This was by virtue of the community-owned MISS DETROIT winning the Cup in 1915 on Manhasset Bay in Upstate New York and earning the right to defend it on home waters. The first Gold Cup race to be run on the Detroit River was in 1916. The hydroplanes with their underside “steps” and their ability to plane over the surface of the water spelled the end of the displacement era. The first hydroplane hull to win the Gold Cup was MIT II in 1911 with J.H. Schroeder’s DIXIE II captured the cup that year and posted a fastest heat speed of over 30 miles per hour. Beginning in 1908, the Gold Cup was a “wide open” race. Protests from losing entrants resulted in the scrapping of the controversial handicapping system after 1907. The use of this system enabled CHIP, owned and driven by Jonathon Wainwright, to win on corrected time at about 15 miles per hour-even though CHIP was the next-to-slowest boat in the fleet! Starting in 1905, a handicap system was utilized which took into account each boat’s power and size. Kilmer’s best heat was just over 25 miles per hour. VINGT-ET-UN II, a displacement boat, driven by Willis Kilmer, won the second Gold Cup in September 1904 using a Simplex engine for power. Measuring 59 feet in length with an 8-1/2-foot beam, the craft used a 110-horsepower Standard motor that resembled a miniature steam engine with its steel columns and open frame.įor the first-and only-time in Gold Cup history, two races were run in the same calendar year. The winning boat, the STANDARD, owned and driven by Carl Riotte, averaged just over 23 miles per hour.
In those days, the boats plowed through the water rather than skim over the surface of it.
The very first Gold Cup race took place in June 1904 on the Hudson River in New York. There have been many, many highlights, too numerous to be retold here.
The Gold Cup's long and fascinating history is one of the great sports stories.Ī truly definitive history of the "Golden Goblet" has yet to be written and could fill many volumes. Officially known as the "American Power Boat Association Challenge Cup," it is the ultimate prize that every competitor strives to win at least once. The APBA Gold Cup is to power boat racing what the Super Bowl is to football, what the Kentucky Derby is to horse racing, what the World Series is to baseball, and what the Indianapolis 500 is to automobile racing. By Fred Farley - Unlimited Hydroplane Historian
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