Old ski racing photos

[brumbrum]

Here are some more pictures of Italian Ski Race boats. The Mostes of course and some old Abbates. On the websites I gave you there may be some Italian Ilvers too.
In these photos you will see Enrico receiving the winners trophy at the German Grand Prix in Obernzell.
You will also see Josef Todeschini setting up and testing his boat on the Lake at Garlate.
My race boat is No.25 in the photos and you can see both of them. First the Fletcher 17 at the beach in Cavallino (Jesolo, Adriatico) and at Gera Lario at the top of Lake Como in 1974. Then the Fletcher 21 on the river at the start in Obernzell for the same race that Enrico won. I think I was 8th in that race.
Enjoy.
PAUL

Speaking of Ilver, another boat that was a real bullet was Bruno Malugani's (#352, if I remember correctly) powered by two Mercury outboard engines. It was a TV1 class (up to 5,000cc), but often went faster than some 8,200cc. Do you remember it?

In 1977 my grandfather also raced with a TV2 Abbate, #6 here on Lake Garda, in Peschiera (both heats won).
Very fast but very very dangerous boat. It was easily subject to spins; in fact the following week, in a race made on Lake Como, in Azzano* di Mezzegra the boat slipped headfirst, and literally disappeared. She was in the lead at the time, and Tullio (Abbate) followed close behind. The problem was that my grandfather also disappeared... A life jacket strap had come off and got stuck in the accelerator sheath, so he too sank...
He managed to disengage it and resurface only after almost a minute, but still conscious and only with a dislocated shoulder...
The boat looks a lot like the one in the photo you posted with #4 (Abbate with sponsor Freyrie), but it was one of the first examples equipped with a surface propeller and flaps. The pilot Edgardo(?) Barletti had the same one.

* In Azzano we had a small apartment for the summer season (we were based at the Timossi shipyard) and we lived right next to the Cassa family. Carlo, Bruno's son, is my age.
And I can always boast of having "beaten" him. I'm joking of course. It was a club competition organized in Lezzeno. We were nine crews in all and above all we were children. The very first "race" for Carlo and me (in my case also the last... ahahahah). While the others had speed skis, I ran with my single slalom ski (the only one that suited me) and Carlo with two skis. A real disaster. I finished eight, crashing twice. But still ahead of the one who would later become an acclaimed champion of Europe... I wonder if Carlo remembers it...

 

[brumbrum]

Me and my Freyrie Daytona and my old Freyrie Daytona and my old me!
1973 to 2022!

The Freyrie I have doesn't look the same...
I'll photograph it tomorrow, so maybe you can help me figure out what model it is...

 

[brumbrum]

Best pictures of my old boats that I raced with.......

Cool!!

Beautiful Fletchers! I don't know them, but seen like this it seems to me that the hull is also excellent in open waters. While the Mostes seem more suitable for inland waters (rivers and lakes).
But if several championships have been won with the Mostes, most likely I'm wrong...

 

[Sir Paul]

I knew Bruno Cassa and raced against him in 1973 and 1974 and then later raced against his son Carlo in the 1985 world championships in Spain.
When racing on lake Como, we would often during training, ski across to Bruno’s ski school. His mantra for training himself was “Slalom, Slalom, Slalom”. I once bought one of his Neptune stepped racing skis from him.

 

[Sir Paul]

You must have known other Italian skiers I raced against who were probably similar age to you? Alberto Todeschini, Antonello Roncoroni, Toto Caimi?

 

[Sir Paul]

It surely depended on the water conditions. Mostes and Abbate during my time were all BPM Vulcano motore with V or direct drives. Fletchers were either outboard or stern drive which were more adjustable in rough water. Most had trim tabs or flaps too.
Later I think some twin outboards fitted to Mostes, Abbate and Ilver came along.

 

[Sir Paul]

Other Italian skiers I remember competing against: Donato Trezzi, Stefano Gregorio, Guido Cassin, Pierantonio Cassin, Massimo Mascharoni.

 

[Sir Paul]

I have more pictures

 

[brumbrum]

Unfortunately not, Paul. I remember the Trezzi brothers, but not the others (if not only for fame). I learned about Toto Caimi from the frightening accident that took him away, but only because it was too terrible news not to be reported in all the Italian newspapers.
My grandfather mainly raced in powerboating: until 1977 when my mother, his only daughter, fell ill and then died in 1978, which is why he retired from competition for the first time and sold his boats threepoints
https://www.threepointhydroplanes.it/results_en.htm?s=p:Vitale+Gian+Carlo
he returned to racing in 1981 with the boats of Mostes, but then retired definitively at the end of the season. And since then we have hardly frequented Lake Como.
Furthermore, it seems incredible to say, but the branch of Lecco and that of Como geographically distant a few kilometers, sportingly speaking they were actually two quite separate worlds (and in perennial competition), imho.
Thanks for the photos you added!
John

PS: what you see in the photo is instead the Timossi shipyard in Azzano (on the left, not visible in the photo, there was the Tullio Abbate shipyard).
Do you remember? Yeah, good times...

