Miss Wahoo, a rebuilt 1957 Vintage Hydroplane , on show at the North West Muscle Car Show, Issaquah, Washington


The Wahoo was one of four identical boats built in the mid 1950s from the same Ted Jones design. The 1955 Miss Thriftway, the 1956 Shanty - I the Miss Wahoo and Miss Spokane were all built by Les Staudacher from Ted's drawings. The Museum had a copy of the Shanty - I plans in our archives and turned them over to Ron Jones Sr. so that he could draw plans for Vashon Unlimited's Miss Thriftway project. When Bill Boeing Jr. and Scott Carson saw how perfectly the Vashon Miss Thriftway turned out, they decided that they wanted to see a Miss Wahoo, so they approached the Museum with an offer to fund the boat if we agreed to build it. A hydroplane (or hydro, or thunderboat) is a type of motorboat used exclusively for racing. A key aspect of Hydroplanes is that they only use the water they're on for propulsion and steering (not for flotation)—when going at full speed they are primarily held aloft by a principle of fluid dynamics known as "planing", with only a tiny fraction of their hull actually touching the water.


Size: 5050px × 3360px
Location: XXX Rootbeer Drive-in, 98 NE Gilman Blvd, Issaquah, WA, 98027, USA
Photo credit: © John Gaffen 2 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 1957, boat, drive-, historic, hydroplane, motorboat, racing, reconstruction, restored, rootbeer, sport, unlimited, vintage, vintge, wahoo, xxx