Steve Compton's News (9)

Don Mocks report from December 9th

On October 19th the Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum launched an exciting new web site. We are approaching 250 members on the new site. You can read about, and participate, in Museum events, post and/or enjoy many hydroplane racing photos and videos, create a blog, startd a discussion on the Forum or join the group for your favorite hydro. But please understand that by registering on the site, you have only become a member/participant of the web site, it does NOT include membership in the…

Today turned out to be nothing short of amazing. Every day I spend working with the team on the 'Blaster is special, but some days are better than others. Like today.

I knew we were going to attempt to reattach the right side sponson to the new airtrap. Don and our team spent a great many hours making sure everything was ready. I believe the sponsons are the only major sub-assemblies we removed intact (more or less) from the original hull, yet every part to which the…

Should be a interesting week coming up as we mount the sponson assemblies on both sides of the boat. The airtraps are all prepped so it should be a fairly easy job. We should be able to lift the frames with a strap wrapped around them hooked up to the gantry. So how about Weds for the right side and Thursday for the left. We’ll start mixing Hysol around 1pm both days.

I want to thank everyone for all the great work this past week getting the left airtrap mounted. And thanks to the…

It is offical! The left airtrap is now on! Don, Phil and Gail attached the new left airtrap to Bill Mimcey's Blue Blaster at 2:00PM Nov 10th! Things are really taking shape now.

A work schedule update this week.....I’m not leaving town after all so we should be able to have a…

November 2, 2010

Another big week coming up. Tomorrow we have lots of inserts to glue into the left airtrap. We need to lay the sponson frames on top in the morning to drill and mark all the holes. We have all the replacement frames made and they can be ground and have their extrusions attached. Today, Gail started routing out the top of the right airtrap so we might also be able to glue the wood into the top tomorrow or at least Thursday. Then we can mount the…

OCT 28, 2010

My, what a day.... Rightly so, I suppose, given that after 10 months of

work we finally installed the largest piece in the restoration of the Blue

Blaster. Not only the largest (29' plus or minus 4") but perhaps the most

critical component of the entire project. The on-again, off-again right side

air trap. And it was very stressful and occasionally frustrating. I had to

take most of the pics on the run since Don had us all…

The first MISS THRIFTWAY was designed by Ted Jones and built by Les Staudacher in 1954. Sponsored by the Associated Grocers chain of Stores and represented by Willard Rhodes, the 1955 hull not only represented the first step of involvement by AG for the next eight years, but it was also the starting point of Bill Muncey’s winning career. As of this writing, Bill is still on the top as the winningest driver in the sport of Unlimited Hydroplane racing with 62…