Classic Donzi 16 restoration review

In the beginning, there was Jim Wynne and Don Aronow. They formed the team that made boats walk on water. And very fast.

So when you're talking classics, and that is exactly what Retrospective is all about, those two names are going to surface time and again.

They were the men behind some of the most famous names in boating history, either as a team or later, individually. Names like Formula, Donzi, Magnum, Cigarette, Squadron XII and USA Racing Team. They dominated American, then world, powerboat racing, and thus hull design, from the early '60s to the late '80s.

Aronow was called the King of Thunderboat Row, a millionaire playboy designer/racer who won everything there was to win in offshore powerboat racing. And when he didn't get the chequered flag, it was usually one of his boats which did. He was the friend of presidents and kings... His boats their toys.

We offer that information simply to establish the pedigree of the boat reviewed here, the Donzi 16. You won't find many in Australia but we tracked one down which had been restored to begin our retrospective series.

The droopy-nosed Donzi 16 is simply drop-dead gorgeous... A very 'chic chick'. More curves than Brigitte Bardot. The really astonishing thing is that the design is so old. And yet, like an E-Type Jag, it's ageless.

But first, let's look at a bit of history. And for this, I must acknowledge my main information source, Michael Aronow's book about his dad entitled Don Aronow, The King of Thunderboat Row (available through Boat Books, Sydney and Melbourne).

Don Aronow was a property developer who retired at age 34 to Miami where he was introduced to offshore powerboat racing. He was instantly hooked, and hired noted raceboat driver and naval engineer Jim Wynne, and his partner Walt Walters, to build him a 23-foot deep-V with a beam just under 2.4m. The result was the famous Formula 233. That boat brought Aronow, Wynne and Walters together into Formula Marine, which became so successful they got an offer they couldn't refuse and sold the business after just two years.

Aronow set up another factory next door and began working on new boats with Wynne and Walters. Among them was a new 17-foot boat, still under development when Formula Marine was sold.

With eight inches lopped off the stern, this became the first Donzi 'Sweet Sixteen'. It was soon joined by a 28-footer and a 19-footer which all became noted for their speed, manoeuvrability and rough water performance.

In 1964-65, the Donzi Racing Team's performances made it the talk of the powerboat world.

Through its own offshore racing exploits, the incredible Donzi 16 became known as the Jaguar of sports boats. A dealer at the time said: "I've yet to take a prospect out for a trial run and bring him back without a big grin on his face and a new sparkle in his eyes. She's a fabulous performer and so safe that I can hand her over to just about anyone without a worry."

Hank Bowman, a respected powerboat evaluator and tester of the time, was effusive in his praise: "I know of no knowledgeable boatman who has ridden aboard or driven a Donzi who would dispute the statement that the Donzi 16-foot is the softest riding, driest, high-speed sports boat ever built. For the first time in years of boat testing, I've encountered a hull which, with well-mated power, is so spectacular in performance that I have given her a performance score of 10."

During the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli war, Israel loaded a large number of Donzi 16s with explosives and remote-piloted them into enemy targets. And then there's the story of US president Lyndon Johnson, who took a couple of Donzi 16s off his Secret Service people and used them himself because he found they were faster than his Glastron - and to hell with security!

But security was smarter. They ordered two more Donzis, "only faster, Mr Aronow, but the President must never know."

According to Melbourne chartered accountant Tom Linardos, a Donzi fan, the moulds for the Donzi 16 and 19 were brought to Australia in the late '60s by a company called Admiral Marine, which went broke.

The moulds were bought by CO Jensen and he produced boats under the name of Donzcraft.

Alas, they never took off in Australia, Tom believes because of poor marketing. He owned a 19 sterndrive and still regards it as one of his best boats. In fact, it's still in the Victorian Game Fishing Club's fleet.

Now, after many years lying idle, those same two moulds have been rescued from a farm shed by Melbourne businessman Adrian Clancy (yep, my boat-mad little brother), who was drawn to them through his love of the Formula 233, one of which he restored last year. He knew the two had similar pedigrees.

Donzi Marine is still around in the US, but has changed hands several times since its halcyon days and is a very different company today, making a huge range of boats. It has no presence in Australia.

Adrian bought our test Donzi 16 as a wreck. His intention was to dissect it, and use it to evaluate what potential there was in the moulds he'd bought. But after a clean-up, he found the 16 was too good to chop, and decided to restore it instead.

An old Johnson 140hp was bolted on the back and on its first test run on Port Phillip Bay in a half to one-metre chop, blew him away. "It went as fast as we were game to push it," he recalled, "and it kept asking for more power. It's just sensational, every bit as good as what I've read about it."

The restored boat is in skiboat form. The day we did our test it was blowing 30kt from the north but the National Watersports Centre in Melbourne could only produce 'waves' of less than half a metre.

The hull, like all Donzis, is very deep-V, and although stability at rest was certainly affected by this, on the plane any movement around the boat was hardly noticeable. Even with two bodies on the starboard side and no-one on the port, the boat still rode comfortably true. Top speed was over 90kmh.

We threw the little boat around as much as we could, across its own wake, across another boat's wake, tight figure of eights, long runs, the lot. And it was as smooth as... It was as soft as... And it was just so forgiving! You find yourself thinking: how could a boat with a performance like this simply disappear?

Interior space is at a premium due to the '60s deck design which has a huge and space-wasteful outboard well with lids opening into unlined storage space betwixt inner skin and hull either side. The engine well space is about the same an inboard motor would require in a sterndrive model.

The cockpit itself is unusual, in that the driver has a bucket seat but there's no passenger or observer's seat as such. Instead there's a wraparound bench seat along the port side which turns across the stern in front of the outboard well.

There are grabrails everywhere and they're needed, too, because the freeboard is very shallow. Storage space is at a premium, but there's a little in the bow and an underfloor lidded bin in the centre of the carpeted cockpit.

The low, wraparound tinted windscreen doesn't do a lot to keep the wind off the face, but it looks good behind that sloping bow!

So that's the boat of the 1960s.

Will we see a retrospective revival in the new millennium? As they say in the classics, watch this space!