Absolutely remarkable! Yes, I managed to get up at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday and we were on the road at 5:30. (Then hit brick walls of commuter traffic in Tacoma and Federal Way…) We drove directly to Stan Sayres park/pits, which was the first time I’d been there (man, that place needs an infusion of funds and TLC. I was horrified of what a “pit” that place is! It’s quite famous around here because of all the years and years and years of SeaFair and the hydro races and the Blue Angels, but c’mon, Seattle!) While we were crawling in traffic, the Miss Squire Shop was ready to leave the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum:
There were actually four of the restored vintage boats doing their “shakedowns” that day: Besides the ‘79 Miss Squire Shop, there was the Miss Maverick (1950s era), the Miss Notre Dame (1960s), and the Miss Pay&Pak (1980s). Here are the “butts” of all of them at the pits (if you click on these photos you’ll see awesome enlarged versions—just remember to hit the back arrow afterward):
The Executive Director of the Museum is Dave Williams, who is a veteran hydro driver and crew chief (and a great guy), and he drove the Squire for her maiden run. It was so exciting when the crane dropped her in the water for the first time! John is intimately familiar with every single nut, bolt, hose, fitting—literally everything—about this boat.
Speaking of the crane: I LOVE them. It was right next to us and it was very LOUD (I could have done without THAT), but I love how skilled the crane guys tend to be. This guy was excellent. And there is something dramatic about them lifting the boats in and out of the water. I got my first taste of that in 1997 when John raced an Unlimited at Tri-Cities (Nate was 11 years old!)
Dave’s maiden run indicated some issues, especially with oil. The Merlin engines (these engines are from WWII fighter planes, so they are 80 years old!) are notoriously difficult to start, and Dave had some trouble, but it finally caught, struggling a bit on the course at first. But he finally got it going and had a good run. He and John and the crew think they figured out the oil issue but when it was John’s turn to drive, they decided to test some things at slightly slower speeds to either confirm or disprove their analysis. (Dave had also said to John, “I’ll never fire a driver for going too slow.” These boats aren’t intended for racing, so they typically don’t go faster than 130 mph, vs. up to 250 mph speeds of the racing turbines). So John took that to heart and stayed under 120 mph. (Except maybe on the back end of the course out of sight of everyone where he gave it a leeeetle more throttle…)
So, here he is dressed in his race suit:
And here he is strapping in!
And there he goes!!
Ooops. No he doesn’t. Couldn’t get her started.
It came down to the battery winding down and *almost* dying. But then! It caught! Belch. (There were cheers. Heh.)
Yikes. But then, THERE HE GOES!!!
And after three laps of the course (required by the officials), he headed back in. If you look closely, you can see the heat waves from the exhaust behind him.
Back, safe and sound. (There’s me in blue taking photos and grinning my lips off).
There was SO MUCH going on! All around us, with the other boats, and within our pit area with our boat and crew. Complex machines, these boats.
Quite a lot of people (fans) were there, too. And mostly with gray or white hair! Lol. These are the boats the older crowd remembers fondly, these “Thunder Boats.” The hot pits were barriered off so you needed a pit pass to be close to the boats, but the barrier wasn’t huge and they all got to see the boats a lot more up-close than at the big events at SeaFair or Tri-Cities. It did feel like a privilege to have full access! However, I also didn’t want to be in anyone’s way, so I was cognizant of that. But it was nice to be able to be out on the dock!
Locals will remember John Keister from the mid-‘80s to 1999 “Almost Live” comedy show on local TV, and he was there! I didn’t recognize him (we’ve all gotten old…), but he ran up to John and introduced himself and was super excited about the boats and asked John if he could take a picture of him in front of the Squire! Lol! (John had to tell me afterward who he was! Oh yeah! John Keister! Huh!) And I overheard conversations everywhere, some pretty dumb. These are vintage restorations of well-known hydroplanes of yesteryear. The Hydroplane Museum is all about that, overseeing all of these restorations. And there was a younger woman standing there gaping at the boats and she said to her partner, “Why are these boats all so OLD? What’s up with THAT?”
(I mean, they’re actually all newly built…)
It was such a good day! John was on Cloud Nine. Very different from his extremely competitive racing days which were very stressful. He would be in “race mode,” quite distant and inward leading up to his runs. In this situation he was…joyful! He kept hugging me (which I sure did like!)
We stopped for oysters on the way home. Mmm. And then after we got home…we learned about the heinous massacre of CHILDREN in Texas.
Enough.
