Seafair wooden hydro pull record to be made today

[Haruo]

[David Flick]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: David, I agree that the fellow in the white t-shirt certainly Looks like Hauro but perhaps taller. Could be the camera angle.

[Haruo]

Thanks, you guys. I agree that that guy kind of looks like me, but I very much doubt it is I. For three things, I hardly ever have attended the Torchlight Parade, and have never jumped out in the middle of one, and don't recall seeing kids pulling hydros in the parade.

Seafair is Seattle's summer festival, which starts in mid-June and runs into early August. The last week, Seafair Week, contains the two main events, the Torchlight Parade through downtown Seattle and the hydroplane races on Lake Washington.

[Tim Bonney]

Great article Haruo! I've never heard of this sport. It is always interesting to hear about the culture in another part of the country.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

About an hour and a half south towards Louisville. I don't think I've ever been to Madison. We were so much closer to Indianapolis that we seldom drove that direction.

[Haruo]

Yeah, Madison, Indiana, is probably the only place in the country where the unlimited hydros are more deeply ingrained than in Seattle. It's a heavily northwestern thing; look at the 2014 schedule, which is a lot like the schedules they used to run when I was a kid, except I'm pretty sure there wasn't a race in Qatar in those days!

Out of seven races, two are in Washington State and one in Idaho.

Kind of like the Green Bay Packers; socialized supersports.

[Ed Pettibone]

Madison is about 51 mi SE of Lawrenceburg where I managed the Employment Service office, in the late 70's, it is about 10 miles less by river. For the uninitiated If you ever go to a Hydro plane reace stop by a hardware and pickup earplugs for every one in your party. Those thing are even more noisier than INDY Cars.

And then on down river in Evansville Indiana the big event is Thunder on the Ohio a hydroplane boat race in the H1 Unlimited season.

But Haruo did the Pull set a record ?

[Haruo]

I read that it did, with 67 (I think) bicyclists and their hydros participating, but when I've looked for the story online I haven't found it.

Ah, here it is... but it looks like a large percentage of the 67 were walking, which was certainly not any way to tow a wooden hydroplane in my first childhood!

[Ed Pettibone]

[Mrs Haruo]

Now that looks like fun. Reminds me of Cub Scout Pinewood derby races, or Rain gutter Regatta, like we did at a Vacation Bible School where somebody rigged up parallel pieces of rain gutter about 12 feet long, and capped off the ends, and kids built little sail boats and raced them by blowing into the sails.