100 years of tethered hydroplane racing

Celebrating 100 years of tethered hydroplane racing

Norman Dixon and Fast Cat.

When Tom Clement, as a lad, wandered down to Paddy Freeman's Park in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the home of the Heaton Club, one of the members, Norman Dixon acted as Tom's mentor. Norman had a pre-war Westbury designed kipper-box hull with a 30cc petrol 2-stroke engine that he built around 1938. The engine was an EM 30, designed by W. Cooper and serialised in 'English Mechanics' magazine. The boat was called Fast Cat I. He also had a further two Westbury designed hydroplanes, Fast Cat II with his own designed 30cc 4-stroke petrol engine. The other Qwik Kit with another Cooper designed engine, the EM 15cc 2-stroke, all three boats would run at about 30mph.On all his hydroplanes he had the rear view of a black cat with its tail up.


J Covington and Norman with Qwik Kit	Fast Cat II at Paddy Freeman Park	Fast Cat I Tynemouth Lake 1944

Norman also ran a straight running boat called Camilla II. The hull was 5 feet 10 inches long, with a 34cc home designed 2-stroke petrol engine. This was the boat that Tom used when he started travelling to other regattas.

After Norman died Tom started running hydro's. He put Fast Cat I's EM 30cc engine into a planing hull and achieved 40mph with this combination.

Tom has remained a member of the Heaton Club ever since, and still has Fast Cat I's hull and engine which he intends to restore at some stage.

Norman Dixon's Fast Cat I with its original EM 30cc engine, both now 70 years old

Thanks to Tom Clement for text and photo's, and to Andy Humpish for allowing me to use the original pictures.

©copyrightOTW2008

Fast Cat I and Qwik Kit

Since the above article was written in 2008, Tom has completed a superb restoration on Fast Cat and a rebuild of the original EM 30 motor. The first trial run at Kingsbury in 2010 was not a success due to the lack of a suitable propeller. Tom machined an entirely new prop from the solid which enabled Fast Cat to complete its first timed run in several decades. When switched to a lighter line the boat has proven to be thoroughly reliable and now has many more successful runs to its credit including the International regatta where it was the only 30cc boat to record a time. Tom is to be congratulated on bringing this boat back to life and seeing it running again has been one of the season's highlights.

In the previous article reference was made to another of Norman Dixon's boats Qwik Kit. This was again complete and has been passed on to Tom Clement for restoration. The hull is in exceptionally good condition, but as described in a 'Pitbox' item in July 2010, the motor was something of a mystery. It was obviously a 15cc B Class motor yet was clearly not an EM 15 as that is entirely different in design. After careful measurement and comparison it transpired that Norman had built a perfect replica of the EM 30 in Fast Cat but scaled down to make it 15cc. With the exception of the oil tank which is an original EM casting everything else was slightly smaller and had been fabricated or machined from the solid. It is a master piece of engineering in its own right.