Courtesy Allan Brown/PBB archive Allan Brown at the helm of Super Nova during his last race in October 1968. In his career he led development for multiple iconic high-speed powerboat brands and influenced a generation of professional boatbuilders and operators.
After living at full throttle for nearly 90 years, Allan “Brownie” Brown could not straighten his head because of neck injuries and had two knees replaced, but what he had survived in a career of boat racing would have killed lesser men. And that’s before factoring in the pre- and post-race antics. Fellow 92-year-old racer Odell Lewis remarked at the last OFF (Old Friends Forever) racer reunion, “Hell, the rough water was nothing—we ran in that all day! It was the partying that was tougher!”
Brown, who died May 28 in Sabastian, Florida, at 89, described his life as “racing, developing, designing, drinking, and playing gin rummy.” A lover of speed, beer, women, and adrenaline, he left Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1956 to escape a dreaded life as a teacher, for which his Indiana State education had prepared him. He left his loves of fishing, hunting, and freshwater boating to seek adventure in Miami as a boat mechanic. “Coincidentally,” as he often repeats in his irreverent, sarcastic, and historical book, Tales from Thunderboat Row, 1956 was the year boat racing started in Miami. Perhaps fate—Brownie found his place among daredevils experimenting in powerboat and engine building, innovation, and racing.
He became general manager at Challenger Marine, a large boat dealer and service center on 135th Street in North Miami, as nearby 188th Street evolved into the notorious Thunderboat Row—and his future. Living well with a strong company, new house, wife, and kids, he bought a Formula 233 race boat from Don Aronow, telling the notorious builder it was a “lousy name for a boat” and wouldn’t catch on.
When Aronow sold Formula to Thunderbird and started Donzi, he promised, as Brown recalled, “money, fame, loose women, booze… but he forgot to tell me all those things were for him.” Brown bit, leaving the solid dealer job for the next adventure. He was grateful to Aronow. While creating the new company demanded hard work and long hours, it bestowed the fringe benefit of racing Donzis.
Bertram had dominated offshore racing, but when the Ray Hunt/Walt Walters designed Donzi came on the scene, the focus shifted. Brown shone as the Donzi boss—though he thought it was another “stupid boat name”—but when Aronow sold Donzi to the Canadian Teleflex corporation, Brown was part of the deal. He stayed for four years before moving on to new adventures.
Among the notable boat companies he headed were Cary, Magnum, Cougar, and Cigarette, plus some less storied brands like his brainchild, Nova Marine. Stints with companies like Holman Moody, Ford, Stainless Marine, and Gentry Transcontinental led to other innovations, experiences, and inevitably, more stories as he kept moving. Brown said that after about five years, “I’d get sick of them, or they’d get sick of me.”
His friends and contemporaries were the who’s who of the era—Jim Wynn, Sam Griffith, Don Aronow, Forrest Johnson, Clive Curtis, and Dick Bertram—but his idol was revolutionary Italian powerboat designer Renato “Sonny” Levi. “No one was smarter, handsomer, or more competitive,” said Brown, and in his book, he relays a reverently hilarious story about the late great racer. Tales from Thunderboat Row is a witty recount of offshore racing from the 1950s-90s, but the working side of Brown was an equally compelling story, one of focus and achievement behind the mischievous gleam in his eye and his wry smile.
English boatbuilder, Clive Curtis, brought Brown on to head Cougar USA. His son Steve Curtis remembers Brown as, “a friend and mentor—I was the age of his son, so he guided me, but he was also fun. I wanted to drive, so he used me like a test dummy. But I could talk to him, not just about boats but about girls, about life.” Curtis described Cougar in Miami during the 1980s as an exciting “social club” where racers—including Formula 1 car racing teams, owned by investor Ted Toleman—“hung out” just soaking in the adrenaline of powerboat racing.
Brown said that Cougar became the “Big Cat Guys” and attracted the military, smugglers, and eventually, Richard Branson, who commissioned a 67′ (20.4m) Cougar as the Virgin Atlantic Challenge to take the transatlantic record. Though that boat sank 116 miles (267 km) from the finish line, Branson stole Brown’s right-hand man at Cougar, Steve Ridgeway, to become Virgin Atlantic Airway’s CEO, and Brown went on to join Gentry Transatlantic at the invitation of John Connor.
Connor, best known as Betty Cook’s KAAMA team throttleman when she became the first American woman to win the Cowes-Torquay race in 1967, headed the company, as powerboat racer Tom Gentry looked to convert his Gentry Eagle race boat into a yacht and then decided to break the transatlantic record. Connor brought Brown on to help configure the new vessels. “He was a great idea guy, but he also created a positive atmosphere for the crew. His attitude was always, ‘Hey! This is a fun job!’ He got the work done and never seemed to have a bad day,” Connor stated.
Brown and the design team struggled for four years to perfectly size a model that could carry the fuel and maintain power for a transatlantic crossing. Just as they were ready to build, Tom Gentry was killed in 1994 at the Key West World Championship races, ending that dream and company.
Then Val Jenkins, a long-time friend who had come from Rybovich to Mako to Cigarette, brought Brown in to help with the iconic brand. Jenkins said, “Brownie carried a lot of weight, but he never threw his weight around. When he made a suggestion, it was like a command.” But Brown was not a “commander” Jenkins insists. He’d walk around the factory and watch what was being done. If he didn’t like the direction, he’d make a “suggestion. Brownie was very free with his knowledge,” Jenkins added.
Brown described early boatbuilding in Miami before fiberglass as “more craft than business.” He then updated his description observing, “Computers have sucked the knowledge out of the technical end of boating. Nobody builds their own molds, and many ‘builders’ don’t even lay up their own boats. It seems that when this generation of boat building geezers dies, there won’t be any more Howard Abbeys or Forrest Johnsons or Sam Griffiths.” He concocted a 2001: A Space Odyssey scenario around the subject of computer-assisted design when Hal can’t disobey an order to build an 8-engined, 40′ (12.2m) outboard. Brown concluded, “Humans don’t know how to build boats anymore!”
In the early 2000s, with boatbuilding in his wake—except for his personal projects—another challenge opened as technophile Harry Schoell asked for help pursuing his latest inventions. Brown joined a talented team who was on the cusp of major innovations contributing to sustainable transport and robotics. One of the bright young guns, Travis Love, now Senior Engineer at Yamaha Outboard Division, related, “Brownie was like having a fun uncle at work, and I had a front-row seat to the reminiscing of past projects, inappropriate jokes, thick sarcasm, and banter that resulted in plenty of uncontrollable laughter.”
All who knew Brownie are now shaking our heads, wondering who to call with boating questions. Michael Peters laughingly contemplated the need to become an historian. “Without Brownie, who else knows this information?!”
It is impossible to describe or define the man. He was so much to so many, contributing to our knowledge base, our industry, and entertainment. I savor many conversations over many Heinekens and miss that twinkle in his eye while relaying a “slightly” off-color story. I miss calling to ask historical questions which he answered quickly without a second thought. Curtis said he had a photographic memory, and Jenkins added, “Brownie didn’t need to concentrate, he’d say, ‘I just think about it and the answer is there.’”
Perhaps instantly accessed knowledge was part of his talent, but the other part was just making people around him feel important and appreciated.
As Love summarized, “I don’t think the cleverest author could dream up a story as good as the life Brownie lived. He is a true legend of a bygone age that paved the way for so many and so much of what the marine industry is today.”
Godspeed my friend—but you are probably teaching God about speed now.