 

[Sir Paul]

Unfortunately not, Paul. I remember the Trezzi brothers, but not the others (if not only for fame). I learned about Toto Caimi from the frightening accident that took him away, but only because it was too terrible news not to be reported in all the Italian newspapers.
My grandfather mainly raced in powerboating: until 1977 when my mother, his only daughter, fell ill and then died in 1978, which is why he retired from competition for the first time and sold his boats threepoints
https://www.threepointhydroplanes.it/results_en.htm?s=p:Vitale+Gian+Carlo
he returned to racing in 1981 with the boats of Mostes, but then retired definitively at the end of the season. And since then we have hardly frequented Lake Como.
Furthermore, it seems incredible to say, but the branch of Lecco and that of Como geographically distant a few kilometers, sportingly speaking they were actually two quite separate worlds (and in perennial competition), imho.
Thanks for the photos you added!
John

PS: what you see in the photo is instead the Timossi shipyard in Azzano (on the left, not visible in the photo, there was the Tullio Abbate shipyard).
Do you remember? Yeah, good times...

I remember visiting the Tulio Abbate shipyard in about 1975 when our race was at Tremezzo (with prizegiving at Villa d’Este). The main thing I remember (strangely enough) was a black De Tomaso Pantera parked outside. First I had ever seen.

 

[Sir Paul]

Unfortunately not, Paul. I remember the Trezzi brothers, but not the others (if not only for fame). I learned about Toto Caimi from the frightening accident that took him away, but only because it was too terrible news not to be reported in all the Italian newspapers.
My grandfather mainly raced in powerboating: until 1977 when my mother, his only daughter, fell ill and then died in 1978, which is why he retired from competition for the first time and sold his boats threepoints
https://www.threepointhydroplanes.it/results_en.htm?s=p:Vitale+Gian+Carlo
he returned to racing in 1981 with the boats of Mostes, but then retired definitively at the end of the season. And since then we have hardly frequented Lake Como.
Furthermore, it seems incredible to say, but the branch of Lecco and that of Como geographically distant a few kilometers, sportingly speaking they were actually two quite separate worlds (and in perennial competition), imho.
Thanks for the photos you added!
John

PS: what you see in the photo is instead the Timossi shipyard in Azzano (on the left, not visible in the photo, there was the Tullio Abbate shipyard).
Do you remember? Yeah, good times...

Sorry to hear you lost your mother so early. Very sad. As was Caimi’s unfortunate accident.

 

[Sir Paul]

I remember visiting the Tulio Abbate shipyard in about 1975 when our race was at Tremezzo (with prizegiving at Villa d’Este). The main thing I remember (strangely enough) was a black De Tomaso Pantera parked outside. First I had ever seen.

Sorry, the race was at Cernobbio that year.!

 

[Sir Paul]

Sorry, the race was at Cernobbio that year.!

I think though, that year, we parked our RV Camper outside the Cantiere Colombo boatyard in Menaggio?

 

[Sir Paul]

I think this last posts exhaust my Italian Skier and Italian Ski Race Boat pictures that I have to date. It includes a picture of Bruno Cassa in the foreground) and me at the start of the Briish GP in Penarth Wales in 1974. A start of over 70 boats!! Those were the days!

 

[brumbrum]

These are my Neptune and the Freyrie.
Paul, can you tell me what model this one is, please?
Is it a Daytona too?

 

[Sir Paul]

These are my Neptune and the Freyrie.
Paul, can you tell me what model this one is, please?
Is it a Daytona too?

It is not a Daytona. In fact I think it was an experimental ski. I had an identical one with the same steps and strakes on the underneath surface with shamfered esdges too. I dont think Freyrie made many of these. The Daytona everyone used was a flat bottomed ski and said Daytona on the top. Other than that is is similar on the top to a Daytona, which I am sure it was derived from.

My neptune ski was similar racing ski rather than slalom ski and had two curved (rather than V steps) on the underside. Again I think it was an experimental one of Brunos!!

I can understand the idea of steps and strakes to reduce drag and increase stability but I dont think they really made much difference. I did a few races on both of mine then went back to the Daytona. In 1982 I changed to a Dick Murdoch style ski from the USA. By then most people used either and Endoz (by Dick Murdoch) ski, Maharajah or Fred Williams from Australia. They were all flat bottomed.

So your Freyrie is quite rare! Collectors item too!

 

[brumbrum]

I remember visiting the Tulio Abbate shipyard in about 1975 when our race was at Tremezzo (with prizegiving at Villa d’Este). The main thing I remember (strangely enough) was a black De Tomaso Pantera parked outside. First I had ever seen.

