The Man Building the First Powerboat Race Around the World

Ralph Brown joins Richard Lowe (The Writing King) on Leaders and Their Stories for one of the wildest journeys the show has featured.

A four-time world record holder in extreme boating and former Marine, Ralph invented a boat that can cross oceans and is now building the first powerboat race around the world, a global fundraiser with a hospital fund at its heart.

Ralph Brown is a four-time world record holder in extreme boating, a former US Marine, and the founder of the first powerboat race around the world. He can be reached at cuproyale.com.

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DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the interview follows.

Richard: Hello. My name is Richard Lowe. And this is the leaders and their stories. Podcast I’m the writing king and the ghostwriting, Guru welcome to the podcast I’m here with Ralph Brown, who’s got some interesting things to talk about. Ralph. Why don’t you tell us about yourself?

Four-Time World Record Holder

Ralph Brown: Well, I’m I’m a four-time world record holder in extreme boating

From the Marines to the Classroom

Ralph: So it’s a little bit different. Prior service. Us marine

Ralph: And Marine Corps is really good to me. No doubt there and then. I have a master’s in education. Experience, teaching high school science and mathematics, which I absolutely love teaching. and I got to admit the most fun people to teach is the middle schoolers. 6th and 7th and 8th graders. Okay, they’re just just more fun. 9th graders are good, too, but you get the 10.th Graders are like

Ralph: They’re they’re not so bad either. The 11th graders, though, and the 12th graders impress me. They don’t mean to impress them. I don’t want to impress them. I want to have fun. I want to learn some important stuff

Ralph: And and then I also worked in the financial services industry for about 15 years. Okay, I help people plan their retirement. I had a security license. Learned a lot about finance and how things really work. And so things don’t always work the way you think they’re going to work

Ralph: So I guess about

The Black Friday That Started It All

Ralph: Few years back. I I, my wife, went shopping on. It was Black Friday. I absolutely hate black. Friday.

Ralph: It’s just like fortune. I’ve gone to a few stores on Black Friday with my family, and I mean, it’s just like wall to wall, people just move, move, and I don’t like to block anybody. And I, you know it’s just very uncomfortable, very miserable. But my wife loves it.

Good for her. Go have fun! I took my 2 boys and I went camping. and a friend of mine. He’s like me. He hates Black Friday, too, so he took his boys and went camping. So we’re camping together and we’re heading out Chaskawiska River in Homo Sassa, Florida, just north of Tampa Bay. Okay, and we hit a rock. Okay, broke the motor

Ralph: It ruined the day of trip the day of fishing. So anyways, being the good parents that we were, we sat around and had our kids paddle

Ralph: They’re paddling and paddling. Come on, guys, pad a little faster, come on, get with it! And so somebody came along and towed us in. I did not know that was going to be a life-changing moment in my life. Oh, what happened? Yeah, no idea. But I got kind of pissed off, I thought.

Gee whiz! We can put a man on the moon. but we can’t make a boat that would go over those super shallow waters and still be safe on the high seas. And so the big deal about boating is 3 problems. big waves, shallow water, okay, and horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible fuel economy.

and that what I mean by horrible I mean horrible fuel economy. Okay, boats that are made for big waves. Okay, run aground in shallow water or hit rocks like we did. Okay, boats that are made for shallow water tip over upside down, kill their passengers, and in big ways.

And so the number one cause of death in voting. you know, you would think it’d be drowning. It is drowning. But what caused you the drowning? Was the boat tipped over right. You may. You may remember a couple of football players off of Tampa Bay about 15 years ago. They’re both tipping over

Ralph: You remember the name made the international news

Ralph: But anyways I knew Marquise. I knew him, and he died that day. I only knew no 2 professional football players that were active at the time, and Marquise Cooper and Dwayne white Dwayne wasn’t with him, but Marquise was and so I met Marquise and a couple of times out fishing and anyways.

In fact, the 1st time I met him he was out fishing off a Clearwater beach just north of well, not really north of Tampa, but it’s across from Tampa Bay, most of you know where Clearwater Beach is, but we were fishing out about 3 or 4 miles out, and it started getting dark, and I started the motor, and I was ready to go in.

Pull up anchor. and Marquise Cooper’s mother. I didn’t know who it was. There was a couple of muscle bound guys and a couple of pretty girls in the boat next to me, you know, just like an arm’s throw away. and they were. They couldn’t get their motor started, and it turned out they had fishing line all wrapped around it, and I offered to tow them in, and they said, no, they wanted to clean it off.

