Offering a compelling and personal look at both famous and little-known men and women who participated in an immensely colorful and rewarding sport, this book looks at the period of vintage outboard racing from the late 1940s to the late 1960s. Today, the American Powerboat Association oversees motorboat racing in America. This book takes racing enthusiasts behind the scenes to tell how the organization grew and describes its highly visible struggles. Also covered is the life of the great journalist of the sport, Hank Bowman, and the increasingly popular hobby of collecting racing paraphernalia, motors, accessories, toys, and games. This is a book for those who lived the postwar story of American outboard boat racing and for those nostalgic enthusiasts and collectors who wish they could.

Rev up your engines for this Outboard Motorboat Racing story from the early years of marathon racing to the development into alky burners. Covers famous Drivers like Marshall Eldridge, Fred Jacoby, Paul Wearly, Hilda Mueller, Walter Widegren, Bud Widget, Dick Neal, Bill Tenny, Stan McDonald, Randoph Hubble, Frank Vincent, Westerman Jones, Boots Kaye Murphy, and Gar Wood Jr., and many more. Boat and Engine builders include Elsinor, Crandal, Cenruy, Penn Yan, Hooton, Ludington, Flower, Kelley-Baby Whales, Jacoby, DeSilva; Evinrude, Johnson, Lockewood, Caille, KR, SR, PR, C-Service, 4-60, X and others. Follow the evolution of the fastest boats on water through the use of vintage racing scenes, postcards, and old advertisements from prewar through postwar.

A historical presentation of restoration techniques involving the fiberglass and aluminum runabouts that were wildly popular between 1950 and 1970, this detailed guide features runabouts from mild to wild--the latter with automotive-inspired tail fins and colorful paint schemes. With an examination of the restoration process, including details on specific outboard motors, accessories, and add-ons, this guide to the boats that revolutionized family boating following World War II offers practical advice for both casual boaters and aficionados. Listing nearly 600 aluminum and fiberglass runabout builders, their contact information, company histories, and the boat models they offer, this manual is essential for anyone wanting to authentically restore, equip, or purchase a vintage runabout.

From prehistoric times to the present, the Ocean has been used as a highway for trade, a source of food and resources, and a space for recreation and military conquest, as well as an inspiration for religion, culture, and the arts. The Ocean Reader charts humans' relationship to the Ocean, which has often been seen as a changeless space without a history. It collects familiar, forgotten, and previously unpublished texts from all corners of the world. Spanning antiquity to the present, the volume's selections cover myriad topics including the slave trade, explorers from China and the Middle East, shipwrecks and castaways, Caribbean and Somali pirates, battles and U-boats, narratives of the Ocean's origins, and the devastating effects of climate change. Containing gems of maritime writing ranging from myth, memoir, poetry, and scientific research to journalism, song lyrics, and scholarly writing, The Ocean Reader is the essential guide for all those wanting to understand the complex and long history of the Ocean that covers over 70 percent of the planet.