Got boats?

[Firedome]

Anybody a boater here? I know Chris has a vintage sailboat... everyone share your boat pics if you have some please?
A little Vanguard 420 "sailing dinghy" (ours is actually upside down in the yard, is this the year it's back in the water, lol?
These are popular at sailing schools, that's where ours came from too.

[electra225]

Boats and beer can be quite the combination at times.....

[Firedome]

This is true... I have a rule I never drink as long as I'm at a helm. Champlain is the 6th Great Lake and though not as big as Chris' puddle, at 110 miles long it's nothing to fool with. Now when we're back in port, that's another story! Mostly on the pontoon boat, aka "The Party Barge", or depending if Lex Baxter is playing on the stereo, the "Tiki 'toon". I think we like just sitting on it as much as cruising around, the more so the older we get, it's more comfortable than sitting on the sand on beach chairs and has a honkin' big cooler with a built-in dinette both...comfy.

[electra225]

The stories I could tell about "boaters" on the Lake of the Ozarks could fill volumes.

[TC Chris]

We sailed Vanguard 470s at the U-M sailing club in the mid-70s.

The host of our public radio blues show, "The Juke Joint," likes to get photos of listeners wearing Juke Joint t-shirts. Sunday I did a selfie on the boat barn with my 1961 sailboat.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

Got pics?

[TC Chris]

We sailed Vanguard 470s at the U-M sailing club in the mid-70s.

The host of our public radio blues show, "The Juke Joint," likes to get photos of listeners wearing Juke Joint t-shirts. Sunday I did a selfie on the boat barn with my 1961 sailboat.

Chris Campbell

OK, I'll try again. It used to be so easy and now it requires magic.

[Motorola minion]

Thank for the pictures!. I can only dream about having extra $$$ for a boat, but I may do that someday.

For now, I have a fiberglass canoe made by Sawyer of Oscoda Michigan. I also have a 1971 Kayak made by Folbot hanging in my garage.

There was a family place my grandparents had on the Chesapeake in MD, just an hour drive due south of their machine shop, where weekend work was planned first . Pier, dock and roofed crane to lift boat out for season. Motor boats were always there at the ready on weekends (rarely ever on a trailer) even after my cousin took over the house, it was a busy place with family visits. IIRC last boat cost over 100K, 30 years ago. Always with this area, it was easier to visit across the water, driving took too long - LOL.

[electra225]

Grandpa's younger brother had a Chris Craft boat in the 1950's. Originally powered by a Chrysler flathead straight 8, grandpa repowered it with a Packard 327 straight 8. I remember it being a fairly competent vessel. It was big and heavy and was all an Oldsmobile or a Buick wanted to tow it. It had to be hoisted out of the water when they weren't using it, as I recall. It would pull two or three big men skiing, with the boat full of folks.

[TC Chris]

Thank for the pictures!. I can only dream about having extra $$$ for a boat, but I may do that someday.

For now, I have a fiberglass canoe made by Sawyer of Oscoda Michigan. I also have a 1971 Kayak made by Folbot hanging in my garage.

There was a family place my grandparents had on the Chesapeake in MD, just an hour drive due south of their machine shop, where weekend work was planned first . Pier, dock and roofed crane to lift boat out for season. Motor boats were always there at the ready on weekends (rarely ever on a trailer) even after my cousin took over the house, it was a busy place with family visits. IIRC last boat cost over 100K, 30 years ago. Always with this area, it was easier to visit across the water, driving took too long - LOL.

Boat ownership is now cheap, when it comes to acquiring them. Fiberglass is a durable material and many good older boats have gone to the dumpster via the Sawzall when they found no takers. Many people want newest-and-fastest. Or they recognize that the real cost comes after you buy the boat. Marina charges; maintenance. As you can see from my attire in the photo, maintenance is a DIY project for me. Many sailors enjoy the work as part of the experience. This is my 54th spring working on that boat. Marina costs (winter storage, summer dockage, mast up and down) are where I treat it as a luxury that I'm going to pay for. When I took over paying for the boat from my Dad about 1986, I just lived frugally in other areas. While others bought new cars every couple years, mine were maintained so they lasted forever and I had no interest charges. The current Ranger was bought used at a year old and it's still humming along reliably at 17 years old. It won't impress anybody with flash, but I get to have a boat (and a vehicle with a manual transmission, "deleted"). Two boats, actually. Well, a bunch if you count the little ones.

