James (Jim) Thompson of London, Ontario, designer and builder of Miss Supertest III, did much of the test driving and research in Miss Supertest II which lead to the development of the Harmsworth Winner.ROBERT C RAGSDALE. A.R.P.S./Handout
Within the slim annals of hydroplane racing in Canada, the name of engineering wizard James (Jim) Thompson, and his “Miss Supertest” boats are legendary.
In 1957, in speedboat racing’s unlimited class (meaning those with an engine of any size), Miss Supertest II roared over the Bay of Quinte at just more than 296 kilometres an hour (184 miles an hour), breaking the world speed record on a 1.6-kilometre (one mile) straight-away course. Although an American speedboat beat this time soon after, the statistic still holds as a Canadian record. The achievement was relatively minor compared with what her successor would accomplish.
Miss Supertest III, designed from scratch by Mr. Thompson, stunned the international boat racing world by taking the Harmsworth Trophy, the speed-boating equivalent of America’s Cup, three years in a row. It’s a feat never matched by any other vessel before or since. When her driver Bob Hayward, a mechanic and farmer from Embro, Ont., won the Harmsworth for the first time, many sceptics, particularly in the American press, played down the win as a fluke. They were unable to condescend the next year, nor the year after. The astounding three-peat of Canadian victory could no longer be dismissed as a stroke of luck.
Miss Supertest III, piloted by Bob Hayward, accelerates to victory in the 1960 Harmsworth Trophy race at Picton, Ontario.Lumbers Studio / Courtesy of Jim Thompson Collection
Public appetite for the gripping excitement of hydroplane racing attracted spectators in the hundreds of thousands along the Detroit River where Miss Supertest III’s first Harmsworth victory took place in 1959. Her second and third triumphs occurred near Picton, Ont. Then-prime minister John Diefenbaker was one of the enthusiastic attendees. He later wrote to the driver, Mr. Hayward: “Both you and Mr. Thompson have brought renown to your country.”
The triumph of Mr. Thompson’s boat made sporting news around the world. After Canada’s final win in 1961, the Harmsworth Trophy ceased to be awarded for many years until Britain, where it originated, won it back in 1977. The trophy has since been awarded sporadically.
Miss Supertest III was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1960, before her third Harmsworth win, along with Mr. Thompson and Mr. Hayward. She was the second non-human to be so honoured. The first was the iconic racing schooner Bluenose, whose image graces the Canadian dime.
Mr. Thompson was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2011, Miss Supertest III, and by extension Mr. Thompson and Mr. Hayward, were further honoured with her image appearing on a Canadian postage stamp. Ivan Novotny, designer of the stamp, met with Mr. Thompson and watched as he ran his fingers over the shiny varnished hull of Miss Supertest III, then in storage. “It was just a few seconds, but the look in his eyes told me he’d been transported back in time,” Mr. Novotny said. “He was a gentleman, in the traditional sense of the word; a man for whom a handshake was as good as a contract.”
Miss Supertest III postage stamp.
Mr. Thompson was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Until the final months of his life he was still going to his office. He died of natural causes on May 13, at Parkwood Institute in his home town of London, Ont. He was 94.
Using knowledge he had derived from working with his team on earlier versions, Mr. Thompson poured hours of sweat, and plenty of money, into perfecting the design of Miss Supertest III. He tinkered, revised, revved, accelerated and test drove the lightning-fast vehicle that surged forward the second her start button was pressed.
Powered by a monster Rolls-Royce Griffon engine operating at 2,500 revolutions a minute, she was designed so that on still water the surface in front of her would remain glass-smooth while the rear churned like an erupting volcano. On rough water the boat could become airborne. With no water resistance, both the engine and propeller would rev up by several hundred more revolutions a minute. As soon as she came back down, the propeller would slow back to its water speed in a fraction of a second, putting enormous stress on the mechanical components of the boat.
One byproduct of racing hydroplane propellers is a spume of water shooting into the air, called a rooster-tail for the way it arcs and falls. Miss Supertest III had a particularly majestic one that spurted up to 30 metres (100 feet) in height.
In his book Roostertail: The Story of Miss Supertest III, author John Joseph Kelly wrote: “A basic tactic of American drivers was to get in front of you and try to wash out your engine with the rooster tail as it came down on the boat behind you. The engine would be drowned and that would be the end of the race.” That tactic wasn’t easily deployed with Mr. Thompson’s boat. She usually got out front and stayed there.
