1938: Motor-Boat Racing

An avalanche of 28 new speed records, which practically duplicated the number of marks established the previous year, saved motor-boat racing from an otherwise uneventful and inglorious tenure during 1938. Sir Malcolm Campbell, the British thunderbolt who has turned to the water for new accomplishments, again raised the international unlimited one-mile standard, and competition and other trial efforts in America contributed to the general advance of motor-boat speeds.

Sir Malcolm, with a redesigned 'Bluebird,' named after his famous racing cars, was timed at 130.93 miles an hour for two runs up and down a one-mile course on Lake Halwil, Switzerland, on September 19. This surpassed his previous record, made in 1937, of 129.5 m.p.h.

A foreigner, Count Theo Rossi, of Italy, wrote most of the chapters into the history of speedboating in America during the year. This happy-go-lucky sportsman captured the Gold Cup, the country's foremost competitive nautical prize, at Detroit on Labor Day and then added the President's Cup at Washington, D. C., later in September in a spirited handicap event that forced the Italian to create both lap and heat records to win.

Count Rossi's opposition in the Gold-Cup classic was brief, but brisk, and he broke the class-lap speed at 72.707 miles an hour, a new high for a Gold Cup record or for international 12-litre boats in competition. He drove his Alagi at 70.866 m.p.h. for one lap on the choppy Potomac river and finished the 15 miles at an average speed of 69.675 miles an hour, both figures being new President's Cup records.

While Rossi was winning the Gold Cup in America, S. Mortimer Auerbach, of Atlantic City, N. J., transported his 4-litre racer, Emancipator VII, to England to take the famed Duke of York Trophy in a revival of this event against British and Canadian opposition. George Schrafft, a Harvard student, was crowned the national champion in the 225 cubic inch class, now the country's most popular inboard hydroplanes. John M. L. Rutherford, of Palm Beach, Fla., triumphed in the National Sweepstakes at Red Bank, N. J., Sam Crooks, of Rumson, N. J., won the Interstate Trophy, emblematic of the national 135-class championships, and Al Strum, St. Petersburg, Fla., veteran, became the first title winner in the new 91 cubic inch division. Arthur Bobrick's 12-litre El Torbellino proved to be the inboard champ of the Pacific Coast.

Outboard racing held its own with Fred Jacoby Jr., North Bergen, N. J., scenic artist, winning national high-point scoring honors in the professional column. Arthur Wullschleger, Cornell collegian, was the ranking amateur scorer and also the national intercollegiate champion. Ted Roberts, New York boat dealer, won the annual race from Albany to New York on the Hudson river, and Clinton Ferguson, Waban, Mass., schoolboy, drove an outboard at better than a mile-a-minute for the first time in competition at Red Bank, N. J., to highlight other outstanding feats in this field.