Seafair Sunday: West Seattle side notes from the hydroplane pits

| West Seattle news | WS & Sports

(This photo & next, by WSB’s Patrick Sand)
If you are going to – or are already at! – Lake Washington for Seafair‘s grand finale, the hydroplane races and air show, here are a few of the West Seattle side notes we’ve found so far. Above, it’s the Miss Beacon Plumbing, whose team again got a helping hand this year from South Seattle Community College (WSB sponsor) – actually more than one helping hand, as you’ll see in this story on the SSCC website. We visited the hydro pits in the early going this morning to get that photo while Miss BP was out on a testing run. The hydro didn’t come to the SSCC campus for work this year as it did last year, but SSCC students were out working on it elsewhere in the city earlier this week.

Meantime, also seen this morning in the Stan Sayres Pits – the Miss Fox Plumbing bears the logo of a West Seattle-based business, Sea-Way Marine:

And while we don’t know if he’s gotten a chance to drive today, we found out from our friends at My Edmonds News that West Seattle resident Jesse Robertson has been out on the course this weekend – see their story about him here.

P.S. Yet another reminder that the I-90 bridge closes 1:15-2:40 pm for the Patriots Team’s turn in the air show.

ADDED 2:30 PM: Another Fox Plumbing hydro bears the Sea-Way Marine logo – Jim Clark shares this Friday photo of the Formula 1 boat:

The Formula 1 finals are scheduled for 4:20 pm today, right before the H1 Unlimited finals – the full schedule is here.

let them swim August 4, 2013 (12:38 pm)

For those of you that have not visited the Hydroplane Museum, you should.(located in Kent) Wonderful exhibits displaying the history of Hydros and racing. Restored piston driven boats on site. They have four/five restoration projects going on presently. Miss the Blue Angels during Seafair though.

metrognome August 4, 2013 (2:04 pm)

LTS — thanks for plugging the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum; my cousin is the Exec Director and I know how hard the staff and volunteers work to make the exhibits so interesting.
http://thunderboats.ning.com/
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saw Chip Hanauer interviewed this a.m. and the one thing he said fans say is missing is the thunder. He (jokingly) proposed going back to the old piston engines. I definitely agree!

JanS August 4, 2013 (2:55 pm)

I loved the noise of the pistons…we could hear them at our house near 54th and Charlestown, all the way from the lake…and they practiced all week back then…and , of course, miss the noise of the Blue Angels.”The Formula 1’s, though, are lots of fun…

let them swim August 4, 2013 (3:01 pm)

The interview with,(who I think was the best announcer),Pat O’Day mentioned it’s in the works. I believe he mentioned W.W.S.U. is working on a project to bring piston power back! how cool would that be!!!
I grew up in W.S. and we could hear those Thunder-boats roar.
I’m a proud member of the Museum.