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

8.1 power boat engine from Volvo

Volvo makes an 8.1 gas big block engine for the most torque and horse power for a power boat. Volvo has been a leader in marine pleasure boat power in the USA since 1959.

The 8.1 engine comes with a choice of camshafts that are selected based on where you as a boater want your power. Use 4,200 rpm and above mostly and pick the high Hp cam, use 4,000 rpm and below for almost all your time boating, select the 375-400 Hp engine cam. So, a true “hot rod” boat speed freak boater best uses the high performance camshaft and everyone else should use the regular cam. It is a no brainer, really, as you know going into a boat show if you want the most power you can get out of the engine below 4,000 rpm (even more power than the performance cam at these “below  4,000 rpms” engine speeds). Remember, the 375-400 Hp engine is the “Hole Shot” engine choice for the quickest 0 to 30 mph acceleration tests.

Volvo Penta gas power boat engine

Either the 375 or the 400 Hp engines are rated to run as fast as 4,600 to 4,800 rpms. They just do not develop as much power at those rpms as the Hi-Po camshaft engine.

All of these engines are 8.1 in displacement or big cubic inch engines developed from a Chevy based v-8 engine. They are fuel injected engines using a MPI fuel delivery system. Fresh water cooling and  the drive system is separate choice.

Absolute 43 yacht with Volvo Penta power

power boat underway with Volvo Penta power

getting ready to be the queen of the boat show

The oldest (since 1905) boat show has traditionally had a “Queen of the Boat Show” cabin cruiser power boat.  This year it’s the 54’ 9” Sea Ray Sundancer express cruiser.

Sundancer is a name that Sea Ray applies to their boat models that have an extra bed under the mid-section of an otherwise express style cabin cruiser. The first boat that came with the name “sundancer” was a 24’ 4” SRV 240 Sea Ray in 1975. That boat had a trailerable beam, not the 15’ 3” beam of this year’s Queen.

If they did not invent the mid-cabin boat design (some say that Skipjack boats is also in contention for that recognition), Sea Ray boats certainly has made it a runaway success story among boaters and also within the boating industry.

C. N. “Connie” Ray started building outboard powered 16’ runabouts in 1959 in Oxford, MI, which is north of Detroit. The 2012 queen of the boat show uses twin Mercury Marine Mercruiser Zeus drives.

Today’s boat has up to 1,430 Hp using diesel fuel, not the 25-35 Hp using gasoline as a fuel that the 1959 runabout was powered with. The Sea Ray Queen’s engines are made by Cummins.

The master stateroom is the one that is amidships and not at the bow. It has a TV as big as the main salon, not the smaller one that the forward bow stateroom has. Both staterooms have a “dry” head; that is a bathroom with a separate shower stall so that the entire bathroom does not get sprayed down when the shower is turned on.

By the way, the generous luxury space of the master bedroom can be ordered configured as two small staterooms so this cabin cruiser has three private staterooms if that is what your family needs. In that layout, the Master Stateroom would then be the forward bow stateroom by default.

Note my boat photo of the thru-bolted bollard style cleat that Sea Ray uses as standard equipment on this yacht. It is one of eight onboard, and they are very impressive!

bollard style cleat on Sea Ray boat show queen

Queen of the Boat Show underway

These engines are based on at least two chevy engine blocks with various heads to develop their reliable marine horse power at these levels. The 380 Hp is the one that is popular in a cabin cruiser and bigger family bow riders. Its full throttle rpm range is 4,400 – 4,800 rpm and has a cam and valve train that works best for those kind of rpms. The peak power has been dyno’d at 4,200 rpm before it starts to fall off and the 430 Hp H O verison exchanges some low end power compared to the 380 Hp for more clearly power over 4,000 rpm that then peaks at 4,700 – 4,800 rpm. The full throttle rpm range for the 430 Hp H O is put at 4,600 – 5,200 rpm. A 380 Hp engine will best a 430 Hp power boat up to about 4,000 rpm, where the 430 Hp then really pulls ahead.

Seabuddy has done a sea trial with each of these engines, and in a 7,000 lb type boat it proved hard to tell the difference between them in a pleasure boat application.

2012 Mercruiser 380 Hp 8.2 powerboat engine

Mercury Marine uses its Merc Racing division to sell the 525 Hp EFI bumps up the power and the full throttle rpm to 4,800 – 5,200 rpm. They add even more changes to the engine parts like a different fuel injection system AND a 3.3 liter supercharger to get a rating of 700 Hp at the same full throttle rpm range of 4,800 – 5,200 rpms.

All of these 502 cu. in. (8.2 litre) engines have a bore of 4.47 inches with a 4 inch stroke.

2012 Mercruiser 430 HO 8.2 engine

2012 Mercury Racing 525 Hp EFI engine

2012 Mercury Racing SCi 700 Hp engine

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

They built pleasure, commercial, and government wood power boats for many years during the 1920s and during the depression. A series of 90’ power tug boats as well as minesweepers and subchasers added to their reputation as a quality power boat builder. They also created a few sailboats at this time.

Metal came to the Burger Boat Company with advances in welding. This was at the end of the depression era. The first metal boat for Burger Yacht builders was a ketch sailing vessel designed by a famous naval architect. She was a 81’ steel yacht. It was 1941 that saw the first steel power motor boat, Pilgrim, a 65’ flush deck design.

Aluminum joined steel in the selection of metals in a alumium 36’ power cruiser. The alumium sailing yacht Dyna set world on fire. She was a 58’ yawl built in aluminum. She won the Newport to Bermuda race. This all-alumium boat was calculated to be about 4 tons lighter than she built in wood and 5 tons less than she would displace in the water if steel was choosen as her hull choice.

Aluminum was now the material of choice for Burger Boat Company and power yachts were what they built.

Fast forward to 2011 and beyond; they have a contract for 98’ steel power passenger vessel for dinner cruises and private parties, a 60’ research vessel, and a 129’ (212 ton fully loaded) Alumium power yacht.