Standard – the 60-ft Winner of the First Gold Cup in 1904. Photo credit: Thousand Islands Life Magazine


It was John L. Hacker who had earned accreditation as a marine designer at age 22 and focused his efforts on making boats go faster. Five years later, in 1904, his revolutionary Au Revoir with a shallow V-bottom design as opposed to a round bottom, set the record as the world’s fastest boat. Then in 1908, he purchased the Detroit Launch and Power Company and changed its name to the Hacker Boat Company.


In 1911, Hacker designed and built Kitty Hawk, the first stepped-hull


hydroplane design which not only won the APBA Gold Cup that year but set an unthinkable world speed record over 50 mph. It held the record of the world’s fastest boat from 1911 to 1915. Top speed and average speeds rose almost yearly for both Harmsworth and Gold Cup events right into the 21st century.


There are a couple of interesting notes, however. America first won England’s Harmsworth Cup in 1907, and then every year from 1920 to 1933 mostly by the indomitable Gar


Wood who later owned Chris-Craft Boats. Meanwhile, Chris Smith had built his first Chris-Craft race boat in 1905 achieving an ultra-impressive speed of 25 mph. Chris-Craft went on to win the Gold Cup for eight consecutive years. Much later, the Canadian owned, designed, and built hydroplane, Miss Supertest III entered only four races before it was retired, but it won all four races – the 1959 Detroit Memorial Regatta, and the 1959, 1960, and 1961 Harmsworth Cup races. The Union Internationale


John L. Hacker’s Kitty Hawk, World’s Fastest Boat 1911-1915. Photo credit: WikiMedia 122 | ISSUE 107 | MAR 2024 | THE REPORT


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