1 1 1 Slo-mo-shun The
Father Of A New Era 1 In December of
1999 Stanley Sayres was honored |
Stanley
Sayres
Stan
Sayres-Speedboat King Meet the Sayres, Stan and Madeline, the Slo-mo-shuns IV and V, the two speed-minded business men who drive them, Lou Fageol and Joe Taggart, and the men who see to it they are ready to go, that justly famous Slo-mo crew. Let's start, naturally, with Stanley St. Claire Sayres. He's the man who owns the Slo-mos, whose well-founded knowledge of boats and power plants and whose money put them on the water. Stan Sayres, then an automobile salesman in a Pendleton, Oregon, agency, first stepped into a power- boat in 1926. It was an outboard hydroplane that had just done a flip on Lake McKay, dousing its driver who, after swimming ashore, said, "I'm through with boats." Stan took him literally, bought the craft, hauled it out of the lake and was started on a career in speed- boating that eventually carried him to the top of the heap. For five years, since that day on June 6, 1950, when Slo-mo-shun IV spead through that electronically operated trap off Sand Point at an average speed of 160-323 miles an hour, she's held the world's speed mark. On July 7, 1952, in East Channel between Mercer Island and the mainland with Sayres again at the belm, she stepped that world mark up to 178.497 miles an hour. Going back to 1950, Slo-mo-shun IV made her trip to Detroit. First, with Ted Jones, her designer**(see notes) at the wheel, she won the Gold Cup which now rests in the trophy case of the Seattle Yacht Club. Two weeks later, with Lou Fageol driving in the place of Ted Jones who had broken a hand, she defended successfully the Harmsworth Trophy, the world's championship emblem, and brought that to the Seattle Yacht Club, too. And in the four following years either Slo-mo IV (she won in '52 and '53) or So-mo V (winner in '51 and '54) shared the emblem of the speedboat championship of the United States and the world and they have remained in Seattle. All that marvelous record started from that overturned outboard Stan Sayres picked up on Lake McKay. During the next few years he did quite a bit of outboard racing*(see Notes)himself, top speed 40 miles an hour. Not much as compared to the 178.497 miles an hour he now has driven Slo-mo IV. But the bug had taken and when Seattle became his home, Lake Washington his constant bidder for the thrills of speed-boating, his creative mind went to work. First came Slomoshun, a second- hand 225-cubic-inch inboard he picked up. He got speeds up to 83 miles an hour out of that one. But the competition*(see notes)during the depression years (he bought Slomoshun in 1937) was limited. She burned and sank off Sheridan Beach one day and a charred piece of a rib from her hull is all Stan Sayres has to rernind him. Second came another used boat, named Slomo II, which turned up 91.8 in her fastest time, but still didn't meet the requirements Stan Sayres wanted. Slo-mo-shun III, with a souped-up automobile engine and a specially designed hull, came next, is still running, having been sold to an Easterner. With her Sayres got up to 96 miles*(see notes) an hour. The bug had really bitten by that time and the plan to go into a bigger and faster boat began to take form. Ted Jones, the designer*, and Anchor Jensen, the builder*, came into the picture with Sayres in 1948. Slowly the ideas were worked over, some so radical that when experienced boat builders saw the fashioned Slo-mo-shun IV they were dumbfounded. One even swore it wasn't a boat but an airplane. She was finished and ready for the water in October, 1949, had all her preliminary runs on Lake Washington. Slowly, the word got out that a true speed demon had been developed. More than one Lake
Washington resident and boat enthusiast gazed goggle-eyed
as Slo-mo IV, her 30' high rooster tail flying behind
her, sped up and down the lake. On June 26 with only a handful of people on hand- the fame of the boat wasn't established as yet, nor had Seattleites awakened to the thrill of her or the whine of her marvelous Seattle-built (by Western Gear)*(see notes)gear box -she made her debut. With Mel Crook, associate
editor of Yachting, as the referee representing the
American Power Boat Association, and the modern,
electrically operated timing devices approved by APBA
checking her, Slo-mo-shun IV startled the whole boating
world. To a home-loving, modest
woman like Madeline Sayres it was an experience almost
terrifying at times, even with her graciousness. And to
Stan Sayres, actually shy to an almost self- effacing
point, it was a situation that grew and grew, that placed
on his shoulders not only the need to face scores of
calls for talks on his great boat but correspondence and
demands for photographs that kept him and two
stenographers busy for weeks. At one time he had to be put in a hospital for absolute rest, so taut were the nerves in his system. Through it all, the Seattle man has stuck to one continuing theme: "I didn't do it. The boys in the crew, the drivers, are the men." Ted Jones, the designer*(see notes); Anchor Jensen, the builder, are always mentioned. Not once in the scores of times I've heard him talk has he passed up that theme. Always he thinks of the thousands of hours the crew has worked and of the two great drivers, Lou Fageol, the Kent, Ohio, manufacturer of trucks and busses, and Joe Taggart, the Canton, Ohioan, who ran a small ice cream business into a huge factory, eventually selling it to a combine and retiring. Neither Fageol nor Taggart has ever received a cent for their driving. In fact, they have spent of their own funds as well as their time. The same governs the crew except that when they have to be away from their jobs as they do on those trips East, for instance, they are reimbursed for that lost time as well as their expenses. Let's have a look at that crew, thirteen in number now: Anchor Jensen, the builder* , a keen analyst of boating both from the building and the operating end. Mike Welsch, a Boeing engineer, a member of the crew from the beginning. Elmer Linenschmidt, now with Western Gear, a marine engine man for years, another of the all-time members. Wes Kiesling, George McKernan and Bain McIntosh, all members of the staff of Stan Sayres, Inc., men who know motors inside and out. Fred Hearing and Royal Holley of Western Gear's expert engineering staff. They took over when Martin Headman, also of that Western Gear staff, was taken for highly important and confidential government work in the East. Bob Stubbs and Pete Bertilotti of the Pan-Am Airways service crew. Harold Workman, who' owns his own Bauer Machine Shop. And Don Ibsen, Jr., a youngster who likewise has been with the crew almost since its inception. In previous years such Boeing folk as Joe Schobert, Jack Marshman and others have played a part. You need only think over the five-year record of the Slo-mo-shuns to know the efficiency which they've developed. Winning boat races requires four factors--the boat, the driver, the crew and luck. Stan Sayres Slo-mo-shun family has those first three. And if their luck holds out this will be a boat race you can tell your grandchildren about. Notes from the
Jensen & Sayres Archives: We have unearthed a great deal of documentation
over the last few years, trying to build a Jensen Archive
similar to the Sayres Archive. That Body of documantation
includes Ted Jones original sketch for Slo-mo-shun IV .It
consists of a profile view and half of a top view and
some offset numbers.NO bow or stern view & NO
Diagonals. It contains no additional information. NO engine specs, NO
gear specs, NO framing specs,NO rudder specs, It only
vaguely represents what Slo-mo-shun IV became. We also have letters explaining why Stan Sayers consistently, with reservations, represented Ted as the designer. And he goes on to credit Anchor with the initial design of the 3-1 gear,so beautiful manufactured by Western Gear, the rudder, and substantially more. As for Stan Sayres boat racing; We have no record of Stan in either the Sayres or Jensen Archive that Stan competed as a driver in any formally organized boat racing in Slomoshun, Slo-mo-shun II or III. If you have documents that prove otherwise we would be happy to review them. Dick Carroll or
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