Oh, well, one of them said Tommy, and the other one said, We’re gonna wait so I waited for them to get their motor started. It was getting dark. In fact, it got dark. and I refuse to leave. My wife’s like. Let’s go, you know they don’t want to get towed in.

Let’s go. I’m ready to go. And I said, no way. I’m not leaving anybody out here. That’s stranded because it doesn’t take much. Okay for a small problem to become a gigantic problem if things go wrong. And so eventually they got their motor started and we came on. In. We came in. We, my wife said. Those guys look like football players

Ralph: So I went over and asked him. It turned out to be Marky Scooper and Dwayne White

Ralph: And and then I bumped into him again, fishing a shark fishing a couple of months later. And then then it was all in the news how that their boat had tipped over about 35 miles off the coast of Tampa and 3 of the people. It was 4 guys on the boat, but 3 of the 4 drowned

A Boat That Could Cross Oceans

Richard: And so big problem boats tipping over

Ralph: And so the other issue is, you know. basically horrible fuel economy. So I developed a boat that could run in super super shallow water. I’m talking that much water, 3 and a half inches of water. I’ve got video of it running in about an inch of water, but that’s not good for the motor, and that’s not good for this, for other things, but 3 and a half inches of water.

It runs beautiful in it, and so, and it’s safe on the high seas. So, to prove it, I took one from Tampa, Florida. to Wiesbaden, Germany.

Ralph: All the way around Florida, all the way up the coast of the United States, to Canada, to Greenland, to Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands, Scotland, London. From London we went to France, and then we were in France. 1 h took them 1 h to figure out that the French people really don’t like Americans. I’ve heard that forever.

Ralph: I was there, and all of 1 h. Okay, and that’s not really fair. I shouldn’t paint the whole place with it. When we arrived this one French guy met us. I don’t drink, but he met us with a bottle of wine. Okay, and said, Welcome to France. But we were all over. The news

Ralph: You know all that kind of stuff, but we went in to do customs, and it’s like 5 o’clock, and the guy, the customs Guy was still at his desk. and he wouldn’t stamp our passports and let us into the country, he said. Go back out to the boat and spend the night, so we had to go back out past the fence, lock the fences behind us.

You couldn’t go in, and they wanted us to sit on our boat for another till tomorrow morning. Well, the boat’s only a 21 footer. It’s the smallest powerboat that’s ever crossed the ocean in the history of the world. I’ve looked at my brother for months. I don’t want to sit on that boat and look at him anymore.

And so we got in the boat and left. But what’s interesting is, I mean, I was pleading with this guy, and then he ended up with that same, remarking all the time, you Americans think you’re so special? Okay, we can. I don’t have time to stamp your passport, and the truth is.

he didn’t have to stamp my passport, because once. At that time, you know, if he was stamped in England it was good in France, too. I didn’t know that, but I guarantee you that guy sitting on the desk knew it. and but

Ralph: He didn’t. He wasn’t. Gonna tell us, you guys just came from England. Yeah. Okay, well, you could have just said he asked the question. We just came from England. Yeah. So we got to to Rotterdam, Holland. and 2 o’clock in the morning, 3 o’clock in the morning they came out to do customs for us. What a difference

Ralph: And they said, Oh, you don’t have to do customs you’ve got. You were stamped in England to what? So you didn’t have to go, because it was that time England was part of the European common market at that time

Ralph: Stamped in England. You don’t have to go through. You mean that French guy didn’t tell us this. I guarantee you he knew it. Okay. That’s his job to know that stuff. Thanks.

Setting Four World Records

Richard: How did all this change your life?

Ralph: How did that change my life? Oh, man, we’ve set 4 world records in boating. And what the 3rd problem is, the horrible, horrible fuel economy boats make. They get horrible fuel economy. I’m talking about you. Get down your car and get down, going down the Interstate at 70 miles an hour assuming you have an internal combustion engine and not a gasoline engine.

I mean, not electric engine, but you got an internal combustion. You’re getting between 20 30 miles to the gallon at 70 miles an hour, and you got a range of about 300 miles, almost all cars. If you could find a boat that would do 70 miles an hour and had a range of 300 miles.

It’s not getting to 30 miles per gallon. It’s getting 2 or 3 gallons to the mile. Interesting. Okay. Reddit.

