Ray DeFir–Portland Water Ski Racer and Boat Builder (1930-2011)

Ray Was First Man to Water Ski 1,000 Miles Non-Stop!

Ray DeFir, an active and well-known figure in the Portland, Oregon boating scene for over 50 years, died in 2011 at the age of 81. Ray had a lifetime love of water sports and was well-known as a record-breaking water-skier, designer and builder of high-performance runabouts, and as an exhibitor at every Portland Boat show from 1960 to 2010. He was born in El Paso, Texas, but it was in Portland that his boating career began and took off.

His adventurous life spanned the entire post-war period, beginning in 1943 when his family moved here from Oklahoma to work in the Kaiser WWII ship yards. They moved into the new town of Vanport, which was built to house the wartime shipyard workers. It grew so fast, it soon had the second highest population in the state. Ray was an adventurous lad, and in the summer of 1944, at the age of 14, he began exploring the nearby lakes and the Oregon Slough with his brother Charles.

He told how they found a Popular Mechanics magazine with plans for a diving bell made out of an old water heater tank. They built their own diving bell, attached an air hose connected to an automobile tire pump, and took turns walking on the bottom of the lake! Next, they discovered a 38-man life boat on the undeveloped west end of Hayden Island. It was partially buried in the mud some distance from the water, so he enlisted more boys from Vanport to dig out the mud, and patch the rusted-out metal with bolts and pieces of inner tube. Then they dragged it down to the river using logs as rollers. They paddled the boat up and down the river for a few weeks until some people in a moorage decided it was too dangerous and sunk it.

The last youthful adventure he described took place in 1946. In a war surplus yard, he found an auxiliary belly fuel tank for a P-38 airplane. It was flattened on the bottom, suggesting a pilot had landed with the wheels down. He bought that tank, cut out the flat section, added a 10″ keel, and had an aluminum boat that he paddled around in the slough. Those carefree early days ended in 1948, when the Columbia rose so high it broke through the dyke and destroyed Vanport in a few hours. That was also the year he graduated from Roosevelt Highschool.

In 1952, he started working for Freightliner and saved enough money to start building his first inboard boat. It was a 16′ Crackerbox design powered by a 296 c.i. flat-head Ford V-8 engine.That winter, the river froze over between Marine Drive and Government Island, and the old gang saw an opportunity for another adventure. They found an empty wire spool that they rolled ahead of them to check the ice, and safely made it to the island and back.

The summer of ’53, began learning to water ski—the skill that was to bring Ray international fame. Then he met Bill Lauderback at Freightliner. Bill went on to start a water-ski school below the parking lot of Waddles Restaurant on Hayden Island and Ray became his assistant. They taught many people to ski, including Russ Waddle and other employees at the restaurant.

Ray’s adventurous nature soon began to devise water-ski stunts that had never been performed. These began with him becoming the first person ever to ski behind a float plane, then with both men learning how to take off from a dock backwards on one ski. Lauderback later manufactured his own brand of Sea Skis here in Portland, which Ray publicized in some of his exploits.

1,000 Miles Water Skiing Non-Stop!

In 1956, Ray built his first mid-engine ski boat. Again it was 16′ and powered by a Ford Flathead. Its superior hull shape was one of the factors that enabled him to set a world record for non-stop water skiing in 1958. After a training run to Astoria and back, Ray had put in around 500 hours behind the boat, so was well prepared to challenge the record of 715 miles set by John Musser of St. Joseph, Missouri the year before.

Ray and his team began by marking out an oval-shaped course 12 1/2 miles long. Then the marathon began. Every went smoothly up to the 24-hour mark, when Ray passed the 725-mile mark, and became the new record holder. The crew celebrated, but Ray yelled that he felt good enough to carry on and try for the 1000 mile mark—a step so huge that it had never even been considered feasible.

His crew continued passing him food like soup, sandwiches, chocolate milk and beer. But the 275 miles still to go, and the pounding at over 30 mph, became increasingly hard, as the fatigue and monotony wore him down. Around his neck, he wore a small portable radio that carried music from KVAN. The disc jockeys tried to help by encouraging him between tunes. In spite of the lively music, twice in the last 200 miles, Ray fell asleep on his feet.

To combat this irresistible urge to doze off, he beckoned for the other boats milling around in the water to swing in close so that he could talk to them. He was riding on only one ski, and the heel of his right foot became painfully tender, which forced him to place all of his weight on the left leg for the reminder of the 200 miles. He covered 1,000 miles in 33 hours and 27 minutes non-stop, finishing at 9:44 a.m. on a Saturday morning. The record was listed in the Guinness Book of Records and has never been broken.

A couple of years ago at the show, Ray revealed to me that his legs never completely recovered from this effort. This was confirmed by Ray’s wife, Lorita (Lori), who was a part of the team. The two met at Freightliner in 1958 and dated for the next ten years. She recently told me the moving story of their relationship. In 1960, Ray left Freightliner to start his own boat building and moorage business. He built her a small but beautiful houseboat that she lived in at his marina, and then he designed his first and only outboard-powered ski boat for her, which she drove while he skied.

Rayson Craft Boats by DeFir Marine

Then their relationship cooled down and they drifted apart. Ray went on to establish his home and shop in Corbett, east of Portland near the entrance to the Columbia Gorge. He specialized in hand-crafted high-performance boats from 16 to 21′, and gradually acquired a huge inventory of parts needed to repair various types of waterjets and drive systems. Ray DeFir set high standards for himself and his boats, so he was always up by 6.30 a.m., putting in long hours to work on what he enjoyed most, his boat business.

He built around 50 of his superb mahogany DeFir boats single-handed, and he also produced fiberglass hulls from a mold built in California by Rudy Ramos. He fitted them with the same attention to detail as his wooden boats. He was a perfectionist and would not accept anything but the highest quality in his finished product. He began displaying his boats at the Portland Boat Show in 1960. The collection of hand-made wooden boats he brought to the show every year always stood out among the mass-produced fiberglass ski craft. That was equally true on the water, where his customers could be assured they would turn heads with a custom built DeFir boat.

Many of these owners became his friends and supporters, while some his boats became treasured family heirlooms, passed from one generation to the next. A Rayson craft bought in 1963 by Dr. Lloyd Greenlea has remained in the family for three generations. In 1998, it was brought to DeFir Marine for a complete restoration by the current owner, Andy Wurtz. No matter what kind of boat you had, Ray was always ready to answer any questions and search for obscure parts.

Rays’ favorite engine was the Olds 468, which could push his boats up to 90 mph, and he loved racing at top speed in organized events around the northwest. It was his idea to hold a New Year’s Day Ski contest around the bridges in downtown Portland—it was held every year in the 1970s and 80s. He continued speed skiing until he was in his sixties, when back surgery reduced his mobility.

But more remarkable still is that in 2002, he made the decision to try to find Lorita, who he hadn’t seen for over 30 years. He put an ad in the Oregonian that only reached her through luck and coincidence. By then, she had been married and divorced for a fair amount of years and had just retired from her job as a legal secretary.

They met again in 2003 and their old flame was re-kindled. This time, he asked her to marry him before she changed her mind! It was “just like the old times,” she said. They were together and enjoying the boating life as if time had stood still. Well into the 21st century, Ray continued maintaining and restoring boats, even though he was now in his late seventies. He went on driving his own boat on the Columbia until the summer of 2010, when his health began to fail.