A Speed Demon of the Seas

Brooklyn power boat racer going against world's best.

By Diane Herbst STAFF WRITER
Published: October 6, 1991; New York Newsday-Brooklyn

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There's nothing like slamming into eight-foot waves at 100 miles per hour and soaring 15 feet into the air to take your breath away. And that's not the least of it. Try cold sweats, dangerously high blood pressure, and torturous back and neck pain.

"It feels like going twelve rounds with Mike Tyson," David Windmiller says of off-shore power boat racing. Despite all that, Windmiller, of Brooklyn, and John Shiels of West Sayville, L.I., are racing today in the National Offshore Championships on the lower Hudson River, starting at 1 p.m. And Windmiller can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

"It's a love of speed," said Windmiller, who owns the team's 32-foot boat Photo Finish, which he custom built, mostly by himself. The boat will reach speeds up to 140 miles per hour in the 156-mile race as he and Shiels loop 17 times around the flat-water course in the Open Division, the most competitive class of competition.

"Dave's pretty wild and pretty aggressive, and that's what I like about him," said Shiels, 38, who steers Photo Finish. In 1987, Shiels won the Offshore World Championships in his own boat.

The unflappable Windmiller, who will be clad in a bright orange helmet and an air-cooled suit (temperatures in the two enclosed cockpits can reach 115 degrees) mans the throttle. It's a job that controls speed and involves the ability to adroitly make split-second decisions.

"I have to look at every wave and decide how much power to give the boat and not stuff it,"Windmiller said.

In a New Orleans race this summer, he "stuffed it." The boat, which looks like a slick racing car sans wheels, transformed into a submarine as it slammed into a wave and cruised for half a minute eight feet beneath the surface.

"When we resurfaced," said Shiels, "the boat was half filled with water." The shaken pair jumped ship, dangling from Photo Finish's side as she was tugged to shore.

But staying close to the edge and taking daredevil risks run through Windmiller's soul. Even as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, Windmiller had a penchant for speed. He raced dirt bikes, motorcycles, and "anything I could get my hands on with a motor," said the soft-spoken daredevil. "My father had a power boat, but he wouldn't let me have my own."

Windmiller took to the skies as a 14- year-old, flying aerobatic planes (you know, the ones that do loop-the-loops) out of Republic' Airport in Farmingdale, L.I. Yet it wasn't until 1985, when his photo finishing business (hence, the boat's' moniker) flourished, that Windmiller finally bought his first motor craft, a pleasure boat that reached a mere 60 mph.

Windmiller completed Photo Finish a year ago, needing 18 months and $400,000 to build her. "And that's on the low end," he said, noting that some racing boats cost $1.5 million.

After the severe poundings of each race, the entire boat must be rebuilt. Last week, Photo Finish sat tucked in the corner of All Seasons Marine Corp. in the Kings Plaza area of Brooklyn, with sundry bits of engine strewn about the floor.

"There are objects you can hit with a hammer forever that won't bend," said Windmiller. "But you can take them through one race and they're bent like a pretzel. Even wires break." He estimates it takes 400 hours of work to get ready for each of the season's seven races, including one that will require hauling the boat to Key West, Fla.

As one of just 35 professional offshore competitors, said Windmiller, he placed fourth in two races this summer in Chicago and New Orleans. Windmiller said confidently that today, the hometown boys will rule.

"We are the fastest boat, definitely, and we'll win if nothing breaks down, " said Windmiller. Then, as if to mock the other racers ("They don't like people from New York"), he affixed a label running half the length of the shiny white hull that shouts, "BROOKLYN, NY".

Instead of waves, the Hudson's biggest challenge will be avoiding normal New York City flotsam and jetsom, like four-foot-long logs, which can destroy the delicate engines.

So far, Windmiller has not suffered any injuries. "Nothing except monetary," said Shiels, laughing.

Added Windmiller: "That's the hardest part of this all."