Any photos of DeSilva outboard hydros?

[smittythewelder]

Just looking at Ron's drag boat threads, with a couple of DeSilva hulls. IIRC, DeSilva made some outboard hydros in the Seventies, an unusual and interesting design. Anybody have pix, or anything to say about these boats?

[bill boyes]

Call Ralph, He build most of the Hydros. The Hedland was somewhat of a copy. I remember when Ralph build the first Bull Nose as Billy called it.

[Art Kampen]

Had one in the late 60`s or early 70`s that we ran with a mod 55h D class. Very fast boat. It was very fast but flighty. Had a nasty habit of getting sideways coming off the corner and would stay that way down the straightaway until you backed off, never could correct that. Finally sold it to an alky driver that ran a C Quincy on it. I know he busted his butt in it a couple of times. Got some photos somewhere will post if I find them.

[Danny Pigott]

I have one it's a 500 cc lay down Pro boat. I have pic's of it some where will try and put one up if I can get my pic's on my new pc. Very nice boat looks sharp with rear cowl. I bought it from David Westbrook in 83 ready to race boat motor and prop. David had been trying to sell me a Pro boat for a long time even tried to sell me a F Konig must have been trying to kill me, just kidding. He must have caught me at the right time and I bought it , funny thing is I beat him in the 84 Pro Nat's with his old boat seems like I was 3rd and he was 4th. I still have the boat and C Konig today. This might be the only one left .

[smittythewelder]

Call Ralph, He build most of the Hydros. The Hedland was somewhat of a copy. I remember when Ralph build the first Bull Nose as Billy called it.

Hmm, I always assumed Hedlund was building an updated, up-graded version of Hal Kelly's old Jupiter, which had the S-curve in the bottom, and the more aero-look decks than the Sids of the time. But maybe we're talking about different boats? The only DeSilva outboard hydros I knew of were big alky boats, and the only Hedlund hydros I ever saw were tiny A/B Stock boats.

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

Hmm, I always assumed Hedlund was building an updated, up-graded version of Hal Kelly's old Jupiter, which had the S-curve in the bottom, and the more aero-look decks than the Sids of the time. But maybe we're talking about different boats? The only DeSilva outboard hydros I knew of were big alky boats, and the only Hedlund hydros I ever saw were tiny A/B Stock boats.
Smitty, I agree with you.

[bill boyes]

I do not remember Ralph building any hydros with a S bottom. I could be wrong as it was a long time ago. Ralph built the the Cowling or Nose of the boat and others copied that is what I am talking about. Maybe Tim Weber can get a few pictures from Ralph.
I recall Harry Bartholomie had a couple of them and we took a C and D on the back on the DeSilva's truck to Midland Mich for Grant. Dick Pond wrecked both of the boats while milling in a crash with Kirts.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I've got some pics of one built for Doc Collins. It's a pit shot and Alan Ishii was driving for Doc then. I will scan them when I get caught up.

[JGOSMAN JR]

Over on the EORC site there is a pic of my Dad's DeSilva hydro with a 135 Chrysler on it wit electric start. Around early seventies, ran two man feature race with him when I was thirteen. Scared the hell out me but loved it at the same time. This boat and motor was brought to DePue one or two times and ran in "F" hydro. It did look like an oversizes Hedlund for sure.


http://www.longislandboatracing.org/images/EORC-1.jpg

[smittythewelder]

Smitty, I agree with you.

You agreed too soon, John. Look at Gosman's link, above. Though he tells us his dad ran it in the Seventies, that's obviously a boat from the early Sixties or even Fifties. The DeSilva hydro I remember, if my memory is any good at all, was a Seventies picklefork with an innovative and distinctive deck design.

This is getting confusing.:confused:

There's a feature at the bottom of the screen called "similar threads." I've never used it until now, but I linked to a DeSilva thread by Mk75H that is quite interesting, and itself links to one started by Ron Hill that's also good. My only experience of DeSilvas was of their well-crafted, good-handling, but rather conventional stock and alky runabouts (though maybe that double-angle chine was an original). But if you haven't seen it, look at their "Delta" experimental runabout, very cutting-edge then or now.

