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We’re flying into a bit of Idaho hydroplane history today. If you think of a thundering race boat when you hear the term hydroplane, take heart. That’s where we’re headed. But first, we need to look at the evolution of the term.
The first reference to a hydroplane that I found in an Idaho newspaper included this drawing.
This boat used airplane propellers much like snow planes did in Idaho many years later. One could also postulate that this was the grandfather of the airboat that became popular for swamp travel.
In any case, this 1907 Italian invention was decidedly a boat that was called a hydroplane. The same paper in the same year reported a hydroplane being demonstrated on the Great Salt Lake by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss. The pilot landed and took off from the water in his airplane equipped with pontoons. They called it a hydroplane.
Meanwhile, boaters in the Eastern states were competing for loving cups in their monstrous boats called hydroplanes. Some of them reached speeds of 40 miles per hour in 1911. At the same time, the secretary of the Navy was ordering what he called hydroplanes for use in war.
In 1912, the Idaho Statesman ran a feature article about “The Healthiest Sport in the World,” which any fool would know was motorboat racing, referred to often in the article as hydroplaning.
So, let’s pause here for a moment to explore the term. Hydro—water—combined with the word plane, logically would lead one to believe this was an airplane that could land on and take off from water. Point for the pilots.
But hydroplaning is a water-based activity. Let’s have our friends at Wikipedia explain.
“A key aspect of hydroplanes is that they use the water they are on for lift rather than buoyancy, as well as for propulsion and steering: when travelling at high speed water is forced downwards by the bottom of the boat's hull. The water therefore exerts an equal and opposite force upwards, lifting the vast majority of the hull out of the water. This process, happening at the surface of the water, is known as 'foiling.'”
Confusion about the term was rampant in the first half of the 20th Century. Newspaper reports used it to refer to airplanes just as often as for racing boats. But gradually, airplanes with pontoons became seaplanes, float planes, flying boats, and pontoon planes. By the 1950s, if it was a hydroplane, it was a roaring racing boat that you meant.
Roaring? Absolutely. Often called thunderboats, these hydroplaning monsters typically had 12-cylinder Rolls Royce or Allison airplane engines that had never seen a muffler.
Also, by the 1950s, unimaginable 40-mph boats were breaking records at 140-mph+.
Hydroplane aficionados in Idaho had to read about the Slo-Mo-Shun IV and Miss Bardhal in the papers and listen to the races on the radio from Seattle and San Francisco until 1958. That was the year hydros first came to Lake Coeur d’Alene.
The tables turned for Idaho boating fans when KING TV from Seattle broadcast the first Diamond Cup races from Coeur d’Alene. Maverick out of Las Vegas one the first and second cups in ’58 and ’59. Seattle Too took the trophy in 1960. Another Seattle boat, Miss Thriftway won in ’61, ’62, and ’63. Miss Exide took the trophy home for Seattle in ’64 and ’65. In 1966, Tahoe Miss out of Reno brought home the prize. There was no race in ’67. In 1968, Miss Bardahl won the Diamond Cup.
And that was it, for 45 years. There was talk many times of bringing the race back to Coeur d’Alene, but no one mustered up the money or the army of volunteers it takes to put on a race that drew up to 50,000 spectators. The citizens of city also soured on the event when crowds were sometimes rowdy. The bleachers for the race were long ago removed from their vantage point on Tubbs Hill.
Then, in 2013, promoters brought the races back for a long Labor Day Weekend of unlimited hydroplane racing. The event was expected to bring 30,000 spectators and about $12 million to Coeur d’Alene. It fell far short of that on both counts, and the Diamond Cup event was dropped, never to return since.
Hydroplane racing has taken place in other Idaho locations, notably near Payette and in Burley on the Snake River. While the racers are running powerful boats, they aren’t the “unlimited” hydroplanes that ran on Lake Coeur d’Alene.
By the way, the world speed record for hydroplanes was 317.596 mph the last time I looked. That was set in 1978 by Ken Warby in the Spirit of Australia at Blowering Dam in New South Wales, Australia.
The first reference to a hydroplane that I found in an Idaho newspaper included this drawing.
This boat used airplane propellers much like snow planes did in Idaho many years later. One could also postulate that this was the grandfather of the airboat that became popular for swamp travel.
