1

1

Slomoshun II

1

1

1

1

1

1We have letters from Harry Jensen, Stan Sayres friend and business partner asking Jack Cooper about recommendations on
maintaining the Lycoming engine in Tops III and Jacks reponses.

Slomoshun II
Stan's 2nd Ventnor Hydro

After the loss of Slomoshun, Stan bought another boat built by Ventnor
Boat Company in Atlantic City New Jersey & named it Slomoshun II.
Slomoshun II was a 225cc craft, previously owned by Jack "Pops" Cooper.
The boats Original name was TOPS III. In the advertisement shown below
we see TOPS III- In a Ventnor advertisement- announcing the new worlds
competitive speed record-of 1939 at 66.639mph.
No wonder Stan bought this boat.

Ventnor's owner Adolph Apel was nationally recognized
for his design and construction of very fast racing boats. In fact
Apel and his company Ventnor hold the U.S. Patent for the
design of the 3 point hydroplane -prop riding hulls-Issued in 1935-
Ted Jones, who has been inaccurately credited with this idea/design
by so many sources, Ted did NOT come up with this idea.
In fact there are two articles currently on the "Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum"
website that state "Ted designed and drove Slo-mo-shun IV",
"the first thunderboat to run successfully"(wrong), and further on in the article
"the era of the three-point suspension design of hydroplane had most assuredly arrived"(wrong) I do beleive Mr. Apel and Ventnor Boat designers would beg to differ with those statements.

A statement that might be closer to the truth is that the era of the
Slo-mo-shun IV had begun. And the Slo-mo-shun IV is a amalgam of a Ventnor, Jacoby,
Allison, Merlins and ever other boat that ran before it or against it. The Slo-mo-shun IV team wasn't shy about using ideas others had developed ( hell they didn't invent the Allison or Merlin but they sure as heck modified them so that they performed better then they ever did before)-If They saw something that might work they just said "hey that looks cool", lets try that, and improved on it.Along with their ingenious modifications they also created some wonderful new components for Hydroplanes which we shall discuss further in IV segment of the site.

1939 Ventnor Boat Advertisement
Showing "Tops III" Jack Coopers Boat
which Stan purchased and renamed Slomoshun II.
The advertisement announces a new "World
Competitive Record" at 66.639mph in the 225cc class.

Origin of the name Slomoshun
Actually, the name Slomoshun was coined by Stan's wife Madeline.
All his life Stan wanted to race cars and wanted to race at Indy. He did race
cars competitively, but never got anywhere near the Indy 500.
Stan also tried racing airplanes.You know , those little speedsters
that zip around pylons, but after a few tries at that I think even
Stan thought that was too wild. So Madeline(Stan's wife)
and Stan agreed on power boat racing. She had no idea what that
would be like until she saw Stan speeding madly around Lake Washington
and told him "when I see you out on the lake going so fast, all the other boats appear to be moving in Slomoshun" and so you have the name!
The hyphenation of the word Slomoshun to Slo-mo-shun
starts with the Slo-mo-shun III.

To be continued



Hompage