Ralph: The big ships. Okay, 400 gallons to the mile

Ralph: Or to contemplate 400 gallons for every mile. you know. And that’s the biggest shifts most big. Most of the ships is more like 50 to 100 mile gallons to the mile, but still 50 gallons every mile. That’s just outrageous the amount of fuel they use. So I developed a boat that not only could run in that much water, but it also developed and was safe on the high seas. I developed an additional boat that gets dramatically better. Fuel, economy.

Ralph: Develop that basically that one I actually found by accident. I have to admit that I was doing a bunch of testing and everything for shallow water capability, and and not to tip over and to be stable on the high seas. So the boat I crossed the Atlantic in.

If you look up me up. Smallest power boat, not smallest boat, but smallest power boat to cross the Atlantic. You’ll see a little tiny yellow and green boat. The reason it’s yellow and green is interstate battery paid for it. and their colors are green. Okay.

The First Race Around the World

Richard: So again, how did this lead to you? Changing your life is because of the boat you created

Ralph: Oh, we’re we’re creating the 1st ever 1st annual powerboat race all the way around the world.

Why the Ultra-Wealthy Are In

Ralph: All right. If you just kind of give you an idea. There’s 85,000 families that have over a hundred 1 million dollars around the world.

Ralph: And that list is growing fast. By the way, as developing countries are coming online. And whenever you have developing countries, there’s always somebody making a million bucks. Okay, or 2 or 3. But anyways, there’s more than 85,000 families that have over a hundred 1 million. If you’ve got over a hundred 1 million. You can afford to buy everything you want right?

Ralph: Except you can’t buy an Nfl team, and if you got a really big ego you might want to count a Nfl team. You can’t buy a Major League baseball team. You can’t buy an Nba team. You can’t buy a international formula, one race team

Ralph: Their average is 1.9 billion. Okay.

Ralph: You can’t buy Internet, a major league soccer team in the United States

Ralph: Okay, well, the big deal is a lot of these people had big egos, and they would love to own an Nfl team. Okay, it’s just way out of their price range. So I’m developing a race around the world. We’re selling teams that people with a hundred 1 million can afford.

Interesting is the largest. This is what I’m doing now. Full time. Okay, it’s actually an international contest to improve the fuel efficiency of ships and boats and yachts. Okay, so 90% of all trade. I bet you that fancy shirt you’re wearing right now was made in China or some other country out of the United States

Ralph: Okay, and I would bet money it got here by ship

The Freighter Technology Problem

Ralph: But that ship is using the same freighter technology for propulsion that they used 67 years ago.

Ralph: Yes, and those things get horrible fuel economy. And they use the same technology. So people say, Well, aren’t there any better ideas? Yes, there’s thousands of better ideas out there, I see. Excuse me back up. There are thousands of ideas. but if you assume that those ideas are all good, you you could be making a big mistake

The Longest Race in History

Ralph: And basically. we’re providing a proving ground, the longest race of any kind in the history of mankind, creating it to race all the way around the world. It’s a 62,000 mile race the way we go because we go both, you know. Basically, we go all the way to the bottom of Africa.

We go through both canals. We go around South America, not, you know, basically us. Anyway, I said, both canals mistake. We’re not going through the Panama Canal. Okay, we’ll go around South America and It’s the longest race in the history of mankind, and we believe it’s going to bring forth really good ideas that are proven.

Now it’s he. If you understand how the shipping industry works. A ship is built on average for 25 years

Ralph: After 25 years. It’s very, very hard to get insurance on the ship. so without insurance on the ship, nobody wants it in the harbor. The reason that works? Of course not. Of course not. Look at Baltimore. Look at what happened in Baltimore. One of the ships hit a bridge there

Ralph: Okay, look, look at Tampa Bay. If you go back about 40 years. One of the ships hit the suncoast highway. Great big bridge. It. Then the ship actually hit another ship first.st Okay. Coast Guard cutter. They tried to drop anchor. They dropped the anchor in the middle of the Coast Guard ship

Ralph: They hit that. They dropped the anchor, tipped over the the the Coast Guard ship. Okay. Killed 23. I think it’s 2320, some odd Coast guard, Coast Guard guys, and then it hit the big bridge and killed another 38 people or so. Shutting down traffic in Tampa Bay for a couple of years, destroying it, just really devastating what they did. That’s right.

Richard: We’ve got. We’ve got about 10 more minutes. So

Ralph: Oh, what’s well? You asked me how it changed my life. I’m telling you

Ralph: Talk on this for you to stop and ask other questions because we’re creating this race. And I can talk about this race for the next 2020 years. I know I figured that out. Okay, I love it. I absolutely love it.

