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QUESTION: I am trying to find some information on a boat that used multiple outboard power heads coupled to outdrives by a common shaft. The engines (four on each side) could be uncoupled in the event of a catastrophic failure. I thought it was campaigned under the name of Jesse James.

The guys at work looked at me like I needed random drug testing when I told them about this. I believe that it might have been in the mid-1980s. Do you have any knowledge of this?

ANSWER: The year was 1986. The boat was a 35-foot Cougar catamaran open-class offshore race boat owned by Al Copeland of Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits fame. It raced only once that I know of. Bill Sirois, a prominent outboard tunnel-boat racer at that time, along with input from Jerry Gilbreath and Fred Hauenstein, are probably the people who came up with the idea.

Sirois and Hauenstein, who is still employed by Mercury Racing on the outboard side, designed the installation. They coordinated with Clive Curtis (Steve Curtis' dad) who built the boat overseas. As I recall, Jerry Gilbreath (who later went on to throttle many other offshore boats including Alcone Motorsports and Reliable Carriers) was involved as the crew chief of the "many outboards-inboard" boat, Popeyes. Gilbreath also was involved in rigging it.

To the best of my knowledge, Copeland drove the boat and Sirois was the throttleman. Sirois and Gilbreath also were outboard tunnel and Mod VP racers at the time. Gilbreath developed a Mod VP hull from a modified Spectra 19-foot jet boat that became known as a GMT (Gilbreath Marine Tunnel).

As a side note, Gilbreath also raced in the Grand National Inboard Endurance class in a Rayson Craft called Crazy Horse, which I competed against for many years. I am guessing that Gilbreath's and Sirois' outboard racing experience also were factors of where the idea came from for the project, and it was Copeland's money (and maybe some of Mercury's) that made it come to fruition.

APBA Offshore racing rules in effect at the time dictated that the maximum number of cubic inches allowed in the class was 1,000. So, they had a choice of running either eight 2.0-liter or six 2.4-liter "Bridgeport" outboard race motors mounted inboard. The boat was outfitted to accommodate eight Mercury Racing outboard motor power heads that were mounted laying on their sides. Four were mounted on each side on top of the tunnel adjacent to each sponson. Each group of four was connected by Gilmer belts to a common shaft that was connected to a single No. 2 Speedmaster drive.

The placement of the motors allowed Curtis to streamline the boat quite a bit by cutting the deck height down over the sponsons. There was some sort of a clutch mechanism on each engine that could allow a failed engine to be disconnected and enable the race boat to continue with the remaining running engines.

One of the original purposes of the boat was to set the APBA Offshore kilo record. In order to do that, the boat, driver and throttleman had to first qualify the boat by running it in a sanctioned race. In order to satisfy the requirement, Copeland and Sirois competed in the Bahamas at the first racing event of the 1986 season. For this race, they opted to power the boat with six Mercury Racing 2.4-liter Bridgeport motors mounted in the stringers for simplicity purposes.

Then, for the kilo attempt, the boat was fitted with the eight 2.0-liter hot rod outboard motors. Later, in 1986, the boat actually set an APBA Offshore kilo record somewhere in Louisiana with Copeland and Sirois onboard.

As I recall, the combined two-way speed was in excess of 160 mph. It actually did go faster on the first pass because during the backup run, one of the motors kicked a rod out and severed a fuel line, which spilled gasoline in the bilge and resulted in a fire. When Copeland and Sirois stopped the boat, the water in the bilge carried the burning gasoline forward under the cockpit and spread the fire. The resulting damage was significant.

Eventually, the fire-damaged boat was procured by Bob Idoni, who repaired and outfitted it with conventional inboard V-8 power. Ultimately, the boat hull was probably too light for the inboard offshore wars of that era.

Engine reliability was a significant factor for offshore racing in the 1980s. This was especially true because the average race was 225 to 250 miles. Another advantage of the design was that the Popeyes boat could lose an engine, disconnect it and continue racing without stopping or bringing the boat off plane.

During the 1970s and 1980s, offshore races were long. Absent were helicopters or safety boats all over the place, and sometimes one leg of a course could be as long as 50 miles. GPS or any other effective electronic navigational aids did not exist. Navigation was accomplished with compasses and stopwatches. Boats were equipped with spare parts, tools, props and mechanics to actually fix things during a race. Three-blade props were the norm (actually, state of the art) and a set of two-blade props were usually carried onboard so that one could be installed on the remaining running engine in order to get the boat on plane and get back to port.

All boats were required to carry food and water rations, life rafts, shark repellent and other survival gear (firearms were optional). The bottom line is that if you broke, you were on your own. You would be the person missing from the party and hopefully someone would see you at the next race. Racing then was an adventure rather than a show in a stadium. So, now you can understand the idea of having six or eight motors to share the load, which would theoretically increase the odds of finishing the race with the boat still on plane.

The Popeyes "outboards-inboard" boat did race against Mark Lavin in the Jesse James boat in the Bahamas, which was the first race of the 1986 season. Lavin's accident occurred in Key West, Fla., at the end of that season. As a result of the Jesse James crash, Lavin's family and colleagues proactively developed a set of guidelines for offshore boat safety that are still used today.

George Linder (original designer of the Chris Cat) is currently involved in the updating of the Lavin Foundation Guidelines. The guidelines have evolved over the years and are greatly responsible for the current generation of safer offshore race-boat-canopy systems.

—Need some guidance from Bob Teague, Powerboat's lead test driver and owner of Teague Custom Marine? To send him an email click here.

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