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Powerboat Magazine

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D&B Publishing is proud to have delivered the Pacific regions best power boat read for close to 30 years. Our PowerBoat team brings you the news, views and reviews from around the world. A team second to none when it comes to power boating. 

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Bob Nordskog: Honoring a Legend

For us at Powerboat, there were two sides to Bob, the publisher/boat tester and the racer. The story of our Performance Trials is chronicled annually. After launching the magazine in 1968, Bob, who also owned a marine dealership in the San Fernando Valley area of California, developed his own rigorous test program to help improve the quality of the products being sold to the public. During the next 22 years, he evaluated 1,196 pleasureboats, everything from tournament inboard ski boats to runabouts to performance tunnels to monster 47′ offshore wave mashers.

When I came out from the East Coast to interview with Bob and our current publisher, his son, Jerry, in early 1991, Bob the boat racer won me over. He had just given me the tour of his famed Competition Center, where he kept all his raceboats in Van Nuys, Calif., and told glorious stories with charm and intensity. It was like a walk through powerboat racing history, a selection of endurance tunnels, flatbottoms and Cigarette, Scarab and Fountain offshore boats covering the immaculate floor. T-shirts from all the events the Nordskog Racing Team competed in were folded and framed on the wall when you first walked in, and there was a trophy and photo room that was mind-boggling. I consider it an honor that I was the last editor Bob personally hired. He did it with a handshake and a smile, saying, “Welcome aboard.” It was clear that counter offers wouldn’t be entertained. Bob’s offer was his offer, and you either took it or you didn’t.

By the time I started at Powerboat, Bob spoke in a soft voice thanks to vocal cord damage sustained bv shouting over open exhaust all those years. People still listened to the charismatic, Seattle-born Californian with the slicked-back hair and blue eyes. When you put a camera or microphone in front of Bob, he knew how to make the best of the opportunity, promoting his racing teams, his magazine or his various campaigns in the name of safety on the water.

At my first Performance Trials in 1991, all the other members of the Test Team hazed me, telling me Bob hated it when people get seasick or messed up in the test program. “Don’t screw up,” said Bob Teague, now our lead tester. “He hates to have to do things twice.”

The other rule at The Trials was never be late. When you were late at the Trials, Bob said you weren’t just holding up the Test Team, you were holding up the hundreds of employees back at Nordskog Industries, because you were keeping Bob away from the office longer than he had to be.

After a sleepless night, I climbed into my first boat with Bob at The Trials. I had five pens, a tape recorder, backup tapes, batteries for the recorder and every other accessory I could possibly need. As for the seasickness, I had never suffered from it, but I was concerned that looking down at gauges and trying to write down data while a boat is being whipped through turns could be a nasty catalyst.

Turned out we made a pretty good team. Bob cracked jokes and had fun, loving every minute of being in the boats. In those days, we did our speed runs by driving close by an anchored boat and having a team member on that boat shoot us with a radar gun. One time, we came a little too close and clipped the anchor line with the drive. No one was hurt, but the guys on the anchored boat were rattled. Bob looked over at me and giggled, “Guess we came a little too close.”

Another time, a boat started chine-walking. Having never experienced this, I thought that for sure we were going to get wet. Bob reached over, tapped a button and, voila, no more chine-walk. He had an uncanny way of making boats work.

Another time we were in the middle of a particularly stormy week at Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Fla. Within seconds, the rain turned into torrential downpour. Bob looked over at me and told me to figure out how to get back to the docks. While he drove, I stood up, pelted in the face with pouring rain at 50 mph, and proceeded to get us lost even worse. Eventually we lucked into finding the docks.

Bob felt his Performance Trials and Awards For Product Excellence Program were the most important in the marine industry, and he let the manufacturers know they should promote the honors they received. Almost of them did and still do, recognizing that to this day we still conduct the. Trials in the tradition Bob intended, putting the boats up to the harshest scrutiny in the business. The United States Coast Guard recognized Bob’s contribution to the marine industry, presenting him with a citation for his dedication to advancing safety.

Those who spent time with Bob Nordskog have plenty of colorful memories. We asked former Nordskog Racing crew members and competitors to recall special moments.

We were running in the Long Beach to Ensenada race in the early 1970s. We had never made the Mexican waters, and Bob was so upset about all his inboards breaking in previous races he fired everyone except Norm Teague. So Bob bought this outboard-powered Magnum and decided we were going to race it in the Ensenada race. I made the charts and had them all laid out. It’s not too complicated. Keep the Americas to your left. I made this big chart and screwed it down on the deck. We’re going along just a-hitting and a-getting, and this deck is just wobbling back and forth like Jello. Just as we crossed the border, the chart started lifting. All of a sudden the thing just took off. Here I am in Mexican waters knowing I have to keep the land to my left, but I had to clear the Toda Santos Islands that I had to keep to port. Right alongside were the Witt brothers. I hadn’t seen what I thought was the Toda Santos, the Witts are heading in and Bob’s going crazy. It was all I could do to keep him going. Finally we saw our rocks and then we turned in. We were the only ones to get to Ensenada. We won. -Noel Younger , navigator, 1964-1981, and vice president of human resources, Nordskog Industries.

