If you followed the progress of the White Tornado, a 31-foot Bertram raceboat built in 1969, on speedonthewater.com or read the extensive feature on the V-bottom in the Sept./Oct. 2015 issue of Speed On The Water digital magazine, you know the story of this meticulously detailed restoration project. But for those who want to know—and watch via online video—a whole lot more, the 31-footer’s owner has created a website, which went live in late June, that chronicles the project in an even greater level of detail.
The White Tornado website is every bit as detailed and thorough as the restoration project itself. (Click image to enter the site.)
Navigation tabs at the top of website include subjects from “History” and “The Find” to “The Restoration” and “Launch 2015.” Want to see the exquisite boat in action? Check out the “Aerial Video” section, which offers an expertly shot and edited, 4-1/2-minute video montage of the White Tornado running off Miami. As for still images, the site’s “Photo Gallery” is loaded with hundreds of them from the boat’s step-by-step restoration to its first time running after completion.
But perhaps the most compelling four videos of the project can be found by clicking the “Launch Day” tab. Watching many of the people involved—all delighted to be there— cram into the restored 31-footer for its first sea trial is a treat.
Click on the “Team Member Interviews” tab and you’ll find video discussions with the principals involved hands-on in the restoration including TNT Custom Marine team members Mike Thomas, John Tomlinson and Gary Brinker, Eddie Guardado of Guardado Marine and Reiner Lopez of Miami Prestige Interiors.
For those who want to go deeper, the “History” and “The Find” sections are compelling. In “The Find Section,” readers will be treated to video of Cadillac McDaniel describing how he found the 31-footer in 2011, bought it and later sold it to his friend and noted yacht designer, Michael Peters.
As he did with the White Tornado restoration, the boat’s owner went all out with the website celebrating and capturing every moment of the project he commissioned. But we warned: Once you arrive at the White Tornado website, you’ll probably be there awhile. In Internet-speak, they call it “sticky.” We just call it excellent.
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