the boat up to my old marina for the next day or so. The best place to watch the races from is the upstream end of the course. It's easier to anchor there, and downstream there's a bridge (and pilings) that get in the way of seeing the whole course.

When I got to the slip I found I had a new slip neighbor. This is an old unlimited hydro that former unlimited driver Mark Evans bought and converted to a "pleasure boat". It's a 4-seater that is powered by two 200hp Mercs. He uses it to give tours around the race course (for a not-so-small fee).




As I was cleaning the boat before heading out, Bluebell came back into the bay and tied at the USCG dock.


I had called the sheriff's dept to find out when the race course would be open after the qualifying runs and was told 5:00 p.m. I pulled out of the slip at 5:00 and the course was still closed. I then learned it would be closer to 6:00 before it was opened so I dropped the hook and watched the boats for awhile.

When it opened I cruised on up past the pits and got these shots:




I noticed this beauty anchored across the river from the pits. I was told it's one of their rescue cutters that is stationed at the Washington coast for use on/around the Columbia Bar. It's interesting that they bring their own mooring bouy when they travel. Must be nice to have that capability.


GW's daughter and her boyfriend are coming over from Seattle today. When they get here (some time this afternoon) we're headed out to watch the time trials. After that we'll head back to my marina to put the boat back in the slip then have some dinner at the brewery at the top of the dock ramp.

GW's daughter and daughter's boyfriend were delayed and won't be here until late tonite so GW and I went out for a few hours. We anchored in an area where we could easily see the races (albeit from a long ways off) and had pretty good 'seats' for the partying.

I got flashed twice, GW saw one gal drop her bathing suit bottom to her ankles (darn, I missed that one!) and my eyes are forever burned from all the skin we saw today. I have some pics but it will be the a.m. when I post them.

The USAF sent an F-16 to do some fly by's and it was joined by a P-51. I think I got some good pics of that duo.

Hope you got good pics of the "flashing" as well.

Karma.........



The U-6 Won the race too.

That would be very cool to see! Thanks for the pics.

Yeah, but it probably weighs about the same as yours or mine. All the weight's in the engine.

This one weighs about 7,000 lbs.

Actually the engine is not that heavy. They use helicopter turbines that are increadibly light for the amount of horsepower.

The Miss Elam for example weighs 6700 lbs, is 30' long and has a beam of 14'6". I believe the turbines weigh only 4 or 500 lbs and put out 2500 plus HP.

Not nearly as cool as a supercharged allison or Rolls Royce but they weigh less and put out more so that's pretty much what everyone runs.

There are a couple boats that still run the old piston motors but they have to hope for the fast boats to have trouble.

Who knows what will happen to the sport now that Bernie Little and the Budwieser team are gone. They were a major source of funding for the sport, even giving thier competitors some bucks to keep them in the game. Add to that the difficulty in finding Vietnam era engines and it gets tougher to make expenses.

I grew up with the hydros, many teams are still based in Seattle and up until a year ago I shared a building with the Hydro museum in Seattle. I remember making crude wooden models of Hydros when I was a kid and all the neighborhood kids would have races towing them behind our bikes. We would put small metal plates on the bottom so they would slide easily and if you had the plates in the right spot and the tow string in the right pplace they looked pretty realistic when they swung wide around a corner.

So I hope they find a way to continue. They have given me and my family some great memories.

OK, you guys are going to have to wait a day or two for the pics. Tomorrow a.m. I go in for a colonoscopy, and tonight I'm drinking this FINE liquid they make you drink....all 64 ounces.

So, any guesses what I've been doing tonight instead of loading pics? Oops, gotta RUN!!!

dadgumit man, take the laptop with you

Hope everything comes out alright!

Piece of cake. I went in at 0830, was done by 10:30. Thanks to "Better Living Through Chemistry" I slept through the whole thing. I don't know what they gave me, but the doc referred to it as "happy juice" and it sure worked.

I'll see if I can post some pics this evening.

Talking about a colonoscopy on a thread called Water Follies Weekend is just wrong, very wrong.

I hope you're talking about boating pics, not colon pics.