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Archive for the ‘wood powerboats’ Category

wood boat photo

The advantage of controlling the bow position and the location of the bow around the marina in a single engine, single propeller boat is an over-whelming experience the first couple of times you are at the helm of a classic wood boat equipped with a bow thruster. Suddenly, anyone can dock the boat. Even in a cross wind.

Most would think that such an option is disrespecting what was made back when the beauty of wood, leather, and chrome over brass fittings on the water was the only choice for boating. If your boat is to sit on a trailer, I agree. If you want to use your mahogany runabout, I disagree. It is like using a modern bilge pump, converting a 6 volt system to one that uses a 12 volt one, having new PFDs, or a safer, better carburetor in a classic that is used for grand touring around a lake or bay.

Hand built, mahogany wood runabouts or bow riders are now being built by master craftsmen and those boat builders often can be talked into including a bow thruster in a new boat for you. Just think, the ride, the feel, the performance of a bright finished, stained mahogany runabout that is easy to captain. All the style and quality of a good wooden boat with the performance ease, and use-ability of the latest functional boating accessories built in.

Here is a triple cockpit wood boat that also has a no-soak bottom. A reliable, modern engine and operating systems in a classic wood boat. One gets the stares and looks from other boaters and from folks just walking around the marina without the troubles of a 60 year old classic.

2012 wood boat photo

2012 wood boat photo triple cockpit

2012 inboard boat wood classic boat

new indoor showroom of wood boats at lake George

Classic design Stauter Built wood runabout boat photo

Stauter-Built boats is a classic wood boat that often has used the same design as they have for many years.

classic wood boat photo from stauter built

Most are pure open fishing boats. A few are somewhat decked over and are used as a wooden runabout. All use a antique or modern outboard motor for power. They are light and easy to power as they use a shallow draft, almost flat bottom hull design to get performance from low horsepower outboards.

classic wood runabout boat photo

Take a restored classic wooden boat like I show here. Its powered by an old, antique motor. The photos show the loving attention to keeping an old boat, a good, useful boat that is an antique and classic boat show standout. She is mostly a plywood boat, glued and screwed together to take on most waters.

classic wood fishing boat stauter built

I show another Stauter Built boat from their promotional material. It is 151/2’ long and 51/2’ in its beam. It can take up to a 50 Hp. outboard engine and weights in around 425 lbs. It is a Vee shaped bow to cut through the chop coupled with a fairly flat deadrise across the transom boat design. Not a deep vee offshore racer.

She is intended for the waters around Dauphin Island in the Gulf of Mexico, which is roughly 40 miles south of Mobile, AL.

This new wood fishing boat is called the V-bottom Cedar Point Special by Stauter-Built. She maybe a classic in design, but it is too new in its date of manufacture to be an antique boat.

classic wood boat photo of a open fishing runabout outboard

wood boat photo of stauter built runabout fishing model

Wood power boat photo classic mahogany runabout

This runabout is custom designed by the famous marine architect Charlie Jannace from Delmar, MD (about 50 miles outside of St. Michaels, MD) telephone 410-883-3059 and hand made by the Hugh Saint boat building company in Cape Coral, FL telephone 239-574-1299.

Charlie designs both fiberglass and wood boats for many boat building clients (some for regular production and some one-off (custom) designs. He is a very experienced naval architect. And his boat designs work in the real world!

The Hugh Saint, Inc. boat building company builds in the WEST system of wood and epoxy. They typically use double planking of mahogany wood matching the wood’s grain where its important, encapsulating all that wood in epoxy so water never reaches it. They are not alone in building wood boats in this manner of construction style in today’s world of wood boat building.

mahogany wood cold molded runabout photo

This custom Gentleman’s Racer is 28 ½ ’ long with a 9’ beam. She is a performance boat, but not a race boat. In a gentleman’s racer strength, luxury, and a good, comfortable seating in the cockpit are balanced by sheer speed thrills. A fast, dry ride is important. Absolute top speed is not. Such a boat satisfies its owner, not a broad audience of boat buyers. She is powered by twin “small block” 350 cu. in. chevy gas engines using a v-drive drivetrain system to get the power to the two propellers to push the one off mahogany wood boat. The top speed is simply quoted as 50 mph plus. It gives that speed in luxury and comfort for its owner.

WEST system mahogany wood power boat photo

wood yacht sportfisherman with Volvo IPS

Take four fisherman plus two to four crew at and back some 250 miles offshore in a wood boat in comfort using a custom boat powered by Volvo IPS to get this performance.

The room created by the IPS system allows for two double berths under the salon deck for the crew while two luxurious staterooms accommodate the owner’s party with two large heads. So it’s a three stateroom / two head boat.

She is all about good fuel economy, offshore high performance, quick maneuverability, ease of handling, and big fish fighting ability. “Spencer Yachts has taken the Carolina style and tradition of boat building with a unique look and transformed it into a World Class and high performance Sport Fishing Yacht”

 She has South Carolina flair, outstanding styling, and the world class fit and finish of the highest class custom boat.

