Well, I have been working on this for a while & thought I'd go ahead and post this so we could have a kind of standing knowledge base. I, for one, have learned much more about my rig by reading Pat’s posts over the years & I hope Lea will pin this at the top so everyone can continue to add to it with things I may have missed... Some of the really good ones in the past got locked out (Pat never backs down especially when the 'Go Fast' guys get him going)... Due to a limit on the number of words allowed in any single post, this will be the first of several of my favorites
Anyway, the guy knows more about our boats than any living human I know & for that I say

From Two degrees from center
of nowhere.
Smithwick TX.

ChamP History & Relationship to Viper/Cobra/Fisher/Hawk/Legend boats etc.

First Champ was a pad boat, tri hull, whatever you want to call it.
In '76 Storie splashed a Hydrostream and built the 168. That boat, along with Pat Duncan and Bill Pace built Champion.
Believe it or not, the next boat was in fact the 201. First 20' bass boat built by anyone.
Then the 184
Then 176
Rocked along there for a while with the same 86" boats, all was well. Then the market started creeping towards wider boats.
1990 Introduced the 190 19' rated for 200
1992 or so came out with 180 rated 175, 204 V6 rating, both disasters.
1994 was the 191, 186, late in model year 202. All terrific running boats.
1997 or so the 221 22' bass boat. The 187 Also introduced the "bass n bay" 187 & 202.
1998 the 203 came.
1999/2000 The 206, 198, 223.
My history ends with Arkansas.
Other interesting boats..
The "swift" a 16'8" Ski Boat
The 201 Mini Miami Vice Ski boat, that was one very very hot boat. Looked like a miniature Cigarrette boat.

I've left out the "mean" 15, fish n skis and bay boats.

All the 201's were "V6" Rated, except the few "V8" Rated boats. 201,202,203,204,221 was all "V6" rated. Some of the crew drifted to some other boat companies. I know that Loren Smith is now plant manager for Tracker, he brought Lance Williams with him.

I'd like to find out where Dave Schlick turned up. He was the most talented boat designer I've ever seen. 202, 187, 221 were all his boats.

John sold champion to Dave Porthouse, and among other things, Dave had him sign a non compete contract which was quite clever. He knew he couldn't prevent Storie from building boats, that was his livelihood, so he prevented him from building only "deep V wedge" designed boats. Which is of course what the Champ hull is.
John simply splashed a 482 ranger, added a turning chine, and a little more setback, and there was his boat.
Porthouse bought champion from Storie in the early 90's, and had John continue to run the company for several years.
John wanted nothing to do with building anything besides the tried and proven 86" beamed boats. Bill Pace is the one who designed and built the first wide champ, the 190. John left to contemplate his navel for a few years, and managment was taken over by little dave. The later boats, 186, 202,191 were designed by Dave Schlicke, all very fine hulls.
Storie hooked back up with Bruce Benton, and they are the ones who designed the Cobra/viper/etc etc. Again, this was a hull that wouldn't interfere with his non compete contract.
To say they didn't want to build new boats is just wrong, they built lots of new hulls. But they were all based on the proven hull dynamics that put champ where they were.
I was with Champ from '84 to the demise in '01 I only know of Stories actions based on friends in Mt. Home who kept track of such things.
The "legend" of Stories boat designing skills are for the most part seriously overrated, for every minute he spent tweaking a boat, Bill Pace spent an hour.

Legend/Hawk/Cobra/Viper, they all run together.
Here's the scoop, and anything else you hear is just B.S.

John Storie was wanting to start another boat company, but he was locked down in a very strict non compete contract with Champion. He could build a boat, but couldn't build a deep V Wedge hull boat.

So, what he did was splash a Ranger 482, added a turning chine, and increased the lifting strakes, and he had him a boat mold. That was the beginning of the Cobra/Viper boats, and they did the Fisher glass boats there also, same hull.

Storie got runnoft from Cobra, they went flaming down, and he and Bruce Benton started the Hawk boat, same basic mold, same basic boat. '01 came and they didn't have the legs to stay in the race, so that died. The molds were bought and brought to Texas where they started building the legends, then bought again and moved to Midway Ark.

Just so it's clear...again...
John Storie hasn't had a hand in designing a champ since the 80's. Anything coming out of champion today is designed by Alan Stinson.
Legend/hawk/viper/cobras are all a splash off a ranger 482. Modified, but still in the same gene pool.

It's more honest and accurate to state the legend/clones are modified rangers than some breed of champ.

Now, here's the real scoop, the only Champion Storie ever designed was the original 16'8" back in the seventies. The rest of the boats were all designed by Bill Pace, Pat Duncan, and Dave Schlick.

John Storie is living in Oklahoma City right now, and has nothing to do with the boat business.

Hey Pat, so is my 1996 181 a John Storie or a Bill Pace design or both ?

Actually, neither. That would be a Dave Schlieck designed boat. The best one at it ever.

ChamP Hull Design, Performance & Ride Quality

I understand it, and I can show it, but it's really difficult to describe it without pictures to illustrate.
I'll see if I can try and describe without looking like a doofus...
The ride quality is pretty much the "V" angle to the transom. It's simple.
Handling is the trick, it's the combination of the wedge design, along with chine angles that allow the hull to not get in it's own way, and maintain water flow to the prop.
Lemme see if I can s'plain this so we can all learn to do it at home...
take a business card size piece of paper
You need to understand what turns a boat isn't the boat, it's the motor....
If you stick your finger on the back edge of the card, simulating a motor hanging off a transom on a square edge hull, whichever direction you turn it, there is a corner digging in, trying to push the hull the opposite direction.
Now, fold the corners to duplicate the rear corners of the champ hull, it becomes obvious what happens, the corners aren't there to dig in, and just as important, the water from the corners has time to regroup and be smooth again, which prevents cavitation to the prop in cornering. How many boats have you been in, when you try to make a sharp turn, it blows out the prop and you set down? More than a few here.
The real science is in the chines, but that goes molecular, that quick lesson will suffice 99% of the time. Look at a champ from the back, the deadrise (angle of the V) is much steeper all the way to the transom than on other hulls, that's the ride.

ChamP relation to Skeeter Wrangler - Hydrostream- Ranger

Ok, kiddos...let's open our books to chapter "2" and review...
Hydrostream created the V wedge design, skeeter splashed it to create a 150 rated hull that wasn't a barge. Instant and huge success to the speed starved tournament fishermen. Storie wasn't stupid, he snagged a wrangler and tested it. There were some obvious design flaws in the wrangler, the concave pad is stupid, and it turned like a garbage scow.

Rework the pad to a "V", added some turning chines, and increase the lifting strakes and presto a hull that really did the job. Look at an original wrangler, it had funky pieces of aluminum on the corners to hit the right number for coast guard rating. The champ was built to measure 86" without the added hardware.

And there is NOTHING about a lemming wagon incorporated in a champ design. Remember your time line, the lemming hoard had the allison designed hull, then the gawd awful 198/168 hulls, then after '82 came out with the 300 hulls. Champ was building theirs for five years.

Get it straight so when asked by someone clueless you can be factual.

Pat Goff