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120L x 50W x 34H (cm) 47.24L x 14.94W x 13.68H (inch RECORD SETTER At the January 1953 Campione d’Italia races, Castoldi piloted Arno XI to an unofficial top speed in excess of 124mph during the shakedown testing, prior to the official two-way run. His rival, Mario Verga, had taken Castoldi’s place at Alfa Romeo, who were lending their full official support to Verga, including their technical staff and press officer. Verga managed to set the 800kg-class speed record of 125.68mph with his Alfa 159 powered Laura. Two weeks later, he surpassed his own record with a two-way top speed of 140.74mph. In preparation for another attempt at breaking Verga’s new record, Castoldi had a new engine built with twin superchargers, which compressed the air and fuel delivered by a pair of massive 4 barrel Weber carburetors. The engine was tuned to burn methanol, which allowed the compression ratios to be increased and the superchargers to produce plenty of boost with less risk of detonation. Arno XI’s new methanol burning, twin supercharged 4.5L Ferrari power plant produced between 550 and 600 brake horse power. Enzo Ferrari sent Stefano Meazza, the chief race engineer of the Scuderia, to help prepare the new supercharged engine. Grand Prix champion Alberto Ascari and driver Luigi Villoresi showed the support from the Scuderia by attending the event. On the morning of October 15, 1953, Achille Castoldi succeeded in smashing the 800kg class speed record with an average “flying kilometer” two-way speed of 150.49 mph. Ascari and Villoresi boarded a small boat and pulled up alongside Arno XI to congratulate their friend Castoldi. He followed up the performance later that day by setting another record in the “24 nautical miles” event with an average speed of 102.34 mph. Castoldi retired from hydroplane racing in 1954, after a scary and violent engine failure while traveling at high speeds in a new airplane-engined 1700kg Timossi hydroplane. His rival, Mario Verga, died in a separate hydroplane accident a short time later. Achille Castoldi sold Arno XI to a wealthy engineer named Nando dell’Orto. Ingnere dell’Orto revised the body lines of the engine cover and front fairing, added a large fin behind the driver for stability, and raced the boat for a few more years. The most notable success was a 2nd place finish in the 1965 900kg World Championship. Arno XI was restored in the early 1990s and was put up for auction at the Coy’s Festival at Silverstone in 1997 where it did not sell. It was photographed skimming across the water as recently as September 2004, along with many other vintage racing boats...   
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