Thank you to Eric Marshall and all of his team at Whidbey Weekly for the awesome Race Program that they put out every year. Visitors love that we have a published schedule and the explanation of some racing terminology for the newcomers to the sport. Plus the bios on the different race teams makes the event more personal..
The locals may remember a little hydro boat history in Oak Harbor, as its root go back to the early days of boat racing when an Oak Harbor native named Tom Foresman and his friends built the first dual automotive powered Unlimited Hydro Plane aptly named the Dutchman. It was seen testing around Oak Harbor bay in the late 1960’s. Unfortunately, it sadly only ran 2 or 3 races on the unlimited circuit before retiring and eventual loss in a barn fire at Will Muncy Jr’s house in the 1990’s. But, that was not the end of Oak Harbor’s relationship to the speedy boats as in the early 1970’s a group of racers was based here called theWhidbey Roostertails. These outboard boat racers came to number 50 and were seen most summer weekends racing at Oak Harbor City Beach or Anacortes’ Heart Lake. They even raced on the duck pond in Dugualla bay a couple times. The club is still racing under the same name throughout the State although their last race here on the Island was most likely in the early 1980’s.
That brings us to a few years ago when a group of local volunteers decided to bring hydro boat racing back to Oak Harbor and joined up with one of the regional racing clubs to race in the bay. These are definitely not the small, locally-owned outboards of the past. The Oak Harbor race now attracts the largest and fastest inboard hydroplanes in the world along with the top names in the sport to our waters.
The old stories are alive and well as we chart our new course in the history of hydro boat racing in Oak Harbor.
By Jim Woessner, H4H Race Director