I’d have to say the best was when we crossed the finish line for the San Francisco to L.A. run, setting the record at 5 hours and 57 minutes. It was the best record we ever did. -Norm Teague , crew chief, 1968-1992.

I can’t believe how we thrashed in the Parker Enduro days, racing three KT boats at once. The teamwork, everyone working together. Then there was the time we went down to Salton Sea for a week to set diesel speed records, working in the dirt and sand and changing motors at a truck stop. -Bob Teague , crew member and navigator, 1971-1991

The race that comes to mind was the one at Marina del Rey, which was Bob’s last race (victorious). It was smooth water. Both of us ran hard, and we were side-by-side. Racing against him is what made it fun because he had raced for so long. –  Carson Brummett , Super V-class competitor, 1990-1991.

Nordskog By The Numbers:

• Number of Pleasureboats tested: 1,196
• Fastest Boat Tested: Douglas Skater, 102 MPH, 1992
• Age Started Powerboat Racing: 36 in 1949
• Age in First Offshore Race: 49
• Age in Last Offshore Race: 79

– Article by Powerboat Editor Eric Colby, published in Powerboat Magazine August 1997

Also see The Lure of Powerboating from The Saturday Evening Post (Nov/Dec 1991)

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The journey from horses to watts is racing at an electrifying gallop. Jamie Marley, an expert in the field of marine electrification, discusses the evolution of power measurement and propulsion in the boating world.

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A Sunart Saunter

Ten years after his last visit, SIB enthusiast Peter Talbot returns to Loch Sunart , one of Scotland’s longest sea lochs. Voyaging around the West Highland Peninsula aboard his Zodiac inflatable, he shares his delightful experiences of the scenery and wildlife of Ardnamurchan , Morvern and Sunart .

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Grand Palace

The Grand Palace at Peterhof was designed to be the centerpiece of Peter the Great's "Russian Versaille". Around 1720, the Tsar gave up on attempts to establish his court at Strelna, mainly because the boggy ground proved entirely unsuitable for the canals and fountains that he envisioned. Moving his attentions further west to Peterhof, the Tsar began to draw up his own plans for the grounds and palace. Work had already begun on a modest palace, designed by Jean-Baptiste Le Blond, in 1714, and that building was completed in 1721.

Meanwhile, fired by Peter's untiring enthusiasm, a massive amount of work had been completed around the palace, including the landscaping of the Lower Park, the digging of the Sea Canal, and the building of Monplaisir, Marly Palace, and most of the Hermitage. The original Higher Palace was somewhat inadequate for its surrounding splendours, and Peter instructed Le Blond and his pupil, Johann Braunstein, to expand the building.

Work was halted after Peter's death in 1725, and Petrhof was almost abandoned until Peter's daughter Elizabeth came to the throne in 1740. Elizabeth commissioned Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who had already completed the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg, to build a genuinely regal palace. Rastrelli chose to retain the original building within his design, and the result is supremely elegant and surprisingly restrained. The long, narrow palace, which was built in the last decade before baroque made way for neoclassicism, has minimal decoration, and Rastrelli's chief stylistic flourishes are the two white pavilions with gilded cupolas at the end of the wings. Beige and white, the palace is majestic without being overwhelming, and provides a perfect backdrop both to the elegantly formal Upper Garden, and to the spectacular Grand Cascade.

Inside, the Grand Palace is considerably more lavish, and the fact that the interiors had to be almost entirely reconstructed after World War Two does nothing to detract from their grandeur. The interiors are in fact a combination of original designs by Rastrelli and renovations by Yurii Felten and Vallin de la Mothe during the reign of Catherine the Great. Further changes were made in the mid-19 th century, but nonetheless the palace's sumptuous interiors have retained a remarkable homogeneity of style.

Visitors entering the palace are confronted by Rastrelli's incredibly ornate Ceremonial Staircase, which sets the tone for what is to come with a magnificent fresco of Aurora and Genius and multitude of gilded statues. Highlights include the richly gilded Ballroom and Felten's splendid white-and-turquoise Throne Room, which has a particularly fine parquet floor. The Western Chinese Study is heavily Oriental, with jewel red and green walls and a beautiful Chinese tea-set. The Drawing Room of the Imperial Suite is equally influenced by chinoiserie, with particularly fine silk wall hangings. The rest of the Imperial Suite, the royal family's private quarters, is furnished in grand 19 th century style. Also of interest is Peter the Great's charmingly simple Oak Study, and the adjacent Crown Room, which was in fact the Imperial bedchamber.

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