The Big Boys Are In Town

Rivergoer said:
Just passed through APM, counted 15 Lake Powell Challenge boats at the docks.

Biggest baddest king of the hill was rockin’ F-I-V-E 500 HP Outboards. Yes…2,500 horsepower…

Weather’s awesome!
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I saw your boat cruise past the Wahweap Marina yesterday from mine, looks like you were headed up lake. Now it's official, Fall is here once Yatzee returns. The weather is just incredible right now, much cooler. I swam in the lake yesterday and it was still warm. Not just bearable, no shock at all entering the water, bathtub like. No need for AC, just open windows.

I like to see the big go fast boats too!
 
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We camped inside the last turn of the dam wakeless zone. Son and his buddy got three 3 lb stripers (biggest 3 lb 9 oz) bait fishing off the houseboat last night.

Next stop between SJ and Escalante.

Forgot to get pics of the go-fast boats so anyone at APM, post em up.
 
Our small fleet, 3 express cruisers, rafted up in the main channel at the mouth of Rock Canyon around 11 Sat to watch the go fasts. One our guys keeps his boat at Antelope Point Marina and he was checking with folks down there on the start of the challenge, originally scheduled for 10, delayed to 11 because of the light rain (calm wind). I’m guessing any rain drops at 100 mph is not fun. We heard that they were going to run to Dangling Rope and back to AP. They showed up in groups of 3 to 4 boats. Curiously some didn’t make the turn to go up main channel and headed into Rock Creek and stopped there. We were waving, thumbs up, and their passengers returned our greetings. As mentioned the cats with outboards are really fast but the roar of the V hullls with humongous V8s are more fun. Leaving AP Sunday around noon several of the wide beam cats were on their trailers — quite a site sitting at about 45 degrees on the trailer behind show quality heavy haulers. We heard the airport was congested with private jets as many of the super boat owners have their peeps deliver the boats and they fly in for the fun.
Coincidentally we stopped at a gas station in Flagstaff on Sun. There was a gorgeous ~40 foot Cigarette (actual brand) at the pumps. My gregarious son struck up a conversation with the owner. Owner said he saw our raft up, initially thinking we were the stop for a poker card. The owner went on to say The Challenge turned into a real cluster, misinformation on the Rock Creek stop, and the changing schedule. But he said everyone loves LP, of course, and will be back next year to burn gas, real fast.
 
I was surprised at how quiet the big HP outboards were. The boats we saw had twin 500 HP, with one guy obviously slumming with them who only had 450s.

I like the sound of a big block, but I will say the novelty of it wears off fast. I really don't want to hear someone else's music on the lake and I don't want to hear their boat either, especially for long periods of time.

We did see one bright red cat pulling up to the Dangling Rope fuel docks at Halls. He then headed towards Bullfrog, but it was after 500 and I am pretty sure they were closed. That would make for an unpleasant surprise.
 
Ryan said:
We did see one bright red cat pulling up to the Dangling Rope fuel docks at Halls. He then headed towards Bullfrog, but it was after 500 and I am pretty sure they were closed. That would make for an unpleasant surprise.
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We got caught in the Halls fuel docks several years ago (approx. 5 or so) and there were a good handful of L.P. challenge boats (10-15 of them) fueling up. They actually ran Halls out of fuel...
The organizer of the challenge had actually sent up a tanker load of fuel (8,000 gallons) knowing they would run Halls out of fuel. There was some coordination there between them and Aramark and would assume that hasn't changed so I'm sure they were still able to get fuel.
 
Joe Wilson said:
We got caught in the Halls fuel docks several years ago (approx. 5 or so) and there were a good handful of L.P. challenge boats (10-15 of them) fueling up. They actually ran Halls out of fuel...
The organizer of the challenge had actually sent up a tanker load of fuel (8,000 gallons) knowing they would run Halls out of fuel. There was some coordination there between them and Aramark and would assume that hasn't changed so I'm sure they were still able to get fuel.
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Maybe I don't understand your statement but to me the issue isn't of quantity of fuel (not directly anyway) it was the fact that the Halls fuel dock is closed and it was after hours for them to go to Bullfrog.
 
Ryan said:
Maybe I don't understand your statement but to me the issue isn't of quantity of fuel (not directly anyway) it was the fact that the Halls fuel dock is closed and it was after hours for them to go to Bullfrog.
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Yes what I was saying is that since they were able to coordinate a tanker of fuel for them to make the journey, it had to be scheduled. I would assume the same held true for the employees of the fuel dock, in that it was probably scheduled for them to have someone on hand to fuel the boats. It was that way that year over in Halls, it was roughly 5:45pm before they finished fueling everyone (this was also back in 2018-19ish). They did however turn away any non-challenge boats that arrived after 5pm (if you were already tied up to the dock they allowed you to fill up).

Also, I'm not sure if it has changed or not, but all the store hours and I believe the fuel docks at Bullfrog had posted hours stating they were open until 6pm. We are used to the hours being reduced right after labor day and while we were there we asked one of the employees if they were still open until 6 and he said yes. The only thing we found that closed at 5pm was the snack bar. I'm not saying this is still the case (or for that matter that it was even accurate at the time), but that's what we were told on 9/16.
 
There’s a local guy in Flagstaff that has a set of forms for fast boats, and I believe an original Apache deep V. See him on the lake every so often. Tows with a pretty cool old semi he rebuilt. I want to build my own from the ground up someday. Almost certainly wouldn’t be as fast as the tuned and engineered rigs, but I bet I learn a lot from the process.
 
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