Word: speedboater
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...Madama Butterfly. But operagoers in 1910, when Fanciulla had its premiere at the Met, were no fussier than televiewers are today: with Caruso and Emmy Destinn in the leads, the premiere tied up traffic for hours near the opera house. The delighted Puccini celebrated by buying a $3,000 speedboat and naming it the Minnie. Neither the Minnie nor the opera enjoyed clear sailing: the speedboat had a collision on an Italian lake and almost sank; the opera disappeared from the Met's repertory...
...Duque, a veteran of Castro's Sierra Maestra fight against former Cuban Dictator Fulgencio Batista, is the rebels' nominal chief. In fact, the Escambray guerrillas are still divided into half a dozen forces with only loose coordination, but since last October they have been getting arms in speedboat forays and airdrops organized by Cuban refugee groups in Miami...
Died. Lou Fageol, 54, crafty, daring king of speedboat racers and three-time winner of the Gold Cup; of a heart attack; in San Diego. Though he whooshed the big hydroplanes through the water for 27 years, Fageol insisted that each race "scared hell out of me," finally retired in 1955 after his Slo-Mo-Shun V soared 70 ft. into the air at 165 m.p.h., looped the loop, and dumped Driver Fageol into Seattle's Lake Washington with four fractured vertebrae, four broken ribs, a punctured lung and a permanently damaged heart...
...black Rolls-Royces drew up to a pier in Monaco, disgorged recently divorced Shipping Czar Aristotle Socrates Onassis and his great and dear friend, sulphurous Soprano Maria Callas, legally separated from her husband. A scarlet speedboat skittered them out to Onassis' yacht Christina. On the eve of sailing for Eastern Mediterranean ports, "Ari" and Maria went ashore for dinner with Monaco's Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace. Next day Christina steamed off across the azure waters for Capri, and from there she was bound for Venice, where Maria would presumably debark to keep a recording date...
Actually, the breaking of the sound barrier is nothing more than the point at which the noise is turned on. Air is a fluid, and, above the speed of sound (about 760 m.p.h.), it reacts much like the surface of a lake when a speedboat rips across it: waves go out and roll toward land. The sonic boom occurs when the shock wave from a jet hits the nearby ground. It follows the plane wherever it goes, and the pressure may make a sound equal to ten thunderclaps...