Picture This

You’re an Italian Count. You live on the shores of Lake Como and you need a boat. A fast one. After all, you’re a mountaineer and an explorer too; you need something exciting. What do you do? You buy, built to your specifications, the fastest style of boat there is. Now you need an engine. Something big and powerful, and preferably Italian. How about the V12 taken straight out of one of Ferrari’s Le Mans race cars? Old Man Ferrari not playing ball? Not to worry, you’re pals with his best racing drivers and they’ll convince him to give you the motor. Such was the charmed life of Guido Monzino.

A Little Colour

“The offices of Guido Monzino were in Milan, but he lived as often as possible in one of the most beautiful villas on Lake Como, if not the world, at Punta del Balbianello where a recent James Bond film was shot. He led an existence both sporty and refined. It was there too, when the weather allowed, that he had his racer Ferrari come from a nearby yard. The servants then saw him climb impeccably dressed in the cockpit of the Red San Marco, cast off and sail to Como in the roar of the twelve cylinders of his racing engine. In less than fifteen minutes, here he was berthing at the Yacht Club where his four-wheeled Ferrari awaited him, which he drove towards Milan at a brisk pace. It could have been said that Monzino had a Ferrari in every port.” – Gerald Guetat/Road Book Magazine. That’s the life for me. Is that so much to ask?

What’s A Hydroplane?

So what’s a hydroplane anyway? Essentially its a boat that’s designed to skim along the surface of the water instead of cutting through it with a V-shaped hull. Water is much more dense than air so the less of the boat that touches it the faster you can go. The best hydroplane racers only have thee points of contact with the water: one each side of the pilot and the semi-submerged propeller at the back. They’re also known as Thunderboats because they used to be built using surplus WWII airplane engines like the Rolls Royce Merlin V12. Now they’re built using turbine helicopter engines! You’ve gotta love the fact that people built hugely expensive, mind-bendingly fast and focused stuff like this. Humans!

Build It & Break Records

So Count Monzino had his engine. He had his boat too, thanks to the Cantieri Timossi boat yard. Now it was time to go fast. To that end he bolted twin superchargers onto Enzo’s V12 to make somewhere in the region of 500-600 horsepower. In a boat. In 1954. Record time!

The San Marco, as the boat is known, was let loose on Lake Iseo in October 1953 and hit a world record top speed of 150.19 mph. It’s a record that, for its weight class, stands to this day. Here’s a video of it in action, and below that you’ll find a video of the all-time water speed record run by fearless Australian Ken Warby. His record of 317 mph/511 kph was set in 1978 and still hasn’t been touched. Yikes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pr4T5ClWEw