Speed Boats

At New Smyrna, Fla. on the shiny black surface of Indian River, a dozen tiny boats, responsive as walnut-shells, noisy as airplanes, wheeled, bounced and scudded around a ten-mile boomerang-shaped course. They were Class-X outboard motorboats, competing in the first international outboard races ever held in the U. S.

First race. Miguel Barella, captain of the Spanish team, failed to get his motor going in time to start. Britain's Joseph C. Turner, who smokes a pipe while driving, saw his flywheel jump overboard. France's Jeari Dupuy (Petit Parisien) hit a buoy. Horace Tennes, 21-year-old Northwestern undergraduate, driving his Hootnanny VI won at 52.6 m.p.h., three seconds ahead of the other collegian on the U. S. team, Philip Ellsworth of Bucknell, a mile ahead of the rest of the field.

Second race. Fighting to get back the lead he lost on the first lap, Dupuy tried to nose inside Tennes on the sharp turns, twice almost succeeded before Tennes won, with Ellsworth third.

Third race. Lolloping comfortably in the shallow water of the inlet, a porpoise received an appalling thump. It came from the bow of Ellsworth's boat, this time ahead of the others and traveling at nearly 60 m.p.h. The boat leaped into, the air and an official's launch picked up Ellsworth, unhurt except for a cut lip. Tennes, in second place when Ellsworth spilled, heard his spark plugs sputtering on the next lap. He waved to Jean Dupuy who passed him on the last lap and won easily, with his teammate Baron Alain de Rothschild third.

Described as an "international championship," last week's races were patterned after the international motorboat regattas held in Europe. When President George H. Townsend of the American Power Boat Association and his friend John Wanamaker took their boats to the regatta at Lake Garda, Italy last summer, they had so much fun that they asked the European drivers to compete in the U. S., got Florida yacht clubs and hotelmen to put up $15,000 for expenses & prizes. On hand at New Smyrna were not all the best pilots in Europe where outboard racing is a more socialite pastime than in the U. S. There were enough, however, to make the series, after next summer's Gold Cup races, the most important U. S. motorboat contest of the year. Parisian Publisher Jean Dupuy is a director of the sporting Cote d'Azur Club on the Riviera. His teammates were Baron Rothschild and Marquis Gonzalo de la Gandara, whose father-in-law, Marquis d'lvanrey, builds Soriano motors. Spain and England sent two men each, Hungary and Sweden one. Italy, where motorboat racing is encouraged by the Government, did not send a team for the outboard competition but sent its three best drivers to compete in the 12-litre races: Count Theo Rossi de Montelera (Martini & Rossi), Prince Carlo Maurizio Ruspoli, Antonio Becchi.

After last week's races, the drivers tinkered their boats for the rest of the series: three races at Palm Beach this weekend, four more at Miami Beach a week later, the final of which will determine the outboard champion. Climax of the regatta will be a race at Miami between big inboard motorboats -- Italy's 12-litre class against U. S. Gold Cup craft, like Horace E. Dodge's Delphine VI, John Shibe's new Miss Philadelphia, for the Vincent Bendix Trophy.

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