Edmonds-based unlimited hydroplane to race in Washington the next two weeks

By Harry Gatjens

The Edmonds-based U-11 Stevenson Roofing presents Miss Peters and May will race close to home the next two weekends. This coming weekend the boat will be in Kennewick racing for the Columbia Cup. The following weekend it will be among the hydros coming to Seattle for the annual Seafair event.

Fourteen unlimited hydroplanes are expected at each race, so there will be a lot of competition for our local hydro. A new sponsor has been added, Stevenson Roofing, an Issaquah-based roofing contractor. We still need to get some local Edmonds companies to join the racing game.

JW Meyers, part owner and driver of the hydroplane, told My Edmonds News that the crew is please with the results so far. As a new team with a new boat, they have a lot of tinkering to do to make it one of the fastest. At the last race in Detroit, they found out the rudder that came along with the boat when they purchased it was bent and so the boat had a tendency to pull hard to the left as it accelerated. They borrowed a rudder from another team and things improved but still weren’t perfect. Despite that and other issues, they still won a heat of racing and have finished every heat they have started.

Some work has been done on the boat at their local shop the last two weeks, so they expect continued improvement. My Edmonds News will report the results from each day’s activities starting Friday.

Here are a couple of links you may find interesting:

Link1 is the team’s website. Go hear to learn more about the operation and explore ways in which your company might be able to get involved.

Link 2 is a video taken on board the boat during a heat in Detroit. Not quite a driver’s eye view but very interesting. Click forward to about the five-minute mark for the start of the heat. About a minute later you can see how Meyers’ view gets tunneled between the roostertails of the boats on each side of him. Essentially driving through a slot at 150MPH. Don’t try that at home.

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