[David Mason]

Dad raced Harry Brinkman's Desilva C Mod Hydro in Soddy Daisy TN at the Mod nationals back in, I think the 80's. Harry was having some issues with flipping the boat, like nearly every race, and wanted to know what was wrong. Dad put our engine on it and went out and led the field well on his way to the National Championship when the gearbox sheared from the housing and the boat crashed in the middle of the backstretch. Dad said it was a decent ride, needed some different set up than conventional wisdom when the brothers asked him how the boat did. I think Harry sold the boat as he was more of a runabout guy anyways. The man knew his way around the course in a DeSilva runabout.

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

You agreed too soon, John. Look at Gosman's link, above. Though he tells us his dad ran it in the Seventies, that's obviously a boat from the early Sixties or even Fifties. The DeSilva hydro I remember, if my memory is any good at all, was a Seventies picklefork with an innovative and distinctive deck design.

This is getting confusing.:confused:

There's a feature at the bottom of the screen called "similar threads." I've never used it until now, but I linked to a DeSilva thread by Mk75H that is quite interesting, and itself links to one started by Ron Hill that's also good. My only experience of DeSilvas was of their well-crafted, good-handling, but rather conventional stock and alky runabouts (though maybe that double-angle chine was an original). But if you haven't seen it, look at their "Delta" experimental runabout, very cutting-edge then or now.
Not many knew Kelly, we trailered together to the SO nationals in 1954 in Depere, WI. He & his wife were good friends with my mom & dad. WE went to out of region races together, mostly different trailers.I finished 4th in BSH at Depere, Bob Parish won with a Desilva hydro. Nevertheless, I'm still convinces that Kelly pioneered the S bottom & I'm sticking to my conviction.

[Ron Hill]

Growing up in SoCal, I saw almost all of the DeSilva boyes hyrdos. I don't recall see an "S" bottom on any DeSilva hydros.

The first boat I ever saw with an "S" bottom was an entrop Cab Over that Elgin Gates owned and gave to Ted May. I drove this boat at Irvine Lake, in the spring of 1965.

Fuzz Nichols promoted a race at Irvine Lake in '65, but I was going to college in Flagstaff and I raced Stocks and this was an Alky race.

If you look at Hal Kelly's plans the "S" bottom was there long before Entrop designed the cap over.

The Hedlund have DeSilva and Hal kelly in them. Coolest part to me was that the Hedlunds build every one of thir hydros in their basement in Willamette, Illinois.

[Tim Weber]

I don't think Ralph was ever a big fan of the " S' bottom. We all know it's fast so does he. His feeling is when you have a 90 to 100 mph boat which he did build, it was more important to finish the race and not get killed. The bull nose as Desilva called their boat worked ok until the speeds got to the high 60's. Beyond that it created to much bow lift and they stopped building it. To compensate for this, they built a boat called the " sling shot". It was basically the first modern pickle fork. Ralph has a pic of it somewhere.

The only Desilva hydro I know of running is Duke Johnson's Service C and PR hydro. Ralph built it 7 or 8 years ago. It runs real well.

Tim

Tim

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Here's one, but I don't know who it belongs to. I took this at the Grain Belt Pro Nationals at Winona, Minnesota in 1975.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

More DeSilva hydros. Kind of strange to see two DeSilva's at the same race, and neither one has a boat number to identify whose it is. It took me a little looking because I was very confused with the two different class motors with a big difference in displacement. The one in the color picture does not have the Konig mount, and the steering cable anchors are in different spots. And no boat cover snaps on the second. Paint scheme the same, but I think the color in the B&W photo is white.

This particular DeSilva could be either David Westbrook, or Ralph and Bill DeSiva's driven by Alan Ishii. Alan pitted at this race next to Ralph Donald, and maybe after he looks at the photo, he can remember whose it was. He drove 6 different hydros for Ralph and Bill over a three or four year period, all of them with the tendency to blow over.

[smittythewelder]

There we go; thanks for those, Wayne!!

When did Hal Kelly design/build the first "Jupiter" and "Ben Hur" (both cabovers, though he found he had to move the dashboard back to make the Jupiter work; both had S-curved bottoms), John?