This is very interesting, Paul. Was the Pantera entirely black or Grey and Black?
Because in those years my grandfather had had a Holman Moody engine developed by DeTomaso in Modena and I remember that on one occasion when we were in Modena to see the tests in the engine room, the engineer Bertocchi (who unfortunately died a few years later while he was aboard a DeTomaso driven by a customer) had shown him a used Pantera, one of the very first models built, with a completely rebuilt engine and which had never been collected by one of their customers (it had CE registration, Caserta) and had convinced him to buy. And it was grey and black, in fact, with white DeTomaso lettering on the sides. I remember that it was resold to Achilli Motors in Milan in 1983, for a ridiculously low price. We were later told that it was purchased by a collector in the United States (I dare not think how much...)

Still speaking of Cantieri Timossi, now it occurs to me that in '77, or at the end of '76, my grandfather had Ugo Timossi build a prototype V-shaped hull to race in the TV2 category. Unfortunately I no longer have any photos and the Super8 films we shot have been lost. The Timossis were real wizards in the construction of threepoints racers and in those years they also sold a V-shaped fiberglass hull (a 6-metre named Lariet, in the photo, featuring incredible handling and a direct competitor to Tullio Abbate's SeaStar). Instead, the boat was built entirely of wood (thinking about it today, a real exercise in style), but it was born "old", it was also quite ugly to look at (compared to the streamlined Mostes), but above all it was... undriveable! It was equipped with a surface propeller and flaps, powered by BPM Vulcano but, once launched on the water, there was absolutely no way to keep it still: the tip kept bouncing and bouncing on the water. Maybe it was a few inches shorter than necessary, I don't know. Really embarrassing though... I really think that Tullio and Sandro, from up there, are still having a great laugh.

 

[brumbrum]

It is not a Daytona. In fact I think it was an experimental ski. I had an identical one with the same steps and strakes on the underneath surface with shamfered esdges too. I dont think Freyrie made many of these. The Daytona everyone used was a flat bottomed ski and said Daytona on the top. Other than that is is similar on the top to a Daytona, which I am sure it was derived from.

My neptune ski was similar racing ski rather than slalom ski and had two curved (rather than V steps) on the underside. Again I think it was an experimental one of Brunos!!

I can understand the idea of steps and strakes to reduce drag and increase stability but I dont think they really made much difference. I did a few races on both of mine then went back to the Daytona. In 1982 I changed to a Dick Murdoch style ski from the USA. By then most people used either and Endoz (by Dick Murdoch) ski, Maharajah or Fred Williams from Australia. They were all flat bottomed.

So your Freyrie is quite rare! Collectors item too!

Thanks Paul for the valuable suggestions, I will write to Freyrie to find out more.
Yes you are right. They are rare and precious, but above all because they bring with them beautiful memories ...

 

[brumbrum]

I think this last posts exhaust my Italian Skier and Italian Ski Race Boat pictures that I have to date. It includes a picture of Bruno Cassa in the foreground) and me at the start of the Briish GP in Penarth Wales in 1974. A start of over 70 boats!! Those were the days!

Beautiful photos Paul, thanks again!!

 

[Sir Paul]

This is very interesting, Paul. Was the Pantera entirely black or Grey and Black?
Because in those years my grandfather had had a Holman Moody engine developed by DeTomaso in Modena and I remember that on one occasion when we were in Modena to see the tests in the engine room, the engineer Bertocchi (who unfortunately died a few years later while he was aboard a DeTomaso driven by a customer) had shown him a used Pantera, one of the very first models built, with a completely rebuilt engine and which had never been collected by one of their customers (it had CE registration, Caserta) and had convinced him to buy. And it was grey and black, in fact, with white DeTomaso lettering on the sides. I remember that it was resold to Achilli Motors in Milan in 1983, for a ridiculously low price. We were later told that it was purchased by a collector in the United States (I dare not think how much...)

Still speaking of Cantieri Timossi, now it occurs to me that in '77, or at the end of '76, my grandfather had Ugo Timossi build a prototype V-shaped hull to race in the TV2 category. Unfortunately I no longer have any photos and the Super8 films we shot have been lost. The Timossis were real wizards in the construction of threepoints racers and in those years they also sold a V-shaped fiberglass hull (a 6-metre named Lariet, in the photo, featuring incredible handling and a direct competitor to Tullio Abbate's SeaStar). Instead, the boat was built entirely of wood (thinking about it today, a real exercise in style), but it was born "old", it was also quite ugly to look at (compared to the streamlined Mostes), but above all it was... undriveable! It was equipped with a surface propeller and flaps, powered by BPM Vulcano but, once launched on the water, there was absolutely no way to keep it still: the tip kept bouncing and bouncing on the water. Maybe it was a few inches shorter than necessary, I don't know. Really embarrassing though... I really think that Tullio and Sandro, from up there, are still having a great laugh.

It does look a bit like a Seastar I must say. I had a friend who lived in Venice had a yellow Seastar with outboard engine.