The KD 900 kg World Championship
1965 was also a year of great successes in the inboard field where more or less the same protagonists as the previous season found themselves at the top. Three, in particular, were the prominent names: Ermanno Marchisio, Giulio De Angelis and Leopoldo Casanova. Marchisio, on his Timossi-Maserati, confirmed himself for the fourth consecutive time as world champion among the KD 900 kg racers.

On the usual stretch of water in Campione D'Italia, our champion obtained his poker of titles by crushing all the fierce competition, finishing, in the final classification, more than three minutes ahead of the second classified: the always valid Nando Dell'Orto. Marchisio won all three scheduled heats: in the first he preceded the brothers Flavio and Giorgio Guidotti, Dell'Orto, Giorgetti, Crivelli and the Swiss Joseph Ulrich, the only one of the two foreign competitors to enter the classification. The other, in fact, is his compatriot Wyss who, however, never manages to finish the race. In the second and third heats, Marchisio repeats with the same arrival order, keeping Dell'Orto and the good Giorgetti in his slipstream (for the occasion racing with the three-point Celli owned by the Venetian Ligabue, pushed by a Chevrolet). A negative day for the Guidottis: during the second heat, Giorgio complains of a failure of the oil pump, while Flavio complains of a broken steering wheel cable: both are therefore forced to give up the last heat.
Marchisio, at the end of the race, talks about how difficult it was to bring his racer to success on increasingly choppy waters and how he managed to tame, during the second heat, a violent blow to the kidneys with great courage and temperament. As for the other participants there is little to say: too slow and in difficulty due to mechanical problems both the Italian Crivelli, with the Celli-Maserati and the Swiss Ulrich and Wyss: their Ford-powered boats proved, in fact, clearly inferior to the more competitive Maseratis.

The World Championship of the Z 2500 class
In the Z 2500 class we find Giulio De Angelis as protagonist, who wins on the home waters of Lake Bracciano. With this laurel, the Roman driver definitely places himself among the big names of the international inboard racing elite. Taking advantage of the advantage of racing between the so-called "ancient walls" and, not to be overlooked, of not finding two great adversaries such as Libanori and Maderna in the race, De Angelis must compete, above all, with Castiglioni, his most tenacious antagonist. At the start of the first heat, there are six starters: the Italians De Angelis (A.Molinari-Alfa Romeo), Petrobelli (Celli-Alfa Romeo), Cerutti (Celli-BPM), Dosi (Celli-Alfa Romeo), Castiglioni (Celli-CR), and the Frenchman Roger Altwess (Rossi-Alfa Romeo).
With a textbook start, De Angelis takes the lead in the first heat while, behind him, a brawl breaks out with Dosi, Castiglioni and Petrobelli chasing each other, practically glued together. While De Angelis continues his march undisturbed, a collision between Dosi and Castiglioni is almost reached: the latter manages to move into second position, followed by Petrobelli, Altwess and Cerutti. This is also the order of arrival of the first heat which sees, during the fifth lap, the definitive retirement of Dosi, due to an irreparable mishap. The unfortunate driver from Vigevano suddenly finds himself with a connecting rod cut in half: the missing piece is dragged by the crankshaft, and creates a break in the engine block with the consequent escape of boiling oil from the sump that hits the driver's legs. Another episode worth telling, which occurred in the first heat, involves Gianfranco Castiglioni and, probably, with hindsight, turns out to be decisive for the final outcome. The pilot makes a mistake when entering the buoy and tries to repair it by going back: but, again he makes the mistake because, he executes the turn keeping the buoy on his right while, by regulation, in the turn the buoy must be on the left of the hull. All this does not go unnoticed by the jury who warns Castiglioni with a six minute penalty. In the second test Castiglioni jumps to the lead and dominates the race, finishing first with almost a minute of advantage over De Angelis; in third place we find Petrobelli and in fourth Cerutti.
In the last fraction we see once again the success of Castiglioni ahead of Petrobelli and the Frenchman Altwess. De Angelis, however, finds himself in difficulty with his engine from the fourth lap: however, he finishes the heat ahead of Cerutti and boasts the world title amidst the heart-pounding of his numerous fans.
Upon returning to the haulage, the evident emotion of father Elio, president of Rari Nantes Bracciano, cannot go unnoticed. He had strongly hoped for the assignment of this championship in the hope, well placed, that his son would be able to give this memorable joy to him and his countless admirers.