After Hu Entrop built and ran his first F hydro in 1956-57 (with some input, or at least interest from Ted Jones, and Jack Leek, I believe) others built cabovers with S-curved bottoms. Russ Rotzler, I think. Also, Joe Michellini, who managed to win the FOH Nationals in '58, and subsequently sold plans for the boat in Popular Science magazine. Ted Jones built the third and best "Miss Thriftway" with an S-bottom in 1958, but his 1957 cabover, "Thiftway Too," did not have that feature. Ted's son Ron began building boats a year or so later, but I think his early ones did not have S-curved bottoms, and his outboard cabovers of the early Sixties did not, or at least not the ones I saw. Now, someone else will have to tell us about whether Entrop had priority on this bottom feature, but even if he did not, it wouldn't surprise me if he came up with the idea independently. Entrop was a smart, skilled, creative guy, and was very interested in having a balanced boat that placed the center of lift and the center of gravity (with driver aboard, of course) such that he could get his prop-riding designs to run as nearly level to the water as possible. It's interesting to look at the photos of his boats and see to what extent each one succeeded at this level ride. The original F22 of 1957 rode about level. The Starflite II rode "up-hill." The Starflite III rode slightly nose-down, and The Starflite IV rode level, at least the first time, when Gerry Walin went 130mph (there's more to that story, but not for this thread). Since Entrop passed away, I believe that Jim Hallum probably knows and remembers more about his projects than anyone who's still around.

I still have the set of "Jupiter" plans I bought in '64 for $12. Amazingly, if it turns out to be true, I think I might have spotted my old boat in a recent photo, still alive in Florida. If I can get the fellow who I think is the current owner, who posts here as "Smirnoff," to see and respond to my PM, I can probably identify it as mine or not mine from a few more photos. I figured that boat had surely rotted away in somebody's backyard decades ago.

[Tim Weber]

I spoke with Ralph this morning about this thread.

The cab over goes back to 1947. They built a handful of them and decided, in Ralph's words" they were no damn good". The boat was fast but turned terrible. He said there was just too much weight forward. These did have an " S " in them to help get the boat out of the water with the drivers weight so far forward. I think they only ran these with the old Evinrudes and Johnsons. From this they went into the " Bull Nose "

In reality, a Jupiter, Hedlund or Entrop boat were ideas that were borrowed from Desilva. These guys just took the pieces and parts of the designs they liked
and incorporated them into there own design to make a viable boat. All three the before mentioned did work in their day.

Ralph is finishing up a book. He has pictures of all of the evolutions of these boats. He would be the first to agree that they were never really hydro builders. They did
have a few pretty decent boats over the years though. They won a number of championships too.

Tim

[crewman060]

Wayne posted 1 up also go to post 148 in Random Shots 2.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Here's one, but I don't know who it belongs to. I took this at the Grain Belt Pro Nationals at Winona, Minnesota in 1975.


Wayne:

I have a tendency to think (guess) that this boat may have belonged to either Larry Latta or Jack Kugler. The tip off on Latta being the owner is the Merc C Service engine on the boat. I do not remember Kugler ever running C Service but very possible he did as Quincy built several of these engines including the one Waldman had, I think. The absence of pipes on the motor and the LU make me think this is a C Service engine.

Also another tip off on it being Kuglers rig rather than Latta's is I never saw (no malice intended to someone not here anymore) Latta's equipment look this good, unless perhaps it was brand new. Larry would admit himself, and many of us heard him say, his equipment would never win any beauty contests. Several boats fresh from DeSilva's jig, both Runabouts and Hydro's carried this paint scheme, both color and design wise. I also had a DeSilva 125 Hydro I bought from Jack Kugler but never ran it and sold it to a MOD racer here in the Midwest. I think he possibly still has it as it was purchased for his Daughter to run a Yamato stock motor on.

With just a little "remembering" I can think of 10-12 Hydro's built by them and actively raced in the 70's and 80's. They also built the first tunnel Hydro I saw on the water. This was a C Service boat and was built for Stan Leavendusky. They only tested the boat in the late 60's/early 70's but never raced it. I don't remember why now. Possibly was not as fast as the 10'0" Marchetti that Butch used for many Championships during that time frame.

David Westbrook, as mentioned in another post, also had at least one DeSilva hydro that I think he ran a 500 or 350 Konig on. It was pretty well destroyed in a collision with another competitor at Lakeland in the 70's or early to mid 80's. Ralph Donald also still has a DeSilva Hydro he campaigned for a number of years. I saw it a couple of years ago in his warehouse in Naples, Fl.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The DeSilva with the white trim was in Ralph's pits, and had an A Konig on it. I thought about Larry, but in the races, he was not driving it. Doesn't mean it wasn't his though. This boat did not have a number yet and I looked at the c service hydro photos, but was unable to find a DeSilva hydro with duct tape numbers.