Raising Money and Building Hospitals

Richard: Very, very good. So you’re you’ve created this race that’s gonna raise a lot of money and change a lot of lives

Ralph: Yes, yes, and and

Ralph: And and not just well, we we have a hospital fund for developing countries is part of this. It’s we’re not raising money for the fund right now, but we will be as using the power of the microphone. What I mean by the power of the microphone. Most Americans think that that football is the big thing.

It? It is a big thing, no doubt about it. It’s a very, very big thing, but on the scope of the rest of the world. It’s not. No, no, the the largest football team. American football stadium is Michigan State University. It holds about a hundred 7,000 people

Ralph: They put extra seats in it, and they can get up to 115,000 people

Ralph: All right. The the largest soccer, what we call soccer, or what the rest of the world calls football. Stadium, is in North Korea. It holds a hundred 14,000 people That’s a lot. Okay. It’s the largest soccer stadium in the world.

Ralph: And then cricket is really big, too, the largest cricket stadium in the world. In Australia. It holds a hundred and 100,004 400 seats or so a hundred anyways, but over about over a hundred 1,000 people, just barely over a hundred 1,000, the largest racing stadium. Hold on to your seat the largest racing stadium. 350,000 seats. It’s

Ralph: 3 times bigger than the largest football stadium, 3 times bigger than the largest soccer stadium, 3 times bigger than the largest cricket stadium. So people like to watch racing. Okay, that just got done with the America’s cup sabot race in Europe just got done with it. The economic impact of a race over 1.4 billion dollars a sailboat race.

More than a million people came out to see it, the sailboat race. So we’re creating a race of that caliber

Ralph: We’re looking to to create billions of dollars of economic impact and millions of dollars pay people coming out to see it and then millions to watch it on TV. You stop and think the 5 largest things on TV on the planet. Excuse me, 5 largest regular things on TV, because landing on the moon is big, and Queen Elizabeth’s funeral was really really big, but other than those 2 things, the 5 largest things on on TV worldwide, the Olympics.

Half of it’s racing. The other half is a bunch of other things. but half of it’s racing. It’s country competing against country World Cup. Soccer is country competing against country

Richard: Right European cup soccer country competing against country right

Ralph: The America’s Cup. That’s the sailboat race I just told you about. It’s country competing against country, and it’s racing. Are you seeing a pattern here?

Ralph: Okay? And then next Formula One racing. Okay, The Nfl didn’t make the list

Ralph: Okay. The top 5 things

Ralph: Okay, it’s racing and soccer. Okay, no. The world loves racing and soccer, no doubt about it. So we’re creating this new race. We believe we’re going to have the power of impact of the microphone. We believe the television and media rights are going to end up being worth a lot.

We believe we’re going to have the power to help a lot of people do a lot of things. So one of the things I’m really motivated about is basically hospitals in 3rd World countries. They have in most countries they have the high value, basically, hospitals that are private hospitals for very wealthy people.

Those are clean, and most of them would compare with us hospitals. Okay, they’re they’re they’re clean you go to the public hospitals. In most countries they’re filthy, and the the care there is horrible. Okay, my niece, Christy Brown, was 9 years old when she died in Honduras.

Ralph: Something that could be easily taken care of in the United States easily. When my brother wasn’t rich. Okay, went to one hospital. They said, we can’t help her. Send her to another hospital, and they just let her die. There wasn’t much they could do, and and for something would be easily treated in the United States easily

Come Watch the Races

Richard: All right. All right. Okay, well, that all sounds very good. And I understand. We’re we’re running. We’re out of time. So

Richard: It’s okay. If you had a sentence or 2 that you wanted to tell people. In conclusion, what would it be

Ralph: Oh, come out and watch the races

Ralph: Good contact me if you want to know more. What if you want to be part of this, we have room for some people who want to own part of it.

Where to Find Ralph

Richard: And how can people get hold of you?

Ralph: Ralph, RALP. h@cuproyale.com royale.com. and just or just look up race around the world

Ralph: You’ll go excellent! You’ll find me

Richard: Excellent. Well, thank you for coming. I’m Richard Lowe. This has been the leaders in their stories, podcast I’m, the writing king and ghostwriting, Guru, and you can find me@thewritingking.com or ghostwriting. Guru. Thank you for appearing on the podcast really appreciate it.

Ralph: Thank you. You have a fantastic day, and thank you to anybody who pays attention to

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