Photo courtesy Stuart Hayim
On August 20th, Johnny Tomlinson, co-owner of TNT Custom Marine, and Vinnie Rifice, experienced performance boater, cruised around Long Island in Stuart Hayim’s 50-foot MTI, powered by twin 1,550-hp Mercury Racing engines, as Hayim flew overhead. Read the article below, from speedonthewater.com, with comments from Tomlinson on the last minute decision to attempt a record breaking run.
With retired offshore racing champion Hayim in the chase airplane above, Tomlinson, who throttled the boat with New York performance boater Vinnie Rifice by his side and TNT mechanic Dave McIntyre in the back seat, said they finished the 274-mile run in Hayim’s 50-foot MTI, which is powered by a pair of turbocharged Mercury Racing 1550/1350 engines.
Photo courtesy Dave McIntyre
“We didn’t come up to New York with the intention of breaking the record today,” said Tomlinson, who is the co-owner of TNT Custom Marine in North Miami. “I brought my guy Dave with me to test the boat since we sent it up here a couple of months back and Stuart hadn’t tested it yet. Because the weather was good enough, there was enough fuel in the boat and Vinnie was already here to drive the boat with me, Stuart said why don’t you just go try to break it today? We had some water in the fuel, but we got that handled, started it up and off we went. Dave was in the back with us to help if anything went wrong.”
Tomlinson said they took off from Manhasset Bay Marina and headed counterclockwise—south through New York City and then east rather conservatively, averaging about 115 to 125 mph “on the outside.”
Complete and original article posted on speedonthewater.com