I'm going to check post 148 to see which that was. I know I posted one of the yellow trim pit shots a while back in Random Shots.

[Donald]

That is definitely my trailer and runabouts in the pictures, but I am a little confused about the hydro. David had several DeSilva hydros but I don't remember that one.
It is David's though, you can see the double sliding pipe that he made to take the place of water injection. Also it has the type of fuel tank we used and the sliding throttle. The pictures have to be from the sixties or early seventies, because the runabouts are flat deck.
I have David's last DeSilva that he won the 700 at Depue in the eighties before he quit. Wayne, that was it you saw at Depue, I had it set up for David Hooten to drive in the sprint 500.
I also have a one of a kind DeSilva, a step bottom J or K-Pro that I had built for my grandson, but he never ran it. We never put it in the water. Litzell was going to burn it, He said a step hydro would never be competitive, but I saved it before he did.
I also have two Pugh boats built in the eighties, a 250 anda 350 that I ran for years and years.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I remember you pointing out that J or K boat to me that you had built for your Grandson Ralph. The black and white photos of the DeSilva with the Konig in your pits, and the yellow trimmed one with the Merc were both taken at the Grain Belt Pro Nationals at Winona, Minnesota in 1975.

Hey Steve....why would you want to burn such a nice crafted and historical one-of-a-kind boat? Thanks for saving it Ralph.

[Steve Litzell]

Because it was made out of bio degradeable lumber and I had no room at the time. I have a Desilva Flatdeck runabout that is getting re skinned for a tribute boat to Miss Riverside. You remember her don't you ?

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I remember Miss Riverside very well. Are you going to finish her with the same numbers and color scheme? If you are and need pictures for a guide, let me know.

[Steve Litzell]

Tes I am, and Bruce sent me a picture of her but like I say, the more the better! Plans now are to be able to show/run with the C Konig from Louis and also my C looper as well as my A motors just for grins. Steve

[m12racing]

There is a picture of the first DeSilva cab-over hydro on page 76 of my book Vintage Outboard Motorboat racing.

[racingfan1]

Here is the photo from the book. I blew up the 2nd picture in order to see it better.

[racingfan1]

If you don't have a copy of Bernie's book here is the link to the Amazon site where you can order it. I think it is a very good read !!!

http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Outboard-Motor-Boat-Racing/dp/1583882987/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435413920&sr=8-1&keywords=vintage+outboard+racing

[Steve Litzell]

The black and white photo of the A hydro was Westbrooks. This was at least a 1971 photo as the FA with cast iron cylinders was introduced in 71 in the US. Ralph had set a record at Lakeland the first year in A hydro but was disqualified because the engine was not approved. I'm glad those idiot rules are gone, but the argument that Deiter made on behalf of his new cylinders really pee od Waldemen and OF off. Steve

[BRIAN HENDRICK]

598765987759878

A 'F' (?) DeSilva cab over that ran at the Rideau Ferry Yacht Club Vintage Regatta in ON in '07.

[BRIAN HENDRICK]

-two unidentified pix , 1976 , of a F DeSilva hydro
I suppose the 'C' means its in CT, :confused:

-another pic of the ON D-S , Crystal Lake, NY, 1995, with a M75H.

[1100r]

Well I recognize the 2 pics above and the C is for California. The Lake is Lodi Lake Calif and the C-153 is that of Casey Parson's. Was just out there this weekend as we raced there on the 4th of July for years before they ended. Casey was an 1100 r driver for many years and held the Kilo record for many years until Klemm broke it Thanks for sharing

[oldalkydriver]

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for? When the alky nationals were held in Long Beach California, the Midwest and east coast guys sure got a look at them. My dad (C-252) said Doug Creek told him he didn't know "Cadillac made hydro's!"

[Ron Hill]

I was trying to figure out what my brother did in the 1956 Nationals...then, I was wondering what Bob Jackson did. I know Tommy won the first heat of C Hydro, then spilled while leading in the second heat, and retired on the spot. I remember Dave Hart driving our Morehouse in C Runabout, his first alky race, winning, until he twisted the propshaft off.

[oldalkydriver]

I can't remember what my dad ended up. I think he was 3rd overall? Tommy ended up 2nd, and I think Doug Creek or another East coast guy won on points.