 This sportfisher is 57’ long with a beam of 16’ 10”. Her engines are Twin 1200 model 900 Hp Volvo Diesel D 13s. Fuel capacity is 1450 gal. Her draft is 4’ 5”. She weighs 26 tons. It has been said that it’s the most maneuverable boat of its size on the market. It certainly has  outstanding looks.

Spencer yachts are in Wanchese, NC at 252-473-6567, with their hull boat building plant at Manns Harbor.

One final quote…. “Amazing is the only word for (the boat’s) handling, maneuverability, spinning and backing down on a blue marlin.”

wood boat layout photo by Spencer Yachts

wood composite yacht image with Volvo IPS

wood power boat 1959 Lyman 16.5 foot outboard model

This power boat is shown being restored in Maine. The photo is from Androscoggin Wooden Boat Works (207) 685-9805. It shows the nice work that they do, particularly on Lyman Boats. This classic outboard runabout is said to be a boat for sale and at a very attractive price. Give them a telephone call if this is something that you need for this upcoming summer boating adventure season.

This outboard Lyman boat seems to have been updated with a painted finish rather than a varnished, but not stained, boat hull interior. The seats, deck and other parts show, to me, the correct, as built, finishes. Lyman mahogany filler stain with varnish over that would be the proper choice. Lyman was also known for its use of ribbon striped (sometimes called tiger striped) mahogany veneered marine-grade plywood in its decks. Check for that feature on this boat. Most restorers use a different style of mahogany plywood if they replace the deck on a Lyman runabout.

The 16.5 foot boat was a popular boat model and it was in production from 1957-1960. In 1959 they made 366 of these. It is a 16’ 7” long runabout with a beam of 70”. It weighs 560 lbs. and could take up to a 60 Hp outboard. That is Hp that is rated at the power head, not rated at the prop shaft as outboards are rated today. Use an older motor or drop back to a maximum rating of about 54 Hp. She goes real well with a 35 Hp, by the way.

Lymans are clinker built or a lapstrake construction style of planking. Each plank edge overlaps the other and are clinched nailed to the ribs and screwed to the frames such that an edge is shown at each plank its full length along the hull side that helps soften the ride, and they are flexible boats that can twist over the waves somewhat to give a better ride than a classic boat person would expect. Ride a Lyman to experience this for yourself. I know of several prior owners of carvel, hard chine classic wood boats that marvel at the ride that they get in their Lyman compared to what they are used to.

By the way, get a Lyman model a little older than this model year and you will see a dimpled finish in the planking on the outside of the hull. Lyman used a duck billed clinch nail for better holding strength and sometime (in the mid-50s?) began to completely fair over both the screws and the duck billed nails for a smooth exterior finish.

Want some outstanding color photographs of these storied boats? Get a collector grade copy of the vinyl covered hardback book titled Classic Powercraft volume I. The book is full of color pictures of antique and classic boats taken at the highest quality level for wooden boat photography. It is sold out of print, so a used book or a copy from a personal collection is the way to go for this great book.

Streblow Custom Boats are mahogany wooden runabouts built since the early nineteen fifties that set a standard of quality of design and workmanship for wood boats. These are wood runabouts that are doubled planked on their bottoms and batten seamed planked mahogany hull sides. A special finish technique and secret rot resistant construction techniques make these floating art works different from a regular wood boat.

The boat builder is located in Walworth, WI, (262-728-6898) near the shoreline of Geneva Lake where they are a boat builder, restoration shop, and a marine boat dealer.

While they do several millions of dollars of business each year, expect to wait up to three years in good times for a new boat. They only build up to two boats  in any given year to keep the quality up. Heck, it has been said that just selecting the wood for a boat takes weeks of combing through the choices of planking on hand.

Back to the book, get one for the photography. It is just the best there is out there on wood boats. The cover is even a full color photograph of a Streblow set into a lovely vinyl cover or binding.

This one is a 1954 Chris craft. An ideal mahogany classic two cockpit runabout. With a big flathead Chris Craft she gives a great ride at normal antique and classic boat speeds and a real thrill when the throttle is opened up even more.

Specs on the boat is 18’ 11” in length and she has a beam of 6’ 1”. Her overall weight runs in the 2,100 to 2,400 lbs. area. Chris Craft built 503 of them in a production series from 1948 to 1954.

She is not a bow rider and one must change which cockpit to sit in at dockside, as this power boat is a true runabout and not a utility. She is almost all deck, engine room, two rows of seats and little, if any, walking around room in the cockpit areas.

I got a ride on a Pennsylvania Lake in a similar boat that belongs to a friend that was also lovingly restored and its ride and handling during that fresh water cruise was really a terrific experience. That one had an extremely special Chris Craft engine rebuild by an out of state noted engine builder of classic engines.