Mr. Thompson about to take off before the final heat of the 1960 Harmsworth to double-check a certain characteristic note by pilot Bob Hayward.Courtesy of Jim Thompson Collection
James Gordon Thompson was born in London, Ont., on Dec. 18, 1926, the second of three children. His mother Essie (née McCreery) was a homemaker. His father, John Gordon Thompson, was a businessman and the co-founder of Supertest Petroleum, a single gas station that eventually expanded into a chain of 2,000 across Ontario and Quebec. Taken to watch speedboat races by his father, seven-year-old Jim declared he wanted to win the Harmsworth Trophy for Canada, a determination that stayed with him into adulthood.
After attending Ridley College in St. Catharines, he enrolled in the Royal Canadian Naval College. He graduated in 1946 as a midshipman commenting, “If it floated, I wanted to be around it.”
He then studied mechanical engineering for two years at the University of Toronto, and business for one year at the University of Western Ontario. During the summers, he spent time at a family cottage near Sarnia tinkering with boats. His father once bought him the wreck of an old car engine, which he dismantled, cleaned and reassembled to its original prewreck condition.
By the time Mr. Thompson finished his education he was married to Beverly Smith, a nurse he met on a blind date, and to whom he would stay married for 71 years. Together, they raised a family of five: four girls and a boy.
He was always cautious behind the wheel of a car, his son Gordon recalls, and he took his family on fun outings when he got his pilot’s licence. Daughter Adair says her dad was rarely seen without a suit and tie, even while jigging for cod during a family trip to track ancestors in Newfoundland and Labrador. He was fond of making up unique words and phrases such as “snorkers” for hot dogs, and “swindle sacks” for briefcases. Asked whether a wine met his approval in a restaurant, he liked to reply, “Well, it ain’t vinegar.”
At various times in his early years, Mr. Thompson toyed with the idea of getting into the sport of speedboat racing, but nothing came of it until 1951, when an opportunity presented itself: An unlimited-class boat called Miss Canada IV, built in Gravenhurst, Ont., came up for sale after competing unsuccessfully in the Harmsworth. When Mr. Thompson heard rumours it would be sold to the United States, he foresaw the end of unlimited-class boating in Canada. He expressed his concern to his father who responded, “Well, Jim, if you really have your heart in this thing, I will back you.” The craft was renamed Miss Supertest I to reflect their company’s sponsorship, a practice that remains today with boats such as Miss Budweiser.
With no prior experience of constructing boats at this level, Mr. Thompson assembled a crew and set to work, figuring out a way to fulfill his childhood ambition. Miss Supertest I did not have the right stuff, so she was shelved in favour of II and III. At this point, in the postwar period, surplus aircraft engines were readily available that could propel boats at a greater speed than had previously been thought possible. They also ramped up the level of danger to their driver.
Mr. Kelly wrote: “To give yourself an idea what it was like, the boat would be travelling at 80 mph [128.75 km/h] and up, bouncing across the water. The cockpits were open and the driver had no seat belt because if the boat flipped he did not want to be dragged into the depths tied to it. At this speed in the water it was like sitting inside a kitchen blender. You had to try to drive the boat as well and not let it drive you.”
The words held a sinister truth for Mr. Hayward. In 1961, shortly after his third Harmsworth victory, he was driving the less famous Miss Supertest II during a Silver Cup race on the Detroit River. Travelling an estimated speed of 250 km/h (155 m/h) the boat was flipped by a wave. The impact broke Mr. Hayward’s neck, killing him instantly. Horrified, Mr. Thompson witnessed the accident from a hotel window where he’d been watching the race with Mr. Hayward’s mother. The shock was intense and long-lasting.
For Mr. Thompson, who was already toying with the idea of retiring from racing, the matter was immediately settled in his mind. At a press conference several months later he said, “With the untimely death of Bob Hayward, the members of our racing team would derive little satisfaction from further success.”
Mr. Thompson turned his attention to running the family-controlled petroleum business. Miss Supertest III was put into drydock. She never raced again.
Purchased from Mr. Thompson in 2018 for an undisclosed amount, Miss Supertest III is now owned by Murray Walker, an antique boat collector. She awaits a final resting place in the Canadian Raceboat Hall of Fame, soon to be constructed in the cottage country of Muskoka, Ont. Mr. Walker anticipates the venue being open to the public in the spring of 2022.
“I want to show Miss Supertest III to Canadians, particularly to younger people, to remind them of what a great achievement it was. No Canadian had ever done it before. No single boat in the world had ever won the Harmsworth three times in a row. It was phenomenal,” Mr. Walker said. “Jim Thompson is responsible for one of Canada’s truly great, all-time sporting success stories.”
Mr. Thompson leaves his wife, Beverly; daughters, Adair, Leslie, Ann and Robin; son, Gordon; 15 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.