JOHN STARKEY CARS :: GRYFON INC.

Hydroplane Finished!

The New Year has started astoundingly well, as far as we are concerned!

On Thursday, January 3rd, yours truly set off from Tampa Airport, destination Columbus, OH. There, Kevin Klosterman met me and I joined a select bunch of people, all off for a vintage boat racing trip. On our way around the state (gripped in snow and minus 15-25 degrees!), we picked up my 1957 Jones Hydroplane, which had come to the end of its 18 month restoration by John Jenkins of Hydroplanes Ltd. He is an artist; the boat is stunning and, according to several people who have seen it: “Too good to put in the water!” I’ll leave you to be the judge of that but suffice to say, I hope to be testing the boat in April/May, back in Ohio with some other boat minded friends.

Kevin has just e-mailed me his account of the trip and it’s so good (and saves me a hell of a time writing it!) that he’s given me his permission to reproduce it here on the site, so thank you Kevin, for everything: Selling me your project; getting me enthusiastic about vintage hydroplanes; and helping me further by letting me store the boat alongside your “Aqua Flyer” in Salinas, Ohio.

You will see that, on our travels, we visited Ken Warby, who is the holder of the World water speed record at over 317 mph! Ken did this in 1978, thirty years ago now and the record still stands. He told us that he’d built the record-holding boat outside, with no cover and that it had cost some $10,000.00. The Westinghouse J34 gas turbine engine had cost just $65.00! No, not $65,000.00, sixty-five dollars! To say that I was impressed, both with this man and his boats, would be putting it mildly. What an accomplishment.

Now read on from Kevin:

Hydro mania
January 6, 2008 at 7:55 PM

I just got off a marathon field trip with some of the best of the vintage posse both old and new.

It all started with a short visit with Jimmy Deels place Wed. night. Jimmy is a legend and always a hoot and with the old newspaper clippings coming out and Valleyfield videos playing in the background, hours flew by. After soaking down a few brews and being bitten twice by the meanest cute little dog ever, I decided it was time to call it a night. I headed home with a bloody finger and a real sore foot thinking “that's odd, that damn little dog hurt me worse than Jimmy ever has”.

Thursday morning came real quick. Butch Baily, Eric Hoeft, “Rotten” Rob Kaufman, and new to vintage John Starkey and Steve Wolf came together and we had a great two hour lunch with Buddy Byers. We then headed down to John Jenkins’s place to pick up Starkey’s newly refinished Ted Jones conventional F boat. The boat is a true piece of art and I can’t wait to see her running beside her twin, the F-333. John Jenkins has been putting out some incredible projects that make us wonder why we get them wet in the first place.

Friday, we headed up to Celina with new vintage flatbottom owner Rob Frey and his terrier Eddie. Our plan was to get up there quickly, drop off the Jones, and hang out and BS at the race shop for a while. Mike and Cheryl Bruns stopped by and we talked some more boat. Mike help rebuild the motor for Starkey’s boat and they went over the motor project while we compared notes on the two boats. Time flew by.

“Then off we go again.

We picked up Butch Baily and visited his cool race shop. There, we checked out the Miss DeSoto and got a quickie update on her progress. When this boat hits the water sometime next summer, we will all have a new appreciation of sound. I can’t wait to hear that Potvin supercharger wind out and echo across the water for the first time in almost fifty years. Butch is passionate about this project and the photo album that follows this famous boat details every ounce of her rich history.

We loaded up and headed over to Ken Warby’s place. What a humbling experience. Ken is the king of the hill when it comes to cool boats and fast toys. If you ever think your cool boat is neat or has a cool motor, Ken’s collection will make you think twice. It was a real honor to hold the most coveted trophy of all time and a REAL scare of a lifetime to almost drop it.

Ken shared his sketches and notes on how he designed the World’s fastest boat. He made a real simple project out of what took the most brilliant scholars to try to beat. An almost shocking fact was that the first jet engine cost $65 dollars and it was left outside. He is a true genius and a mad man on the water at the same time.

Not only does Ken have the most coveted trophy but the baddest collection of incredibly powerful race boats to go along with it. WOW!

On the way back to the airport to send John Starkey on his way, I think we all hit sensory overload on race boats. It took me a day of “hydro detox” to get around to getting motivated to get anything done around the house today. It didn’t help that a few of us stayed up ’til 4 the night before...talking boats.

Kevin Klosterman