In any case, this 1907 Italian invention was decidedly a boat that was called a hydroplane. The same paper in the same year reported a hydroplane being demonstrated on the Great Salt Lake by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss. The pilot landed and took off from the water in his airplane equipped with pontoons. They called it a hydroplane.
Meanwhile, boaters in the Eastern states were competing for loving cups in their monstrous boats called hydroplanes. Some of them reached speeds of 40 miles per hour in 1911. At the same time, the secretary of the Navy was ordering what he called hydroplanes for use in war.
In 1912, the Idaho Statesman ran a feature article about “The Healthiest Sport in the World,” which any fool would know was motorboat racing, referred to often in the article as hydroplaning.
So, let’s pause here for a moment to explore the term. Hydro—water—combined with the word plane, logically would lead one to believe this was an airplane that could land on and take off from water. Point for the pilots.
But hydroplaning is a water-based activity. Let’s have our friends at Wikipedia explain.
“A key aspect of hydroplanes is that they use the water they are on for lift rather than buoyancy, as well as for propulsion and steering: when travelling at high speed water is forced downwards by the bottom of the boat's hull. The water therefore exerts an equal and opposite force upwards, lifting the vast majority of the hull out of the water. This process, happening at the surface of the water, is known as 'foiling.'”
Confusion about the term was rampant in the first half of the 20th Century. Newspaper reports used it to refer to airplanes just as often as for racing boats. But gradually, airplanes with pontoons became seaplanes, float planes, flying boats, and pontoon planes. By the 1950s, if it was a hydroplane, it was a roaring racing boat that you meant.
Roaring? Absolutely. Often called thunderboats, these hydroplaning monsters typically had 12-cylinder Rolls Royce or Allison airplane engines that had never seen a muffler.
Also, by the 1950s, unimaginable 40-mph boats were breaking records at 140-mph+.
Hydroplane aficionados in Idaho had to read about the Slo-Mo-Shun IV and Miss Bardhal in the papers and listen to the races on the radio from Seattle and San Francisco until 1958. That was the year hydros first came to Lake Coeur d’Alene.
The tables turned for Idaho boating fans when KING TV from Seattle broadcast the first Diamond Cup races from Coeur d’Alene. Maverick out of Las Vegas one the first and second cups in ’58 and ’59. Seattle Too took the trophy in 1960. Another Seattle boat, Miss Thriftway won in ’61, ’62, and ’63. Miss Exide took the trophy home for Seattle in ’64 and ’65. In 1966, Tahoe Miss out of Reno brought home the prize. There was no race in ’67. In 1968, Miss Bardahl won the Diamond Cup.
And that was it, for 45 years. There was talk many times of bringing the race back to Coeur d’Alene, but no one mustered up the money or the army of volunteers it takes to put on a race that drew up to 50,000 spectators. The citizens of city also soured on the event when crowds were sometimes rowdy. The bleachers for the race were long ago removed from their vantage point on Tubbs Hill.
Then, in 2013, promoters brought the races back for a long Labor Day Weekend of unlimited hydroplane racing. The event was expected to bring 30,000 spectators and about $12 million to Coeur d’Alene. It fell far short of that on both counts, and the Diamond Cup event was dropped, never to return since.
Hydroplane racing has taken place in other Idaho locations, notably near Payette and in Burley on the Snake River. While the racers are running powerful boats, they aren’t the “unlimited” hydroplanes that ran on Lake Coeur d’Alene.
By the way, the world speed record for hydroplanes was 317.596 mph the last time I looked. That was set in 1978 by Ken Warby in the Spirit of Australia at Blowering Dam in New South Wales, Australia.
Miss Bardahl at one of the Diamond Cup races in Coeur d’Alene.
This is the memorial to a hydroplane racer near the Coeur d’Alene Resort. It honors Warner Gardner, who raced many times on the lake and was a crowd favorite. When hydroplane race driver Mira Slovak crashed on the lake in 1963, his boat turning into toothpicks, Gardner jumped from his own boat to save him. The memorial depicts an F-86 fighter jet suspended above a bronze hydroplane in honor of the former Air Force pilot who died in a 1968 hydroplane crash in Detroit.
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