Chris Craft offered this wood power boat model in either a natural wood stained and highly varnished hull and deck or as a painted red and white finished powerboat. Most came with the seating areas finished in a Chinese red or red hue, but blue was a choice, as I understand it, but not in all of the model years the Racing Runabout was built post WWII.

The photos are from Moores Marine,  www.woodenboatrepair.com  that did this runabout’s restoration. Great workmanship and attention to detail is shown in the work coming from Moores you can see.

This one is a 1954 model Chris Craft

early on in the restoration work

Let me tell you a story about: John Hacker, the noted race boat and runabout  boat designer; Ernest Wilson, Harold Wilson, and Harold’s finance and later, wife, Lorna, a famous boat racing family; the Gold Cup races and its boat class; Greavette Boats of Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada; and Harry Miller of the famous Miller car racing engines fame. They were all involved in a Gold Cupper named Miss Canada II a racing boat.

Miss Canada II, the Gold Cup class race boat, was designed by Hacker for the Wilsons, at their request. They also engaged Miller to design and build a 1,000 Hp. engine  that met the rules of the racing class. The boat was built by Greavette and the Miller engine was shipped there for installation. The engine never did run at Greavette and it and the race boat were shipped off to Lake George, NY, which was the race site. On race day, the engine broke before the race started. Thus the boat and the famous Wilsons did not get to race. After repairs, the engine did work for three laps at a later in the season race, before it broke again. Thus, that year’s racing season went  past without Miss Canada II ever finishing any race, let alone winning a race.

The following racing season, the Greavette boat, Miller engine, and the racing Wilsons did get some competition laps in, but did not win a race as pieces of the boat interior broke up, and the boat, while fast, was found to be too lightly built to stay together long enough finish a race. Thus ended the second season of boat racing for Miss Canada II.

After more work over the following winter on both the engine and boat, she started her 3^rd racing season. The next summer, it was found out that the boat strengthening work done by the boat builder had changed the handling balance of Miss Canada II and she was deemed too hard to handle to win races and allow her driver and mechanic to stay alive while doing so.

The Wilsons ordered a new race boat from a different boat designer, for the next year. Miss Canada III, as the new boat was named, was a race winner.

Michael Aronow wrote this book about his Dad, Don Aronow, and Don’s involvement in boating. Don was a boat racer, a boat building businessman, a world champion, a founding leader of deep vee boat building and offshore racing. He started and owned Donzi Marine, Formula, Magnum Marine, Cigarette Racing Team, Squadron XII, and USA Racing Team and almost all of 188^th Street.

This is the book for a Christmas present to a boater.

John Crouse, Dick Genth, Yachting magazine, Jim Wynne, Mike Gordon, the Beatles, Chubby Brown, Walt Walters, the Donzi sweet 16, Bobby Moore, Knocky House, the models, some of the tricks, the Wyn-Mill II, the Banana  boat, outboards, inboards, I/O, Mercury Marine, Magnum Missile, Molinari, Carl Kiekhaefer, Aeromarine, Roger Penske, Betty Cook, and Mark Donohue are all in the book.

It is a who’s who of power boating and power boat racing offshore. A real history of the racing scene.

Don Aronow made the offshore power boat racing scene very early on and made it into the force it is today. He left New Jersey for south Florida while still a young man and built an empire of race wins, trophies, championships, boat building companies, showmanship, and hard work.

It is only really available on the collector book market. The ISBN number is 0945903227.

Get a nice one and have a good look all at the photos and a good read from the material that Michael shares about a rare man in the boating business in this boating book.

Edsel Ford needed a boat, and not just any boat, to use for commuting to and from his MI home and his huge Rouge River Ford automotive plant located on the Detroit River. He decided on a wood power boat for his needs, a custom 40’ triple cockpit mahogany runabout. One with a powerful engine.

The new wood runabout was named after her engine, Typhoon. A Wright Typhoon dirigible engine made 600 Hp. from her 12 cylinder, 2000 cu. inch gas engine. and that made the boat something that Ford’s doctors fear for his health. On their advice he put Typhoon up for sale, just four years after she first went into the water in 1930. Howard Hughes was one of her next owners.

Typhoon, now destroyed in a boat yard fire several years ago, was a monster. Designed by George W. Crouch and built in the Henry B. Nevins Shipyard in City Island, NY, she was forty feet of double planked highly varnished mahogany that reeked of speed on the water.

She was always a fast runabout.  She was repowered several times to go faster. The original Typhoon was replaced with an Allison aircraft engine and  then a 650 Hp V-12 Hall Scott was installed. Another replacement engine was a 1,500 Hp Packard.  As a side note to the replacement engine story line, the 1,500 Hp engine weighted less than the 650 Hp one. She also underwent several restorations before she burned and there were several periods of time in her life span were she just sat around. She was a monster on the water!