seatalk column
Offshore Powerboat Racing's only international No-Spin column, SEATALK, can now be read at www.searace-crouse.com.
Selected viewer's comments...pro or con... may be reviewed and printed at the end of each column's postings. Our E-mail address is texjoc@aol.com and phone number is 352 344-1528 and 352 344-5082.
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If you are interested in our coming book SEARACE...THE LEGENDS, ETC. and would like to be placed on our notify list please E-mail us at Texjoc@aol.com, write us at Crouse Publications, 5686 S. Luray Terrace, Inverness, FL 34452 or call us at 352 344-1528. Be sure to include a mailing address and a phone number. Those interested in offshore racing photos can visit or photo galley on this web site for selections. The site includes only a fraction of out huge photo files so let us know what you are looking for.
NEWS FLASH 66 YEAR OLD AUSSIE WATER SPEED LEGEND KEN WARBY, "THE WORLD'S FASTEST MAN ON WATER", HAS SCHEDULED A NEW RECORD RUN AT FLORIDA'S CRESCENT CITY IN OCTOBER TO BREAK HIS 317.6 MPH MARK SET AT AUSTRALIA'S BLOWERING DAM IN 1980!
An E-mail out of the ozone from the new AMF Offshore Racing Operation's Chief Savering found me in the depths of working on my second SEARACE book on offshore racing which will be loaded with lore of men and women who have defied death on the world's seas in fast powerboats. During a follow up phone all I was thrilled to be able to talk to Warby.
"SEARACE...THE LEGENDS, ETC...will differ with the 680 page first book, skipping the race by race stats to get on the inside of one of the world's most colorful motorsports hat was more deadly on land than on water! After tracking the world's fastest people on water for five decades, the wee yank, American Gar Wood, still stands tallest. To this day he still reigns as the most accomplished personality in fast boats the world has ever seen. The fact that he was also an incurable womanizer may have added gray hairs to his patient wife but added spice to the lore of the wee Yank!
Despite being busy pursuing men on sea and women on land, Wood was also the world's most prolific inventor at the time of his passing at age 90 in 1980 in Miami. Among his amazing 91 patents was the invention of the world's first successful hydraulic with three dollars and change worth of plumber's pipe and drug store glycerin!
For those of you who wondered what ever happened to the two year long libel and slander lawsuit filed against me by St. Petersburg barrister Michael Allweiss and his failed APBA Offshore LLC gang, the frivolous suit was tossed out Florida's 6th Judicial Court Judge Bruce Boyer"...for lack of prosecution on June 28 of 2002 "...for lack of prosecution". Even more interesting is that Allweiss' high powered law firm Fowler, White, Boggs and Banker were the ones who filed for dismissal!
Especially since the things I wrote that ruffled his huge ego so, were pretty much the gospel to everybody in the sport but himself and his hired barristers! I've also wondered if FWBB ever bothered to do a pre-check on me before they initially questioned that I was bona-fide journalist! Especially since the topics I wrote about that ruffled his ample ego were pretty much known to everybody in the sport but himself and evidently, his hired barristers!
Their next blunder was when in their opening papers to the crack law firm handling my defense, Josephs, Jack, Miranda, McCullough & McKeown, P.A. they underlined a sentence in my SEATALK that said that Allweiss "....Got smart people to do dumb things". Which of course, is not only neither libelous nor slanderous!
To the consternation of my defense attorneys, hours after they eyed the early papers from Allweiss' hired legal guns, I e-mailed another critical SEATALK worldwide.
In the interim, his real image pretty well made known, Allweiss appeared to be giving up his dreams of being offshore's PT Barnum, and folded his tent and sold his contentious APBA LLC for a dollar etc.!
The fact that during all Allweiss' and his assigns wild charges against my columns and classification as a journalist, I had been listed repeatedly by the prestigious Marquis' Who's Who Of The World In Literature! I had also logged 47 years in journalism, graduating from the University of Miami journalism school, founded two weekly newspapers, erve3d as the boating editor for the the Miami Daily News, Sports Editor of the Hollywood (FL)Sun Tattler, associate editor for two decades for Powerboat Magazine and the US correspondent for leading boating magazines in England, France, Italy, Australia and Japan.
In the mid 70's I became aware of a disturbing fact about offshore powerboat racing off Florida waters as it emerged from the puristic days of Sam Griffith, Dick Bertram and Forest Johnson into a sport increasingly dominated by a band of mysteriously wealthy criminals! In the fowl flock was boatbuilder Ben Kramer, the grand nephew of for decades long Mafia Boss of Bosses Myer Lansky, drugger- murderers Cuban expatriate high school dropouts Sal Magluta and Willie Falcon who before the law belatedly caught up with them, had not transformed sunny south Florida into the drug center of the world!
By the time the laggard law finally caught up with them they had no only eaten many of their own but most likely triggered the drug epidemic that poisoned the entire United States that ruined hundreds of thousands of lives!
According to US court records Magluta and Falcon with the help of their equally criminal associates had hauled in an astounding 78 tons of cocaine worth a street value of two billion dollars! Our open criticisms of their actions was rumored to have brought on discussion of several contracts on this old Texan's head. Ben Kramer even called me one day and said he was talking to Italy and someone there was very unhappy with me. I never did find out what they were unhappy about!
Traditionally, gangsters are hesitant to do in cops and journalists which may be the reason I've been around this long!
During the 80's and early 90's a dozen or so offshore boat racing people were gunned down including the sport's icon boat builder and two time world champion Don Aronow, who was gunned down by a hit man hired by Kramer!
Keep tuned to our web site www.searace-crouse.com for more comments and on the progress of SEARACE...THE LEGENDS, ETC.
John O.Crouse
CROUSE PUBLICATIONS
5686 S. Luray Terrace, Inverness, FL 34452
