Quote Originally Posted by Lars Strom View Post
Special "Wing" Molinari /Merc Boat

Driver Carlo Rasini
Italy 1969

Thanks Stefano Rancati
As you know, the early single engine Molinari's were blown over quite frequently. That was primarily due to two factors, they rode high in the nose and were driven by a bunch of guys that had just climbed out of a V bottom. In addition, I should mention that they were not equipped with power trim. In the summer of 1969, I was running some tests on Lake Winnebago in Oshkosh in an 18'er with power trim when I saw a strange looking object coming towards me. Turns out it was an identical 18'er with that exact same wing attached to the nose.

Dick Snyder's engineering group had borrowed the boat from the racing division and were trying to solve the "blow over" problem. Elmer Nord was driving the winged machine and said he thought it worked pretty well. I believe that he added it took some getting used to, but after he blew it over, he got much better at running it into the wind!

If I remember correctly, they had installed a small electric motor to change the wings angle of attack. It moved the wing quickly and they thought they might be on to something. Think they sent it to Renato for his evaluation and apparently Renato figured it was a good thing to let Rasini use because he was sticking with his power trim.