The Big Picture: Fast Times with a Top Test Driver
Think you’ve had some wild powerboat rides? Try a day on the water with Bob Teague.
September 30, 2009
Nothing about Bob Teague, Powerboat magazine’s lead test driver—he’s been testing boats for the magazine for more than 30 years—is easy. He’s demanding and moody, often short and seemingly arrogant. He’ll destroy you if you talk out of your backside, just as he’ll shred you if you try to kiss his.
No one has tested more high-performance boats than Bob Teague, Powerboat magazine's lead test driver.
He’s also the bravest man I know. And a gifted powerboat driver. And a talented engine builder. And one of my best friends.
I don’t pretend to be objective when I discuss Bob Teague. The guy is one of my heroes and I am pretty damn sure he would do anything for me. Still he routinely makes me crazy during a test day. (I am Powerboat’s editor at large and most often Teague’s copilot). He also engenders my fiercest loyalty.
Want to know one of the ways he makes me crazy? Bob Teague is not the most patient individual. When we are done testing a boat for speed and acceleration and starting handling drills, he often doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to stow my test gear. So I find myself snatching test booklets, pens, stopwatches and even the odd radar gun battery out of the air and trying to get them into my kit bag as we go through lock-to-lock slalom turns.
Bob Teague and his wife, Andrea.
The more I swear at him, the harder he laughs.
Want to know how Bob Teague engenders my loyalty? He keeps me alive in situations where it isn’t all that easy, such as in a small catamaran that starts to swap ends at 115. Teague handled that one. Then there was the time when the big V-bottom we were riding in at 95 mph snapped off a propeller blade. Suddenly and violently, the boat rolled hard to my side. I could have touched my nose to the water, and not just because I have a big nose. Teague handled that one, too.
My fastest ride with Bob was 168 mph in a 36-foot catamaran. My slowest ride with Bob was 42 mph in a wakeboard boat. My most terrifying ride with Bob was 145 mph in a 25-foot catamaran—just four feet longer than the 42-mph wakeboard boat.
I confess: I actually closed my eyes at one point during that ride. Thank god Bob didn’t.
Bob Teague also is the toughest, hardest working person I know.
You want tough? How about crawling into the engine compartment of a 46-foot catamaran after a wire-harness on an engine caught fire? The Halon fire-extinguishing system had put out the blaze, but we still needed to open the hatch and the boat’s electrical system was close to dead. Teague got inside the compartment by stuffing himself head first through a small access in the cat’s port sponson.
Teague, shown is his current Amsoil Skater race boat, has won multiple national and world powerboat racing titles.
Not a pleasant environment— the compartment was filled with smoke, Halon and a couple of white-hot engines. Teague was in there for at least five minutes before a combination of him pushing up on the hatch and me tickling the hatch switch eventually opened the compartment.
And when I say hard-working, I mean this 60-year-old force of nature never stops. During Powerboat’s annual Performance Trials, Bob Teague is the first person on the docks before sunrise and the last person to leave them after sunset. I teach mountain biking and indoor cycling—mountain biking is my passion—and I like to think I’m fit. Bob Teague works circles around me.
OK, I confess: It hasn’t all been hard work with Bob Teague. Mostly, it’s been fun as hell. The only person I’ve laughed with more with than Teague is my ex-wife, who has a wicked sense of humor. Two moments with Teague, both of which produced huge laughs from both of us, stand out.
The first was during the test of a Mannerfeldt “bat boat” (so named for its wing-like hull extensions). I was driving and Teague was throttling in 3- to 5-footers off Hawk’s Cay in Florida. We launched off one wave at 60 mph, landed square in the face of the next one, pierced it like a torpedo and kept on running. We were howling as the water poured through the perimeter of the hatch in the canopy and drenched us.
The second moment didn’t actually happen on a boat—it happened on the way to a record run in Peru. When we walked out of customs in Lima at midnight, the throng of people—complete with livestock—was so overwhelming and other-worldly (more like third-worldy) that we just started laughing.
Bob and his daughter, Cherilyn (Teague also has a son, John), framed by Teague's pleasure boat, a Skater catamaran.
Bob Teague and I have tested boats together for almost 15 years, and I hope we can do it for 15 more. He’ll be 75 by then, and I’ll be (yikes) 63. He’ll be just as exasperating as he is now, and just as endearing. And of course, he’ll still be able to outwork me.
Heroes can do that.
Editor’s Note: Boats.com bi-weekly columnist Matt Trulio is the editor at large for Powerboat magazine. He was written about boats and boating for almost 15 years.
