Day 2986 Ezio Selva Last Race MOSCHETTIERE V

Waterdrome of Milano 1957

This is the Ezio Selva's MOSCHETTIERE V which was the boat that he drove to his fatal accident at Miami in 1957. 
Timossi hull, 800 kg. class, Alfa Romeo 159 engine, double supercharged, 8 cylinder in-line. 

When the boat was returned back to Italy, the engine was returned to Alfa Romeo and the boat, at the wishes of the Ezio Selva widow, was destroyed.


"I'm a lucky driver," he used to say.
"I've never been in the water."

With luck riding in the cockpit, Italy's Ezio Selva became a world champion hydroplane driver, a little, effusive man with a light touch on the skidding turns and a heavy foot on the straightaways. A onetime high-diving champion of Italy, Selva seemed ideally suited for the sport he took up in 1948 at the advanced age of 46. Cockily, he used the 400-h.p. Alfa-Romeo engine from the boat that had killed his good friend, Mario Verga, in 1954.

"One engine won't kill two men," said Selva.

But in the U.S., Selva had more than his share of bad breaks. Three times he was knocked out of the Orange Bowl's International Grand Prix in Miami, twice on disqualifications and once when an underwater object ripped a hole in his hurtling hull.

Last week when he climbed into his bright red Moschettiere (Musketeer) for a fourth try at the event. Selva had good reason to think this time his luck might be good. He knew the course, and his engine was tuned to a blatting, bellowing roar of controlled fury.

But win or lose, Selva, 55, had decided to quit the sport after the race.
Said he: "I'm too old."

Against standard racing strategy, Selva let himself be beaten to the starting line in the first heat, was trapped back in the pack and could not break loose until the last lap when he nearly caught the winner, George Byers Jr. of Columbus, Ohio.

Between heats he explained to newsmen: "I no like to start first bad luck."

In the second heat, Selva again was beaten to the start by two boats, but the judges immediately disqualified them both for jumping the gun. Out on the water, without knowledge of the judges' decision, Selva knew only that he was behind again. While his 20-year-old son Luciano made movies of the race from the shore, Selva roared after the leaders. The arching rooster tail of water thrown up by his prop hissed behind as Selva whipped past the second boat. And skipping down the straightaway at 100 m.p.h., he shot into the lead right in front of his son's camera. An instant later, a wave slightly lifted the hydroplane's flat nose. Ponderously, the 364-lb. boat started into a slow-motion backward somersault.

Luciano hurled away his camera and screamed: "It's turning over! Father, father!"

The red Musketeer landed full on its bow, dashing Selva against the windshield. His son half-jumped, half-fell 30 ft. to the ground from the judges' stand and leaped into the bay. A patrol boat raced to pick up Selva's floating body. The windshield had ripped into Selva's chest, and he was already dead. His first spill into the water was his last.

December 23, 1957
My point of view.

 

The boat lifted from shore into the air , red and unique, an engine that sounded different and was different, he had something to tell me. There was something about him even at 8 years old, that he was to carry on, past this day.  Because I was there, that he is to go on.  Did he race this boat on Lake Como in Italy, is that why I’ve got a connection in St. Paul?  Did he test his new hydroplane design on the waters there.  Would winning the big race in the United States, one last time, prove he was the greatest of the world?  But instead, rather on top, he just ended.

There was a point of no return, when the fraction of an inch was pushed a little too much.  A gust of wind lifted the front before the tip of his foot could relinquish a little power, churning within the spinning engine.  He had a new experience, the leaving of the water, the view of the bow moving up over the horizon into the sky where all you see is blue before the flight touches down on to water, made hard by tremendous speed.  His last view before the curtain went down on a great career. 

From the distant shore I saw my favorite boat take flight.  A sense of the finality was experienced even at my age.  The redness of his sleek boat destroyed, left with a smashed deck of mangled metal, returned to the shore.  Many attempts were made to lift the hull from the water, each time it returned to its grave.    Ezio stepped over the edge, trying to go a little farther. For me it was the first tragic death I watched.