Once a huge fan of unlimited hydroplane racing, I lost all interest when turbines replaced WWII reciprocating V-12 aircraft engines.

FWIW, such was inevitable in order to maintain the sport as the amount of WWII V-12 aircraft engines, both RR and Allison, once so abundant at war surplass prices, became depleated decades ago.

Still, the whine of the turbines, does not result in the emotion of the reciprocating V-12 engines, whether turbocharged as are the Allisons, or supercharged with open exhausts as once were the Merlins.

• Fascinating

Those boats are amazing. It takes some serious stones to drive that fast over water.

I've watched nultiple unlimited hydroplane events and have always been amazed by the skill and absolute courage of the drivers.

Hydroplanes are called hydroplanes because, at speed, only the tips of the sponsons, about 10 square inches of the transom, and the bottom 1/2 of the props are in the water. The rest of the boats are airborne, which, of course, is how they are able to reach such speeds.

I remember reading an article some decades ago stating that unlimited hydroplane driver was the most dangerous occupation in the world. Significant improvements regarding driver safety have been made in recent years so this is likely no longer true.

I remember watching unlimited events at the Dayton (OH) Hydrobowl in the mid/late 70s. The Hydrobowl was an abandoned stone quary, short and tight by unlimited standards. The straights were short (about 1 1/2 mile) and the turns were tight requiring the boats to slow much more than at other courses. The West turn required the boats to reduce speed to about 70 MPH, a speed when unlimited hydroplanes were in danger of dropping off of plane.

Of course, this short course severly handicapped Allison powered boats such as the Atlas Van Lines driven by Bill Muncy, as the turbocharged Allison engines required time to build boost coming out of the turns whereas the RR Merlins, boosted by two speed, gear driven, superchargers could build boost more quickly and accellerate out of the turns much harder. The short straights at the Hydrobowl were not long enough to allow the Allison powered boats, which were usually faster at top speed )given time to build boost) to overcome the significant leads gained by the RR powered boats after accellerating out of the tight turns.

I well remember sitting at the East end of the Hydrobowl with my Nikon camera and 300 mm lens watching RR powered Pay-and-Pack, the boat to beat at the time, coming out of the tight West turn at about 70-75 MPH. From about 1 1/2 miles away, I could see the open exhausts of the supercharged RR Merlin go jet black and shoot 25-30 feet into the air as the driver hit the nitro methane to accellerate out of the turn. A couple of seconds later, the thunder would hit my ears.

This, folks, is why unlimited hydroplanes were once called thunder boats, and why I lost all interest when the reciprocating V-12 WWII engines were replaced by whine, whine turbines.