Arneson Shatters Race Record
  
Featured in Mainsheet, 1990
The St. Francis Yacht Club

 

The flame burned clean and bright for 12 hours, 40 minutes and 50 seconds, blazing St. Francis YC's Howard Arneson from New Orleans to Saint Louis.  His Skater 32 catamaran, powered by a GE T-58 turbine of 1325 horsepower, with, what else, Arneson Drives, screeched up the Mississippi River at speeds as high as 118 mph, knocking seven and a half hours off the record, and some days and nights off the records of the paddlewheelers which started the race in the late 1800's.  This was no flatwater outing, what with squeezing by about 250 tugs and barges along the route.  Howard said he spent as much or more time airborne as he would in an offshore race.  The three other contenders in this years race failed to finish, one due to hull damage from a tug wake, the others from a variety of mechanical bothers,  Yeah, Howard!

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