Power Cat Boat Pages
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Mississippi River Marathon
...
  We used to race every year in the Mississippi River Marathon race.
For those of you unfamiliar with this race it was supposed to be
fashioned after the old paddle wheel races that were run on the
Mississippi in the 1800's between New Orleans and St Louis.  This
race when we first started was run up river from New Orleans and
my dad started running it back in our wood boat days of 1958.
At that time it was a straight through event run non-stop.
  The boats were equipped with headlights and ran the full 1068 miles
only stopping for repairs, fuel, food and water.
The boats were launched into Lake Ponchetrain (sp) and had to go through locks to
get into the river channel.  The very first year my dad had never even
seen the river before the start of the race. They were late getting the
race started as there was a lot of commercial boat traffic through the
locks and it was almost dark by the time all the boats were out into the
river and the race started.  They had been given chart books and some
instructions of how to follow the navigation lights on the river. This
first year Bobby Brown, who was my dads half brother and
went on in latter years to found Avenger Boats, was co-pilot.
The race started and they headed up river.  Darkness soon closed in.
As my dad related to us later they were running fine at full speed
(16 ft wood cat with twin Mark 78 6cyl Merc. engines and about 250
gallons of gas) which was probably 45-50 mph. All of a sudden the boat
jumped straight up in the air back down and up in the air again....
The first thought that went through my dads mind was that there were
rapids on the Mississippi river!!!  Backing out of the throttle and
keeping on course they soon discovered the source of the 4 ft swells
was the wake from tugboats pushing barges up river..  The swells would
line up all the way across the river for miles behind a tug pushing a
long line of barges up river.  The Mississippi is a very treacherous
run of river.  The currents change the location of the sandbars
regularly making any deviation from the center channel a gamble at best.
Many of the racers would be running in full daylight and take what
looked like a clear shortcut around a bend in the river hoping to save
a mile or more in distance only to find themselves several hundred
feet from deep water stranded in inches of water.  Whole trees could be
floating inches below the surface in mid channel making it a necessity
to carry several spare lower units on board to be changed out on some
muddy bank after impacting one of these obstacles.  The pit stops were
located at pre-arranged locations.  The race organization provided only
a gravity flow gas truck parked as close as they could get to the water
but only with a short gas fill hose.  This is where your "pit crew"
came into play.  My mom, my brother, and myself were the pit crew.
Which was a wild job in itself.  We had pulled the boat to the race with
our family 55 Cadillac sedan.  On the trailer we had about 10 10 gallon
milk cans and some spare parts, All tied down with rope.  We left
New Orleans at the same time as the racers.  The idea was we were to
beat them to the next pit stop location, fill up the milk cans with the
gas from the truck (it was pre-mix at least) and be ready when the racers
arrived.  Sure the racers were only averaging 50 mph at best.  But they had
the benefit of going in a straight line.  We had to negotiate towns, cross
the river back and forth, often on some very slow ferry boats.
(Remember this is 1958 in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri)
We often found ourselves flying down dirt roads at over a 100 mph with the
trailer barely touching the ground and milk cans rattling like God knows
what, trying to find our way through some cotton field to a
spot on a map that no one knew the existence of.
I was 12 years old and my brother was 10. Our job was to carry
those 10 gallon milk cans from the gas truck
to the boat while my Mom, Dad, and Uncle Bobby would be filling the
tanks by dumping the cans into a large funnel in the neck of the tanks.
I can remember several of these stops being at night with the mosquitos
so thick by the river bank they would carry you off.
Dad was one of the front runners most of the way.  We were at what
was to be the last gas stop waiting for them to arrive.  They didn't
arrive....   Many of the racers came and went but still no sign of
my Dad.  Finally another Power Cat racer came in and said he had seen
them a couple of miles back underway but moving slowly.  It was after
dark when they pulled in.  They had hit a huge tree that had broken
the lower unit on one motor and had pulled the transom loose such that
when they stopped, the boat filled with water and sank.  They had gotten
up on a sandbar and managed to change the lower unit but the rear of
transom was damaged so bad that my dad wanted to quit.  My mom would
not hear of it.  She had been through hell on this trip and was not
going to quit now.  A farmer had come down to watch the crazy boat
racers and had driven up on his tractor.  My mom got him to pull his
tractor down and we hooked a rope up to the boat and drug it up on the
bank with the back of the boat up on dry land.  They went and found some
tin from the side of a barn that was nearby.  With hammer and nails they
patched the rear of the boat and stuffed blankets in the opening so that
it kept the water out.  My mom and us shoved the boat in and it floated.
My dad and uncle jumped in started up the motors and headed off for
St Louis.  We made it there ahead of them to see them finish the race
in 12th place that year...
