Double Trouble JS-38

Former Owner:  The Schmitt Brothers

Year Built:  1965

Hull Design:  Moorecraft

Power: 275-hp, 305 Chevy V-8

Resides In: Riverhead, NY

Double Trouble is twice as nice

(reprinted with the Schmitt Brothers permission, written by Jack Sherwood - Soundings Magazine)

When I first spotted the Schmitt twins doing fly-bys aboard their racing skiff, Double Trouble, on the Corrotoman River in Virginia's Northern Neck of Chesapeake Bay, I did a double take.

And when I was invited aboard for a ride and met both of them, I wasn't sure whether I was riding with Ray or curt Schmitt because of their identical looks.  But it turned out to be Curt, who usually drives and (he says) is a few pounds lighter than Ray.  They have identical, balding, white-fringed hairlines, and they wore matching aviator-style sunglasses and bright yellow PFDs.

I was in the area to crew for a friend, Jack Howley, who has a summer home on the river.  we had hit speeds as fast as 3 knots aboard his old Swan 38 sailboat in the annual October Turkey Shoot Regatta for classic boats, sponsored by the Yankee Point Yacht Club.  Going from 3 to 50 knots blew my hat off and my mouth open, and rattled my teeth and kidneys.

The Schmitt brothers share their identical hobby and have been pursuing their joint boating interest since boyhood, when their father bought them their first hot rod speedster, a 10-foot racing skiff.

Every year in early autumn they trailer their vessel from their home on New York's Long Island to the riverfront home a friend, John "Woody" Woodard of Weems, Va.  There they burn up the calm waters off the Rappahannock, ideal for nautical hot rodding.

On summer weekends, at the age of 63, Curt and Ray still can be found boiling water on New York's Gardiners Bay off Shelter Island in their restored, 16-foot Jersey skiff.  Built of fiberglass in the mid-1960s, the appropriately named Double Trouble is lettered in yellow on the varnished transom.  The sides of the boat are red-lettered with "JS-38" for Jersey Skiff and 1938, the year they were born.

The canary-yellow, lapstreak skiff was restored by the twins in 1999 and has a new, brilliantly varnished mahogany deck.  It has won numerous awards at antique boat shows where they exhibit (and operate) their showboat.

The twin-compartment speedster is powered by a 275-hp, 305 Chevy V-8 with twin exhaust and a two-bladed propeller.  It can top 61 mph.  The twins restored the boat over a two-year period and maintain it themselves, but the engine was rebuilt and modified at Merkel Racing Engines, a speed shop in Hauppauge, NY.

"Our parents dressed us alike until we were sophomores in high school, which may have been a little too long," laughs Curt, a retired motorcycle dealer who lives on Shelter Island.  "but when we take our skiff to antique boat shows, we go back to dressing alike."

To add to the confusion, painted on the port aft end of the boat is "curt Schmitt, driver" and "Ray Schmitt, mechanic."  But on the starboard side, the names and positions are reversed.

"That's inherent with our twin sense of humor," says Curt, whose brother was traditionally the drive in races because he was more successful.

Ray won the 1965 American Power Boat Association's Region 2 High-Point Awards and the APBA's 1965 Orange Bowl Regatta in Miami in the 150 Class, with speeds of 100 mph.

"After that, I became the mechanic and Ray did the racing," says Curt.  "But since I funded our current boat, I have appointed myself the driver and mechanic, although we look upon it as our boat."

As twins, they get along famously.  "We also talk alike, sound alike, and share the same personality," says Curt.  "Ray can start a story, and I can finish it."

Ray, who lives in Riverhead, NY, is the service manager at the Island Boat Yard on Shelter Island, where the trailered Double Trouble is kept covered in a shed.  They use it several times a month, often going fishing in it as well.  "We call it our quiet time together," says Curt.

After starting with an outboard speedster at the age of 14, they gradually progressed to inboards.  In 1967, however, they gave up racing to concentrate on careers and raising families.

After jointly owning a number of small, high-speed hydroplanes, the twins found themselves boatless and boat hungry in 1996, and decided they would try and find their old champion Orange Bowl racer, Short Cut, in hopes of restoring it.

"We went to a big antique boat show in the St. Lawrence Seaway in Clayton, NY, and were bitten by the vintage boat bug," says Curt.  "There, we met Skip Gillam, who restores and builds Jersey Skiffs in Hialeah, FL.  He actually located the owner of our 50-year old boat, who informed us, sadly, that it had been chain-sawed and broken up."

So the twins bought a Jersey Skiff from Gillam and spent two years restoring it.

"We don't race anymore because our boat is no longer competitive," Curt explains  "Today's Jersey skiffs can hit 80 mph.  We just do fly-bys at 60.  That's fast enough for us these days."

The twins started racing a class called A Utility boats (10 footers) on the south shore of Long Island when they were barely into their teens.  "we grew up in Massapequa, NY, and our father had an 18-foot Sea Sled runabout, but that wasn't fast enough for us," he says.

That first boat was named "Gufista," after Gus's Fishing Station, a rowboat rental business on Great South Bay owned by Uncle Gus Schmitt, their father's brother.  "Rowboats were never up to our speed," says Curt.

The twins now are happily into their second boyhoods, reliving the glories of youth in another hot rod.

Their children, however, have shown no interest whatever in the sport.  And their wives - Curt's Lucy and Ray's Pat - tolerate the hobby and applaud their boyish mates on the fly-bys as they boil the waters of Long Island Sound.

Some people never grow up.  An that, dear readers, is the bounty of boating - a sport for all ages.