Skid Fins and Construction of Miss Madison

find on the other side. So it was a matter of getting the boat onto the turning bed and getting it off it . What they also used, starting with this boat and boats from the late 60s and early 70s, is a much larger piece on the side of the boat called a skid fin . And the skid fin is a large piece of metal that hangs high from the inside of the left sponson. And it is used to keep the boat within the turning radius. So he turns around. He has something that fights centrifugal force. Mmm. With this generation of hulls, you just turned it, you just turned it, turned it and turned it, and the back of the boat just turned with it. These boats could now begin to make a powerful turn. Well , thanks to the skid fin that could keep it in radius. Where is this? Okay, let's see if we have one available to us. Um, you can see it hanging right here. Yes. But since they were unlimited, there were no rules governing offset, hall shape, or anything like that that could be devised to make it the best. Here is the guide pin on the fan-shaped lines of the 1977 Atlas. And you can see it hanging. And this is even small compared to the slide pins of that time. Today they have to be installed using a forklift. And they could adjust this with this rod. Yes. So they go around the corner thinking, "Oh, he needs a little more grip." Then they tightened it up a little to secure it a little . So, uh, what the team thought was the right angle, that's how they set them up. So were they definitely tweaking it between rounds? Not necessarily. Um, that besides the anti-roll bar, they did more than just change the propeller or the wing in the rear , because with the suspension package they were the first to use a rear anti-roll bar, and in auto racing, a rear anti- roll bar is used to create pressure on the tires to keep the car on the track. Yes. In this configuration, the rear fender is used as a lifting device to hold the front of the boat down to prevent it from tipping over. They are not on any of them now because they cannot be transported. Oh, but basically the wing would just go through it and it would be ...There it is. You can't even see him. Part of trailer design, which is a whole other topic of fascination, are these elaborate trailers. You know, some of the first hydraulic systems were developed by a gentleman named Gar Wood, who was a Gold Cup racer back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they had to be transported by road, and they were too wide to be transported…