The winner this year was Byron Pool in a Mercury powered Crosby,
but of the top 12 finishers, 6 were Power Cats finishing in 2nd, 3rd, 4th,
6th, 7th, and 12th place.  There were 29 total boats entered, with
5 brands of outboard motors represented and 19 boat brands.
More on other years to follow....
Danny
...

Ok so how is this for procrastination... Started this thread back in 2002
 and here it is 2017 and I decided to at least post the story of the other year
 I remember of the Mississippi Marathon from 1960.. My Dad had run every year starting
 in 1958 but my Mom, brother, and myself did not go every year, so to put this in
 perspective, I was 14 years old and a freshman in high school in 1960.
Power Cat was to make a big push this year and so we got to go along on this trip.
Since 2002 I have tried with very little success to find the stories or
records of this annual event. I have seen results in magazine articles
from some of those years. What follows is what I have pieced together
about the running of the race in 1960.


Mississippi River Marathon
1960
This was the second year that the race was run downstream from
St Louis to New Orleans. The format was different also as there
were now overnight stops, Memphis, and Vicksburg so that the race
was only run in daylight hours.
Power Cat was fielding a whole team of boats this year with the
backing of Mercury motors. The west coast group made up of 5 boats
drove to Oshkosh Wisconsin to have the motors rigged at the factory
there. After a few days we then drove to St. Louis to do the final
prep work for the race. The race began downstream from St Louis and
no major issues all the way to Memphis for the first nights stop.
I remember that night sleeping in the car on the banks of the
Mississippi river as being nearly carried off by mosquitos. Chuck
Mercereau was in the lead starting out the next morning from Memphis
and led the whole run to Vicksburg for the next nights stop before
the final leg the following day into New Orleans.
Vicksburg Miss is the location of the Magnolia Boat factory, the
"guards" that were hired to watch the boats for the overnight stop
were relatives of many of the Magnolia boat people.
When we all get to pit area that next morning, we discovered the
Power Cat team boats had been sabotaged. My Dads boat only had the
afterplane hydraulics cut. They were so afraid of Chuck Mersereau because
of his reputation that they put what we believe was sugar in the gas
tanks and cut his hydraulic lines. My Aunt Della's boat they cut the
hydraulic lines and shorted the battery out. The rules would not allow
us to start working on the boats till after the start time of the race.
So the race starts out and we are left working on the boats. My Dad
went out with his and tried everything to get on plane... both himself
and Ray LeCroy up on the bow bouncing up and down with the motors screaming
at full throttle, and because of the huge gas load and the way the boat
was set up it would not break over without the afterplane. He comes back
in and starts helping the others working on their boats.. Della was next
to try and she and her husband Johnny go out and try to get on the plane.
Johnny was a pretty large fella and with him up in the deck trying to
bounce the boat he broke thru the deck on one side.. Then Della sees this
huge log floating in the river, they drag it up on the foredeck and with
that extra weight are able to break over on plane and then shove the log
off and they are away down river. Chuck is still trying to refill his gas
tanks and now my Dad gets his own tree trunk up on the bow and is able to
take off and down river he goes. We finally get Chuck running and he does
the same with a log on the deck and he is able to get away. Almost an
hour behind the start of that days leg to New Orleans. Now my cousins may
correct me on this part but what I remember is that somewhere in that
stretch Della came up on a huge tugboat with a line of barges going up
river and Johnny got up on the deck to try and hold down the bow going
thru the swells and he got his ribs broken from the pounding, and she had to
drop off plane and get him comfortable in the boat before they could get
another tree log up on the bow and get back on plane to continue. This
was when my Dad was able to pass her. So my Dad finishes in 5th Della in 7th
and Chuck comes in 9th.... Because we were the last to get away from
Vicksburg in our chase/pit crew car caravan, we arrive in New Orleans a bit
later after most of the racers are in and out of their boats. Once
everybody is safe and on the dock, tempers start to flair. I can tell you
Chuck Mersereau was a "hot head", My Aunt Della also was never known for
backing down from anyone, and Ray LeCroy was one bad hombre when ever
he felt wronged. The Magnolia pit crews were not exactly gracious in
victory either and what I heard from Dad was that they actually started
the fight.. Wound up with several Magnolia team members getting thrown off
the 30ft high dock into the Mississippi river and a couple bloody noses.
Carl Kiekhafer and Mercury motors had been one of the biggest financial
backers of this race. He was so disgusted by the whole thing that he
pulled the plug on anymore Mercury involvement, and even though they tried
to run it a few more years, that was the beginning of the end of one of the
greatest marathon races ever held in the US. 1068 miles on the Mississippi
river between St Louis and New Orleans.
Danny Leger
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