By John Tracy
I bought my Victory 33 on my birthday in 1995, and I was fortunate enough to be the first person to see it when it came up for sale. I had recently sold a 224 Mako that I had for several years and was looking for a used 27-foot Contender project boat. The previous owner was facing criminal charges related to trafficking illegal weapons into the United States, and the boat was sitting as an unfinished project.
The hull had already received extensive work at the Jupiter 31 facility in Riviera Beach with Joe Moran and Nick Scaffiti, including new fuel tanks, a Jupiter 31 console, updated hatch work, a $10,000 paint job, and roughly $15,000 in fiberglass upgrades. It was sitting on a brand-new trailer that had never seen salt water and came with new a GPS, fish finder, and offshore racing gauges. It still needed outboard power, aluminum work, (including a T-top and leaning post) electronics, plumbing rigging and all finish work.
I rigged the boat myself with twin 200-horsepower Yamaha two-stroke outboards and finished much of the remaining work on my own. Since then, the boat has been repowered three times, eventually reaching its current setup with twin 300 hp Yamaha four-strokes. Over the years, I have also replaced the fuel tanks again, redone the deck, completed several paint jobs, and installed two different T-tops, the most recent being a custom hardtop from Birdsall Marine. Most recently, I added the Seakeeper Ride system, which has completely transformed the way the boat handles and rides offshore.
Before I owned it, the boat had reportedly changed hands among people involved in smuggling drugs between South Florida and the Bahamas, and several of them were later convicted and sent to prison. I have confirmed much of that history through conversations with people who spent time aboard the boat before I purchased it. Like many fast South Florida offshore boats from that era, the Victory 33 carried a certain outlaw reputation, but underneath it all was a hull that was built to run hard in rough water and make long crossings. Ironically, I’ve been in the drug/pharmaceutical business for the past 30 years, so this boat has quite a history in the drug business!
Over the past 31 years, this boat has made well over 100 trips to the Bahamas with family and friends. It has seen countless days of fishing, diving, lobstering, and running through both beautiful weather and some of the roughest water imaginable. My wife, my two daughters, and I have spent thousands of hours aboard making memories off Palm Beach and throughout the islands. The boat has truly been a labor of love and a reflection of my passion for boating, offshore running, and doing much of the work myself to keep it evolving over the years.
The 33-foot Victory Power deep-V appears to have been part of the South Florida offshore performance-boat scene during the late 1970s and 1980s, when smaller builders produced fast, narrow-beam, stepped or deep-V hulls inspired by the race boats coming out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Boats like the Victory 33 were heavily influenced by the deep-V designs pioneered by people such as Don Aronow, Dick Bertram and Jim Wynne. Their hull concepts became the basis for many fast pleasure boats and smaller production offshore hulls in South Florida. Offshore racing in the Bahamas-Miami corridor was especially important because the rough Gulf Stream rewarded deep-V hulls that could run fast in big water.