The Venetian race of Lio Grando
Giulio De Angelis, in the Venetian event of Lio Grando, grants the encore, for this season, confirming himself as European champion of the LV 1300 cc class for the third consecutive time. Offering a very careful performance of a consummate champion, De Angelis ranks second in the initial two heats; the first time preceded by the local driver Guido Perziano and subsequently behind Guido Caimi. He then manages to dominate the remaining two heats, taking two significant victories and totaling the points necessary to conquer the continental band. In the final ranking, behind De Angelis, we find Guido Caimi: both use A.Molinari-Alfa Romeo hulls. In third place Leopoldo Casanova with his Popoli-Alfa Romeo, whose performance is a little below the usual standard due to some mechanical problems. In fourth place Guido Perziano, in fifth Capucchio and in sixth the Swiss Wyss, the only foreigner present with an A.Moilinari-Alfa Romeo hull that, however, is scarcely competitive. It is worth noting the total defection of the racers from beyond the Alps who, the previous week, had performed in an international race in Campione d'Italia; the same, despite the presence of their hulls on the Venetian race course, were unable to reach Lio Grando in time because the circulation of cars had been interrupted on a stretch of French road due to a landslide.
The Venetian Perziano made a mistake in a turn, missing a buoy: thus, through his own fault, he precluded himself from the fight for the top of the rankings. Furthermore, with a sudden and careless maneuver to return to the slipways, he was unable to avoid the collision with Wyss who was coming up in his wake. To tell the truth, Wyss, by steering outside, manages to make the collision between the boats less violent: the worst, however, happens to the Swiss who finds himself zig-zagging, risking to slip between the countless boats of the spectators. It is only thanks to the great self-control of Wyss that everything ends well, apart from his hull that sinks and is then fished out anyway thanks to the prompt intervention of the Fire Brigade.

The Raid Pavia-Venezia
The third protagonist of 1965 is Leopoldo Casanova, incredibly once again first overall in the twenty-fifth edition of the Raid Pavia-Venezia. If the result obtained by Casanova had a unique flavour, this confirms that the exception is followed by the rule.
The champion from Colorno shows up at the race very well prepared, with his new three-pointer from the Parma shipyard Popoli (at its first creation of racer hulls), powered by an Alfa Romeo and registered among the 350 kg racers; a vehicle well prepared also thanks to the help of his expert and passionate nephew. Casanova finished the race in a time of 2h57'39" with a general average, calculated on the 390 km of the route, of km/h 131.718. This average is slightly lower than the one of 136.455, which he himself established during the race that earned him the Coppa Montelera: this year, moreover, the route planned for the awarding of the trophy is longer than usual (km 267) and extends from the Isola Serafini basin to that of Voltagrimana. After winning the race, Casanova found Osvaldo Mosconi, head of the Raid press office, who picked him up and transferred him by motorboat to the Tessera airport: they flew to Milan where they reached the RAI headquarters to film an exclusive interview that will be broadcast among the sports news on Sunday evening. In second place, with a time of 3h18'28", was the other Colornese driver, Ercole Aliani, aboard his three-wheeler. points A.Molinari-Alfa Romeo of the LY 1800 cc class: with him the success of the Parma motorboating is completed. In third place overall Flavio Guidotti, with his KD 900 kg Timossi-Maserati: the driver finds himself in difficulty at the beginning of the race due to the poor functioning of the water pump which causes a significant overheating of the engine. Guidotti is also the victim of an unpleasant inconvenience that occurred at a refueling station: a violent jet of water, released by another boat at the start, forces him, in order to continue, to empty the hull of the water ballast on board. Also without luck is the Raid of dad Liborio who, in Ostiglia, suffers an absurd accident: a refueling operator, in fact, jumps onto the deck of the boat, causing it to lose balance. The vehicle gets lost under water while the pilot manages to free himself, saving himself by swimming, but he is left with burns on his right arm.
Among the most significant aspects of this Raid, also the excellent performance provided by a third driver from Parma: Roberto Brunelli, originally from Zibello who, using a three-point inboard Corsa San Marco, powered by a Fiat 2300 cc engine, rated in the 500 kg class, came in sixth place overall. The performance offered by Brunelli is even more striking if we look at the result of the LZ 2500 cc class: for example, Gianfranco Castiglioni, with his Celli-Allfa Romeo, took first place in the category and eighth place overall, despite being equipped with a more powerful vehicle. In the history of the Raid, Castiglioni is the only one, among the competitors of the 1965 edition, to have also participated in the first edition, which took place way back in 1929, when he made his debut in motorboat racing.

