JiPeheL schrieb: If it had been badly build, it would not have lasted several races ...

Hello !

I asked to the reception staff and they told me that they think plans, if ever, no longer exist. The boat has been resurrected from a barn and history has been retrieved from archives of the local press.

As I wrote earlier, I took a lot of photos with a leaflet laid at some places so I could be able to find the real measurements. With that, it could be possible to draw a plan and build a model.

The main originality of this boat (and uniqueness) is that it is planked with aluminium sheet. (I collect since then aluminium cans of beer and I have a magnet in my pocket )

JiPeheL schrieb: Nice boat and some great details!

Do you have some more photos?

Ein Boot aus Blech ....sehr symphatisch

da sollte ich wohl mal ne Visitenkarte hinschicken

grüße Andreas

JiPeheL schrieb:

Jean-Phillipe, I know that these boats were still driven in the 1950s, but at that time they weren't really competitive anymore. Meanwhile the three pointers took their place as the fastest boats.

But, concerning the manufacturer: thinking about it again maybe you are right. It's not very probable that someone in France bought a boat in the USA (because of the shipping coasts). Moreover, if no french manufacturer has ever built a boat with this kind of hull (are you sure?), then maybe an amateur has copied a typical american conventional. I'm not informed about boat racing history in France in the 40s/50s and I only know a few french racing boats of that period.


I tried this several times. The problem with drawing plans from photos is, that the photos are distorted in perspektive. That means, that it is not possible to get the correct cross sections (dimensions of the frames, angles of the running surface, etc.). Even if you have undistorted line drawings (top view, side view, bow view) you can't extract the cross sections. The biggest problem is always the running surface... slight differences in the measurements can cause a completely different running boat.


Ich habe das einige Male probiert. Das Problem dabei ist die perspektivische Verzerrung der Fotos. Bedeutet: es ist nicht möglich, auf alleiniger Basis von Fotos die korrekten Querschnitte herauszufinden (Spantenabmessungen, Winkel der Laufflächen, etc.). Selbst wenn man unverzerrte Ansichtszeichnungen besitzt (Seitenansicht, Draufsicht, Frontansicht), lassen sich daraus keine Querschnitte extrahieren. Das grösste Problem dabei ist die Lauffläche: selbst aus kleinsten Abweichungen in den Abmessungen kann ein völlig anderes Laufverhalten resultieren.

I believe the boat is actually a C-Class (30-cubic inches), or at least the motor is. The motor is based upon a 1940s U.S. Military Issue Johnson POLR-15. The P-Series Johnsons were the kings of class C from the 1930s up to the introduction of the Mercury Mark 30H in 1956. It makes sense that the motor in the pictures is based on the Military motor as many of them were used during WWII and I would think many of them stayed in Europe afterwards either as surplus or salvage loss.

The motor has had some modifications done to shorten the mid-section and make the lower unit more hydrodynamic. I have the civilian version of this motor in my collection (Johnson PO-15) and it is a real "stump puller", which is an Americanism meaning it has lots of low-end torque.