Hotboat Lake CFW

One of the nicest NorCal lakes for the Hot-boating crowd has got to be "CFW" or Camp Far West reservoir located near the town of Wheatland, California. Its about an hour north of Sacramento and can be just a serene a place as one can imagine.  But at other times when the hot boats, alcohol burners and the nitro boats show up.... well its just plain good ole fun.

I found a day when there was nobody there and did some test and tune after getting my new carbs on the boat. This is still the old configuration (461 CI engine), but the 660 carbs were junk and just could not be made to work. I got a set of 850 Holleys and put them to work on the boat.




This lake is privately owned and operated and the owners really appreciate the hot boat group and we in turn appreciate them for providing a facility such as this to use at our leisure for much fun.




It has 2 launch facilities, one on the North Shore and one on the South Shore. The South Shore has launching capability from the beach area also when the lake is full. Both places have a store and it has camping facilities with tables provided. The sites will fit motorhomes but they don't have power and water.

This is not a huge lake and thats why it appeals to the hot-boat crowd, theres no 40' cruisers out there churning up the waters, the minimal amount of wake and ski boats that show up stay on the main lake side and there is a cove on the South Shore where most of the hot-boats can play and remain out of peoples way.

Update: The day these photos were taken the original motor died. It was found out that the motor was some rookies try at motor building and 3 rod bearings froze to the crank and spun. Cooked 2 main bearings also. Looks like assembly errors were the cause and possibly me trying to get to 7000 rpm ????  Maybe.

K-Boats at Needles

These are a couple of K-Boats that ran at the Needles Show. The green boat is the K-50 boat which has been totally rebuilt in honor of "Julian". The orange boat is the K-323 of Concept Marine which is a new version of the circle boat racers. The K-Boats are the top class in Circle Boat Racing.

Needles California

This is a boaters 'mecca' for hotboats and I had a chance to visit the event this year for the first time and experience all of its grandeur and people.

The people are what makes it the greatest event around because it is put together by people that care; for the boats, the rods and the City of Needles. It is an event organized by the City of Needles and some of their local business people, local schools and social organizations like the "The Elks".

Boat and Rod people come from all over the country to participate. There is a golf event the first day and then a "Parade of POWER" thru the city for the townspeople to come out and greet everyone. This ends the evening with a BBQ at the local city park. There is a show and shine both days of the weekend with food vendors from the local schools that support their local sports. Each day the boats will do speed runs up and down the Colorado river at Jack Smith Park for the spectators to see some thrills.

Running Down the River

This is the first video of the Sanger on the SAC River running with what the boat had when I received it. Well I must say that it was quite a trip.... Found some good flat calm water to try and run it out on but there were just too many things going wrong with to get it going very well.

I think we may have got to around 50-60 mph with my 'speed-demon' daughter on board. She said "it was fun but was a little scary being so close to the water"... Well YEA!!!!  I guess its not a safe as being surround by 3,000 lbs of metal, glass and plastic. ;-)

Take a look:


 

The ride was a bit rough, the cav plate pedal doesn't even move, it needs some cav plate adjustments I'm almost sure, the 660 carbs are leaking fuel out the bowls, but it runs!!! Engine sounds good but who knows whats in it at this point Im still trying to get info from the seller.

Update on the pedal; The Trimetric pedal was taken apart and the inside was full of mud and rust, no wonder why the pedal didnt move!!!!...   replaced the gears and greased it all up, now I have a pedal that WORKS!

Welcome

First entry for this new blog on V-Drive boats: I have always loved v-drives and drag boats since I was a kid and was a regular visitor to the CVDBA events during the 1970's and 1980's. This was a great time in the history of drag boat racing down the central valley of California. It's a damn shame that all the eco/epa-nazi's ended up here in our fine state to do away with this type of fun and gamesmanship. Oh well, I still have my memories and they can't take them away or incarcerate me for having them.

I just became the owner of a pretty decent 1975 Sanger Flat bottom Bubbledeck. It's actually the "Family Ski" model boat that was made when Sanger was in their Fresno facility. The engine is a 461 CU IN big block Chevy with about 500 hp. Iron 990 heads, Tunnel Ram and 660 Holley carbs. It has a Casale drive with a Power glide transmission in it right now, I dont think that was stock from Sanger. Looks like it has all the stock Sanger rigging that came in it during the '75 era of boat building and is still in pretty good shape today.

It needs some serious TLC and most likely some parts here and there, but the hull, floors and stringers look good and no major flaws and all the parts are there to work with.


UPDATE:
Found out from the original owner - one Mr. Mike Romani that this was his boat before I bought it from the seller I got it from. He had all this paint work done by "Smooth As Glass" in Riverbank, CA and the deck and part of the hull was repaired after it was used as a speed bump by a Bayliner.... He also told me a story of his wedding day on the SAC River where he and his bride took some pictures in it and then he took it for a ride and got thrown out of it and swamped it!!!

Mike is great guy and he saw it at the Big Wake Weekend at Folsom in 2013, He actually had tears in his eyes... must have been some good memories!