The European LZ 2500 cc Championship
In 1965 there was also glory for Fortunato Libanori who returned to the limelight thanks to the European success of the LZ 2500 cc class obtained in the competition held on the waters of Lake Orta in Omegna.
The young standard-bearer, standard-bearer of the Ezio Selva team, prevailed in the final classification by only 25 points over the surprising Dosi: the latter, without winning any of the four scheduled heats, nevertheless achieved a series of three second places plus a retirement that earned him second place. With great timing Libanori took the lead in the first heat and over the course of a few laps increased his advantage, winning the race over Dosi, Castiglioni and A. Petrobelli. Among the notable retirements was that of Giulio De Angelis who, fresh from the world title, was immediately forced to surrender due to a trivial failure (a disconnected battery wire). Also stopped were the Frenchman Altwess, already in the first lap, and the Swiss Faroppa in the second: despite their return to the race in the following heats, they revealed that they did not have the same complexes as ours, so the fight was practically played only among the Italian riders.
De Angelis did not give up and confirmed his competitiveness by returning to victory in the second heat. In this race Libanori, while he was launching a decisive attack on the Roman rider, was the victim of a problem with the distributor that forced him to slow down and allowed both Dosi and Petrobelli to overtake him. In each test we saw a different order of arrival: in the second heat it was the tenacious Petrobelli who won over Dosi, Libanori and Castiglioni, with De Angelis stuck in the hauling. In the fourth and final heat, the uncertainty of this provisional classification hovered over the start. All four contenders (Libanori, De Angelis, Petrobelli and Dosi) could still fuel hopes of continental victory. Initially De Angelis had the upper hand, while bad luck struck Dosi. This driver almost got the better of victory, remaining in second position until a few hundred meters from the finish line: suddenly, however, his Celli-Alfa Romeo went silent. Libanori took advantage of this and reached the checkered flag, conquering second position and, consequently, the European title. The final order of the championship assigned the first three positions on the podium to Libanori, Dosi and Petrobelli. Anger and disappointment for De Angelis, fourth place, and for Castiglioni, super favorites on the eve of the race. In particular, Castiglioni seemed to have difficulty keeping up with his opponents with his Celli-CR hull, which appeared, in the circumstances, a little squeezed by previous victories.

The European KD 900 kg Championship
In Lecco the negative tradition continues, with Ermanno Marchisio once again missing out on the conquest of his first European title in his career.
Satisfaction, however, for Flavio Guidotti who, after the 800 kg world championship in 1960 and the continental success in 1962 in the 900 kg, enriches his palmares on the waters of Lecco with the conquest of the European title won the previous year by his brother Giorgio. As usual, this world championship event is also disputed with a comparison between our most representative exponents of the KD 900 kg: Giorgio and Flavio Guidotti (father Liborio absent), Nando Dell'orto and Ermanno Marchisio. The boats, all powered by the powerful 6400 cc Maseratis, are from the Timossi shipyard, with the exception of Marchisio competing with a Celli. This competition is poorly attended by pilots, but very popular with the large crowd present who are enthusiastic about the spectacle: this shows a certain interest in the category, despite some skeptics not hoping for a great future for the KD 900 kg. Shortly after the start of the opening heat, a dramatic turn of events takes place: Giorgio Guidotti is stopped due to a carburetor problem and for the reigning champion, the definitive abandonment of the competition is inevitable. In the meantime, we find Dell'Orto in the lead with Flavio Guidotti and Marchisio in his wake. But Dell'Orto's joy lasts the space of a lap: Guidotti and Marchisio overtake him and while the former, increasing his advantage, wins the heat, Dell'Orto engages in a hull-to-hull duel with Marchisio, for the conquest of second place. Marchisio demonstrates his great racing skills by managing to tame Dell'Orto and winning second place. The order of arrival of the first heat is repeated in the remaining three, with fast starts by Dell'Orto, great recoveries and exciting overtaking by Guidotti and Marchisio. A day of glory for Flavio Guidotti; in fact his dominance in the race is more than evident. One must not be fooled by the performances of Marchisio and Dell'Orto: the truth is that Guidotti's excellence could not leave room for competition.


The national championships and new world records
In the national championships, the tricolor scudettos are won by Ermanno Marchisio and Gianfranco Castiglioni. The first obtains victory in the KD 900 kg class, the second reconquers the trophy four years after the previous one in the LZ 2500 cc class, winning with his Celli-CR despite the tough resistance of Antonio Petrobelli and De Angelis.

In the Italian racer LV 1300 cc class, surprisingly, we witnessed the deserved victory of the Turin native Giancarlo Capucchio who interrupted the sequence of victories of De Angelis, which began in 1961.

As regards the speed records improved in 1965 by our inboarders, worthy of attention is the new world record achieved by Giulio De Angelis for the LV 1300 cc class. He erases the previous record of 156.950 km/h obtained by Franco Gilberti the previous year for this category: De Angelis, on the timed base of Sabaudia (LT), records 158.590 km/h in the ascending section and 164.383 km/h in the descending section, at an average of the averages of 161.486 km/h: a new world record. For this feat, the Roman driver uses his multi-victorious three-point racer from the A.Molinari shipyard and the Alfa Romeo Guilietta Sprint Veloce 4-cylinder 1290 cc engine.