Cougar M-49 "The Full Monty", do anyone know the story ?

[lyder]

Sales notice in Norway, anyone who knows the story ?
http://www.finn.no/finn/boat/object?finnkode=18579732

[Chris M]

I think this is the old Roman Sabre cat from the late 70's . It had a canopy put on it sometime in the late 80s and raced as Marstons Hotel before being renamed "Full Monty" and used for Corperate entertainment.

[Bus Pass]

Yep looks like the old Roman Sabre.
It was stretched and run with Sabre Marathons as Marston Hotels by Chris Scragg with Glyn Evans and Peter Dredge. Didn't work without the wing, the engines were too heavy. I know this as the engines were ours on "loan" and we later sold them back to Sabre.
Roger Bowley ran it out of Merlin for a while for corporate trips with two BBC petrols but then it disapeared.

[Jim Brooker]

Originally Posted by Bus Pass

Yep looks like the old Roman Sabre.
It was stretched and run with Sabre Marathons as Marston Hotels by Chris Scragg with Glyn Evans and Peter Dredge. Didn't work without the wing, the engines were too heavy. I know this as the engines were ours on "loan" and we later sold them back to Sabre.
Roger Bowley ran it out of Merlin for a while for corporate trips with two BBC petrols but then it disapeared.

I didn't know it had so much work done to the old boat, I rigged from new, it when out on it's first race and was hit by Robert The Bruce and then sunk at the RMYC Poole, and had to rebuild it all over again.

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by Bus Pass

Roger Bowley ran it out of Merlin for a while for corporate trips with two BBC petrols but then it disapeared.

Bowley seemed to supply parts and 'be involved', but the guy running it was Chris Vincent, who had a company called Highland Adventures or something, ran that, as well as tanks & off roaders etc on his farm land. he ran it all with his daughter.

Company went pop I think.

With the 502's (on TRS drives), it was horribly slow (like 35-40mph) and unreliable to the point of being funny. I helped him out a couple of times by taking his punters out on my pleasure boat to keep em happy, when it broke down.

It, and the other boats they had were looked after (mechanically) by a couple of guys known effectionately as the Wurzels, I think they were Lawn Mower engineers from the west country. Very nice guys, but a bit out of their depth with the boats.

[3jcs]

Yes it looks very much like Romans Sabre the first Ally Cougar to me.

Brian purchased the boat as Romans Sabre in the early 90's and it was taken into John Cunninghams' Ally shop down at Cougars at Hamble Point. The boat was completely overhauled firstly all the old paint was blasted of the hull and everything stripped out of her back to bare hull.

John, Clive, and Peter looked at the boat at this stage and were very pleased at how good the condition was despite the amount of racing it had seen all the frames were good. Every one including John thought that it was probably the best ally cougar that had been built, it was lovely.

All the decks and sides were stripped back and re-plated. then the transom was taken out and the boat was lengthened from 32' to 36 or 37 (I can't remember) New transom was then installed.

New engine hatches were fabricated and a new central cockpit was built around a Brtish Aerospace bulldog Canopy and then we had the idea amongst us all to put the tail / finn on her with small anhedral winglets, more for show than go. Steve Curtis was in on the ideas and was building the new Bagutta at the same time and he did the same with a tail on that as well.

One of the last Popeye Super-boat cats was also being built at the same time I think that ended up with a finn as well.

It was intended that the boat was going class 2 again with brand new sabre turbos with arnesons. All the work was completed ready for engines and drives. Unfortunately the world went into a deep recession and Brian did not want to spend any more.

The boat was sold to the Marstons boys who finished it. As you can see from the Marstons phot it run well enough to win them the European class 2 championship. I don't know what happened after that. The boys at Cougar wanted to put a pair of Lambos in it as they thought it would run well enough in Class 1 especially on a rough day which was it excelled as Romans.

The photos were taken 3/4 of the way through the work.

[Big V]

what a project!

is it up for 250,000 krone.. i.e. £30k?

[3jcs]

Could still make a lovely boat but what can you do with it. Perhaps soon the Cowes revival will allow some classic cats in as well perhaps in their own class. After all there are plenty of old proper class 1 cats still around. Betty Cook's old Kaama (The second Class 1 wood Cougar) is currently being restored in the US.

Would be great to see a few class 1 Cougar cats back out to play instead of those ridiculous oversized plastic cats they race out in the UAE which you are only allowed to win in now if the boat is called Victory 1,2,3,4,5 ,6,7 or 209 if you know what I mean

[littlenige]

What's interesting to me is how the deck configuration affects the overall appearance of the boat. As Roman Sabre I thought the boat looked hideous if I'm honest. Yet the later design is definately a huge improvement - very reminiscent of the Panatta Paul Picot Cougar, with the vertical fin and central cockpit.

[3jcs]

Romans Sabre (Marstons / Full Monty) was in having the refit at Cougars when at the same time they were building Bagutta II and Popeye.

Al Copeland was having another Popeyes which was a new cat for Superboat and Steve Curtis and Vincenzo Polli were having bagutta II built. Both boats were central cockpits side by side for Romans and Popeye and in line for Bagutta. All were having the tail fin treatment which was all for show but looked great.

Unfortunately Bagutta II was very quick but came to a sticky end sinking in either its third or fourth race. It went too deep to be recovered.

Basically I believe that Andrea Panata's Paul Picot was built by Cougar as a direct copy to Bagutta II. Both were great looking boats I wondered what happened to the Paul Picot Cougar as if they did decide to make a Classic Cat Class for Cowes in 2011 boats like these and Reporter etc would make great entries, would be fab to see them running again.