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Aug 07, 2017

How love for a girl and fast boats led hydroplane champ Jimmy Shane to build rockets at Blue Origin

Jimmy Shane piloted the Miss HomeStreet hydroplane to a victory in the Seafair Cup today in Seattle. Now he’ll head back to his day job: building rockets at Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. Shane’s Seafair Cup win didn’t come easy: In a thrilling final heat, Shane was passed by Andrew Tate in the Les Schwab boat on the final lap, but Tate was penalized for hitting a buoy earlier in the race. As a result, the cup was awarded to Shane and the HomeStreet team. Rocket science doesn’t come easy, either. After today’s finish,… Read More

Aug 05, 2017

Hydroplane tech: Thunderboats get a makeover for the 21st century

The roar of this weekend’s Seafair hydroplane races on Lake Washington reawakens a six-decade-old Seattle tradition – but it also heralds changes for a sport that’s been compared to NASCAR on water. Seattle has been a hot spot for hydros since 1950, when a made-in-Seattle thunderboat called Slo-Mo-Shun IV set a world speed record on Lake Washington and brought the nation’s premier unlimited hydroplane race to Seattle the next year. Today, the restored wood-and-metal boat rests in Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry. Its builder, Stan Sayres, would probably still recognize the streamlined, souped-up vessels that venture forth from Stan Sayres… Read More