Ginger Henry Kuenzel grew up spending summers on New York’s Lake George, at a time when powerboat racing was nothing less than an absolute craze.

“I was born in 1949, so I got to experience it as a kid,” she says. “I have two brothers—one older, one younger. My older brother started racing when he was 12. I always wondered about what my mother was thinking, letting him do this, but he was about the same age that my
father was when he started racing.”

Kuenzel’s new book, The Buzz on Lake George: Speedboat Racing 1900-1964, documents not only the racing heyday that her family enjoyed, but also the prior years that led up to her father and his friends creating all the commotion.

“I’ve gotten in touch with a lot of the old racers who were teenagers at the time,” she says. “They’re in their late 70s and 80s now. They were so happy to talk about these times.”

The races, Kuenzel explains, actually began long before she was born, in 1901. They were put on by the Lake George Regatta Association and received regular coverage in The New York Times because competitors were often well-to-do Manhattanites on vacation. In 1914, the American Powerboat Association held its Gold Cup—“their Indianapolis 500,” says Kuenzel—on Lake George.

Kuenzel’s grandfather and uncle raced in those days, and the fun continued for years, until 1929 and the Great Depression.

“All these people lost a lot of their money. It wasn’t the time to be having these lavish races,” she says. “Then, everything sort of died out.”

The races didn’t resume until after World War II, when people like her father returned from the military and wanted to rekindle the lifestyle of their youth. Her dad bought a marina on Lake George and started to race outboard-powered boats. By the time Kuenzel was born in 1949, Carl Kiekhaefer (whose company became Mercury Marine) was helping to promote such races nationwide, to sell outboard motors—now, to the masses.

“After the war, you had a middle class that we really hadn’t had before. Guys had a little bit of disposable income,” she says. “This was kind of a cool thing to do, to pack up your family and your little racing boat. It was a completely different culture.”

Her father and his fellow business owners on Lake George cooked up a plan to bring the races back, to promote tourism. The first of those official races was in 1954. The following year, 62 boats participated. It was 109 boats the year after that. The peak, in 1957, saw 143 boats.

The races continued until 1964, with a “big boat” having a length of 13 feet, 9 inches and a 40-hp outboard. Smaller boats were 12 feet with a 7.5- hp engine.

All of them, Kuenzel says, felt like they were flying: “You’ve got about a quarter inch of plywood between you and the water.”

Decades after the races had ended their second wave, in the early 2000s, one of her father’s friends died. He had been the publicity chairman when she was a kid, and had kept all the original press photos, programs, letters from sponsors and more. His widow gave it all to Kuenzel.

Those materials, along with Kuenzel’s memories and interviews, formed the basis for The Buzz on Lake George, which is her fourth book. It was featured this summer at the Hague Historical Society and in lectures around the lake where people who used to race have approached her and shared their own memories.

“This older guy came up to me and asked me to sign his book, and he said, ‘By the way, I raced in that event in 1958. It was great,’” she says.

She also interviewed a number of former racers for the book. One man told her how his father would take him to Lake George back in the day, and how the experience led him to use boating as a way to impart wisdom to his own children.

“He went on and on about how this had become a way for him to teach his kids about sportsmanship and perseverance—life lessons, really,” she says.

The book also includes information about the 13-foot, 9-inch boat Gingerly, which Kuenzel’s father raced. Her cousin just finished restoring it last year. The family believes it was a custom design built by Marcel Raveau, whose hulls were renowned for their speed in races on the Hudson River.

“My dad met Marcel at one of these races, so from that point on, he only had Raveau boats,” she says. “These boats are anything but gingerly. I was very proud to have a boat named after me. I was 7 when he got it in 1956.”

The family had a party in 2023 when the restored Gingerly was relaunched, she says, “with everybody cheering that this boat was back out on the lake running.” In attendance was Bob Walwork, an apprentice of Raveau’s. Walwork is now in his 80s and has been restoring Raveau’s builds for years.

As Kuenzel says, “There’s a big community around this.”

This article was originally published in the September 2024 issue.