Loss of the Quicksilver and its driver in 1951 at Seafair
In the years after World War II, as the US economy prospered, veterans settled down and soon began to look around for new forms of leisure. Many took to boating, but some wanted more than a pleasant day on the water, they wanted speed to re-create some of the excitement of their service years!
Speedboat racing on closed circuits certainly fit the bill. All that was needed for a guy to compete on the water was some ability at carpentry and a little engine tuning. Every weekend in the summer, lakes and rivers across the northwest buzzed with activity as small outboard-driven craft were tested and raced in local leagues.
This was the era when owning and racing hydroplanes was still part hobby and part promotion for many local businessmen, so these events were very accessible. Anyone could take part: there were classes for different sizes of motors, junior drivers, fishing skiffs etc. It wasn’t long before this new sport had spawned a “big league”-the “Unlimiteds”- that were soon racing at high speed in front of thousands of spectators.
At this time, marine engines were very heavy durable machines, and automobile engines weren’t powerful enough, so the big new boats were designed and built around war-surplus aero engines. The favored motor was the 1650 cubic inch (27 liter) V-12 supercharged powerhouse that had powered the P-51 Mustang fighter. It was originally produced by Rolls Royce in the UK, and fitted to the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters that fought the battle of Britain in 1940.
Named the Merlin, it boasted such modern features as an aluminum block, four valves per cylinder, and double overhead cams. Rolls-Royce staff visited a number of North American automobile manufacturers in 1940 to select one to build the Merlin and aid the British war effort. The inspectors were impressed by the attention to high-quality engineering at the Packard Motor Car company, and selected it to build the Merlin under license.
The first American-built engine ran in August 1941, and when the first shipment arrived in the England, the engineers at Rolls-Royce stripped one down, they were amazed to find it was superbly built and well within their tolerances. Up until then, Rolls Royce had finished critical bearing surfaces by hand, but Packard was using unskilled or semi-skilled workers, many of whom were female.
By 1950, more than 37,000 V-1650 engines had been built by Packard, for use in aircraft like North American Aviation’s P-51 Mustang–the fastest piston-engined fighter in WWII. (This plane was itself a marvel of war-time industry—designed, built and airborne in just 117 days!)
As the US Army Air Force moved into the turbine age, thousands of these engines were put into storage, then auctioned off. In the early 1950s, it appears that anyone with a machine shop and a few dollars to spare had picked up a Merlin or two …. and was trying to figure out what to do with it!
These mechanical marvels could put out 2000 HP–although not for too long–giving a huge increase in a boat’s potential speed…and danger! Boat racing teams recognized that this was a golden opportunity, so they began to stockpile Merlins and could have as many as a dozen on hand.
Since the early 1900s, race boats had evolved from long narrows low-resistance shapes being driven through the water to planing hulls with multiple steps that skipped across the surface like a stone. But with the new engines, these old designs were attaining speeds never before seen, and were soon found to be highly unstable.
This can be seen from the progression of the world water speed record. In 1928, Miss America VII driven by Gar Wood had reached 92.8 mph in Detroit. By 1939, the record had been gradually pushed to 141.7 mph, achieved by Sir Malcolm Cambell in Bluebird II in England’s Lake District.
By 1950, designers had found a better approach was to stabilize the hull with pontoons. They updated hydroplane designs that had been popular in the 1930s by using the new glues and aircraft plywood that become available. The boats had a wood frame, plywood skin and Dural aluminum sheathing on the underwater surfaces. This breakthrough revolutionized hydroplane racing. In 1950, when the Seattle Slo-Mo-Shun team adopted the “three-point” system, power boating history was made here in the Northwest!
On June 26, 1950, at 7 a.m. on Seattle’s Lake Washington, driver Stan Sayres and riding mechanic Ted Jones became the fastest men on water with a measured mile speed of 160.3 miles an hour with the Slo-mo-shun IV. The boat was the first successful prop-riding, three-point hydroplane. In 1952, they raised the record to 178.5 mph.
Down in Portland, Orth Mathiot, a 56-year old tugboat operator who has been a Pacific Coast champion in the 1920s, decided to get in on the fun. He hadn’t competed in over 20 years, and his thinking was “old school.” But he had picked up a Packard engine and proceeded to build himself a traditional pre-war step hydroplane–without sponsons–designed by John Hacker.
Larry Barber photographed him practising on the Columbia in 1951, but it wasn’t until he took his boat Quicksilver to Seattle, flying the PYC burgee, that he really got to open it up. The Portland entry was the odd-man-out in the new world of Unlimited racing. This is how a Seattle newspaper described the first outing: “In the qualifying heat of motor boating’s classic Gold Cup race at Seattle last week, Orth Mathiot barely managed to make the minimum 65 m.p.h. speed in his blue-grey Quicksilver, a sleek, new. 31-foot hydroplane.
Devil-may-care Mathiot, a Portland tugboat operator, was not really expecting Quicksilver to win the cup. Neither were Seattle’s boat-racing fans, who turned out at Lake Washington to cheer their hometown entry, Slo-mo-shun IV, which set two records in the first of three final runs-97.826 m.p.h. for a three-mile lap, 91.766 m.p.h. for the 30-mile heat.”
But Mathiot wasn’t complaining. While Slo-mo-shun also took the second heat. Mathiot and crewman Tom Whitaker sat it out in the pit, working on the balky engine. “Aw, we’re in this race for fun,” said Mathiot. “What the hell.” Back for the final heat, he gave 250,000 spectators a thrill by almost sideswiping the press barge. He came so close that newsmen aboard could “count the stitches on his lifebelt.” Quicksilver charged down the front straightaway going too fast in pursuit of My Sweetie.
Then, 300 yards past the barge, Quicksilver began the turn porpoising badly, and suddenly went out of control. It nosed down, flipped over, and dived to the bottom of the lake, vanishing in a geyser of white spray. When the mist settled, only flotsam remained-a few splinters of grey plywood, a seat cushion, one shoe with a sock still inside,” reported the paper.
The race was being covered live on KING5 TV and the commentator was so overcome he “fell to his knees and uttered the Lord’s Prayer on live television!” Horrified race officials ran up a red flag, and fired their signal cannon. After ten minutes, Slo-mo-shun IV’s winning driver. Lou Fageol finally spotted the wave-downs and eased his boat alongside the barge. Two hours later, divers found the body of Mathiot, and next day brought up Whitaker. The remainder of the Gold Cup race was cancelled and Slo-mo-shun V, with the most points, was declared winner. In the history of unlimited hydroplane racing, this was the worst tragedy and the first loss of life.
Postscript: Quicksilver’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engine was salvaged from the bottom of Lake Washington and showed up three years later in Slo-Mo-Shun V when it won the 1954 Gold Cup. On the same lake, in 2000, Russ Wicks of Seattle, set a new record for propeller-driven boats of 205.494 in the Miss Freei.