What's this then?

[BigBird1964]

Originally Posted by Temporarily Insane

Big bird,

Please excuse my ignorance but why is that boat running with twin 2 bladed props.

cheers

I asked the same question when I saw them, Apparently 'back in the day' thats what they ran along with the gearboxes with no skeg! I guess prop technology has come a long way since then.

[Black_Tornado]

I don't remember what was the destiny of the UnoEmbassy- the first Planatec.
Can be that Belgian boat?
FlyingFish?

[BigBird1964]

No, the Firebird Cobras were a licenced version built for pleasure with full cabin etc. The one in Begium was definitely pleasure only.
It had a cabin although very sad condition!

[Black_Tornado]

Right! I know that!
But from the first yours pics I cannot see that.

[Black_Tornado]

The wind-shield for example.
The Belgium boat have the original Planatec version not the Tecnomarine-Firebird type.

[FLYING FISH]

State of the art drives in 1971.Also another clone,a 48ft plastic CUV type, designed for the frogs in 1986.
God knows what the Belgian boat is,as there are several Cobra 42`s around.Could well be `Thunderbird` for all I know.Looking back through the records,even Georgio Mondadori was down for the first 40ft Planatec boat,but the 42ft Miss Embassy was the first 42ft Planatec.

[Black_Tornado]

Doctor,thanks for the precisations about the Planatec saga but about the "first" I referred to those classicals thinking to Miss Embassy a sort of protype because of that original superstructure.
From what I know the only Cobra 42 that was prepared for the competitions was the Mate for the Count Franco Gilberti that it was enlisted at the race of his Santa Margherita in the 1978 edition but that the boat was left berthed during the the event.
About Mondadori I don't have info about him with a Planatec 40'- I have not understood what you want to say :the project to race with a 40' (new? prototype?)was it abandoned?
After the Deauville Trophy of September 1973 the Milanese publisher totally disappeared from the offshore competitions.

[Black_Tornado]

Another question for the Doctor (FLYING FISH)
Then if the first Planatec was the Miss Embassy of 42' the others 3 - YABO (what delamate in South America), ABO and Uno Embassy of 40' they had been derived directly from the 42' shortened to 40'?
While the project of the Cobra42s' was directly derived by that original of Miss Embassy with the 40' deck(apart the cabin)?
In 1973 Shead designed the 42' with the sides convexes like the Cig.35' of the same period.
Was it a coincidence only? Even if the preceding Enfields already had the convex sides.

[FLYING FISH]

In answer to your questions Marco,Abo & Unoembassy had the last 2ft of the Miss Embassy hull blocked off.Miss Embassy`s bottom was hacked about a lot with dummy weights moved about to try and improve the speed,but nothing seemed to improve it much.The length of 42ft may have been to incorporate the gas turbine arrangement and it`s exhaust,anyway that 42ft original lines became the cobra 42.
Mondadori` s boat (never finally built for him) went on to be a boat for the 1974 HISWA Boat show,round about 1973/4,so maybe this is when he packed it in.
The convex sides were similar to the ciggy 35,but who knows what the designer thought at the time.Both Miss Embassy and the first ciggy 35 were 1973.Co-incedence of course.
From memory I think Mike Trimming looked after the Italian side of the building of these boats.Trimming was a premium apprentice (parents have the money to pay for a top quality apprenticeship leading to management status),at Vosper and drove Flying Fish,the daytona engines of which were supplied by Don Shead,the agent at the time,43 yrs ago.Seems like yesterday.

[Black_Tornado]

Speaking of the Planatecs as of the Enfield Avenger-Unowot or of other winning projects of Shead I think about the efficiency of a boat in symbiosis with her elegance.
Inebriated by the Cigs. 36' I remind me that I welcomed the victory of the Unowot at Viareggio in 1973 as a disappointing fact. After sometime I became me instead account that that boat so much different from the standards of the epoch it was one of the most beautiful and efficient boats ever built in the offshore competions.
The same I tink for the Planatecs and I don't understand because these boats didn't succeed in having the successes that deserved. Perhaps they were really boats destined to have superior motorizations to those conventional and unfortunately was not made the correct development around the turbines of the Miss Enfield to create a new generation of dominant boats after the era of Cigarettes-V8s.
Then came the CUV 38' but it was not the same because motorization was old and it continued to be also when they came to dominate the cats. The offshore must attend Buzzi to see a revolution.
Speaking of memories and of Mike Trimming I remember his permanence in Italy in the first years of seventy to the Intermarine-other yard satellite of Tecnomarine-like were Turbomarine(born to built the Cobra42 and Firebird - that it(Intermarine) made search on the cats hulls. Of him were the two project of the Sir Cat-one in aluminum and one in fiberglass with structure in tubular of aluminum for Cosentino and the same Trimming and the Nicopao in aluminum for Mondadori.
And also those cats had the sides convexes...
Sinned that today to the Intermarine of this doesn't remain anymore.
Not even the memory.

[FLYING FISH]

Taken in 1981 at Poole I think.Will we ever see the like again.

[littlenige]

Graham, how about posting all of your Shead photo's?!! Creo qué tiene mucho más!

[FLYING FISH]

I don`t know what you are expecting Nige,there aren`t that many boats.Bear in mind I was trying to do cine at the same time.My other pics are of the same boats in different views.

[Lars T]

Those Lambo engines, were they/are they any good.? Only for racing WOT all the time og can they be used for pleasure boating as well.?

[littlenige]

Originally Posted by FLYING FISH

I don`t know what you are expecting Nige,there aren`t that many boats.Bear in mind I was trying to do cine at the same time.My other pics are of the same boats in different views.

Same boats different views works for me..........!

[FLYING FISH]

Not enough of those Force Dix boats were built to form an opinion on the lambo.Maxwell Aitken had a 45ft dayboat with lambos in but that was a tale of woe,as they kept getting water in them and Daniel Audetto being dragged over to sort them out,but when you think how many mercruisers have been built to produce a reliable product,then lambos were only at the learning stage.

[Ulzana]

Originally Posted by BigBird1964

Belgian beauty (or not)

http://nl.kapaza.be/west-vlaanderen/...t-61521934.htm

[Cookee]

..!

[littlenige]

6,000 euros. Worth it? Hate to see such a great boat sitting there just rotting....

[Tony Davis]

Originally Posted by littlenige

6,000 euros. Worth it? Hate to see such a great boat sitting there just rotting....

6,000 euros is only the start of a massive spend, and I can't see it ever being worth much, certainly not the 200,000 euros that the owner seems to think.