Welcome to the Boat Book

Unlimited Hydroplane Racing is a great sport.  Period.  That’s why we’re all here.  It has technology, jet fuel and amazing machines that all come together during the summer around, in, and on water.

What could be better?

My response (to my own question) is, “more of it!”  That’s why in “Expanding a Shrinking Boat Racing League – Can We Do It?” I opened the door for discussion about not just saving the sport, but actually growing it through expansion.

Some of that sense of contraction (leading to the need to “expand”) came from a series of recent events surrounding teams, boats, and schedules.  The schedule itself seemed to take a long time to publish for the 2012 circuit and it began to suggest some uncertainly for the future.  Fortunately, H1 has recently published the following schedule on their site for 2012:

  • July 6-8 in Madison, Indiana
  • July 13-15 in Detroit, Michigan
  • July 27-29 in Tri-Cities, Washington
  • August 3-5 in Seattle, Washington
  • September 14-16 in San Diego, California
  • November 15-17 8-10 (per H1 update) in Doha, Qatar

But through our discussion here, an offline conversation started with Frantz Kientz who wants to bring the Big Boats to Arkansas.  Frantz has done some preliminary work, asked some questions, and even received some background material from H1 Unlimited.  That material is a very high level overview of the things to consider if one is interested in hosting an Unlimited Hydroplane Race.

In my opinion, we’re more than “one.”

First of all, a collective thank you needs to go to Frantz from all of us for starting to stir that dying fire. My hope is that the growing Unlimited Hydroplane Racing readership (304 visits from 7 countries in a very short period of time, thank you!) will be capable of adding appropriate fuel to grow it into an inferno!

Secondly, special recognition needs to go to H1 Unlimited itself.  It will be that overview material Frantz obtained, and was nice enough to share with Unlimited Hydroplane Racing, which will be the basis for the new section mentioned in the “Can We Do It?” post.


In this new section, I will ask all of you to help flesh out various aspects of the seemingly endless number of facts surrounding the hosting of a race.  The topics contained in the H1 documentation will simply be a guide for identifying the discussion points.  Those discussions of course will help us define at a functional level, what it might take to expand our sport.

Introducing “The Boat Book

What to consider if you want to bring the fastest boats in the world to your waters

This of course is just a working title for this new part of the site.  Everything is fair game when it comes to discussion.  It is important that seasoned fans and racing participants who know a lot more than someone new to the sport, assert their knowledge, opinion and vision.  Hey, event the name of this section is open for debate!  It’s not important that it is my words that are used, but it is critical that it is the RIGHT words.  You can all help in that regard.

Start thinking about the virtually endless layers of details that need to be considered to put on a race, and get ready for the countdown timer to reach 0:00 on your water!

Back to The Boat Book Table of Contents


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