I've got a rowing shell, the hull of which was built by Sawyer for the vendor. The vendor's dad was my Dad's HS chemistry teacher and the designer was Dad's classmate.

Chris Campbell

[TC Chris]

Grandpa's younger brother had a Chris Craft boat in the 1950's. Originally powered by a Chrysler flathead straight 8, grandpa repowered it with a Packard 327 straight 8. I remember it being a fairly competent vessel. It was big and heavy and was all an Oldsmobile or a Buick wanted to tow it. It had to be hoisted out of the water when they weren't using it, as I recall. It would pull two or three big men skiing, with the boat full of folks.

I'll bet the Chris Craft was built in Cadillac, MI. By the '50s that was their plant for the mahogany runabouts. It's one of the counties I work in (next county southeast of here) and where my grandparents lived from 1949 (before that they lived in Manistee, where Century Boats made a competing line of mahogany beauties). If you see a 4 Winns fiberglass boat, it was likely built in Cadillac. 4 Winns is building boats under a variety of other names there too.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I was little when the Chris Craft was a member of the family. I was in my early teens probably when it became more trouble than it was worth. I liked watching fans run when I was a kid, still do. Something about watching a fan run is comforting and relaxing to me. Uncle Pat's Chris Craft had its own radiator with a big six-blade fan. Grandpa would pull the side off the engine house so I could sit there and watch the fan. It had a water-cooled exhaust so there wasn't much engine heat except from the radiator. The Packard engine had a four-barrrel carburetor so it could be hopped up a little and had way more power than the Chrysler engine. The nine-bearing Packard 327 was dead silent in operation. All you could hear was the fan.

[TC Chris]

The ones that have survived have great value. There are shops around here that specialize in restoration and in building new ones to old designs, like those of John Hacker. They are the equivalents of the E.H. Scotts or McMurdo Silvers or Zenith Stratospheres. Too bad Grandpa didn't park it in a barn somewhere and throw a tarp over it.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

Owning a boat can vary from being a pretty reasonable recreation tp a virtual enslavement and bank-breaker. I've been on both sides. I've had fiberglas, wood, aluminum, and fiberglas & wood boats (1958 MFG 15'). I love the look and feel of a wooden boat. My Dad's first was a '59 Broadwater 14' plywood and mahogany kit boats built in Edgewater MD and put a used 25 Evinrude (pull-start) on it. His next was the '58 MFG Cambridge, a 2 pc fiberglas hull joined down the middle with a cypress keel and mahogany deck, gunwales, seats, and transom cover, with a 40 Evinrude Lark, our family boat for many yrs. All trailered from MD to VT every summer. When he got a new Chrysler 17' boat in '78 I got the MFG at age 27. When the keel rotted out I sold it for parts and got a '16 all-wood Penn-Yan wit 40 Evinrude that I restored. I learned how to steam bend the coaming pieces for that project. It was pretty but brightwork had to be redone 2 x every season to stay nice looking. T

That woodie gave way to a 17 Larson glass boat with 80 Evinrude, then a 19' aluminum Starcraft Chieftain (cuddy cabin) with 85 Evinrude, then a new aluminum '98 Starcraft Islander cuddy cabin with 110 Johnson. Loved the StarCrafts, both very secure and seaworthy. Then in what may have been my biggest mistake ever, a gorgeous '30 all-wood 1966 Chris Craft Crusader. Her lines were right and she looked like a proper craftt should. Twin 318 Chryslers with Velvet Drive, and she slept 6, had a full galley kitchen and head. Fun while it lasted, but slippage and hauling and winterizing and yard fees and maintenance were too high for a working class guy. Maintenance was not a hobby but a full-time career. After a couple of years of that insanity I sold her at a loss (you know the old saw about buying and selling boats, right?). So back to fiberglass and aluminum boats, a Grumman pontoon, then a 23' ProSport, finally the present Princecraft pontoon, a glass 420 sailboat, an alum row boat and 2 kayaks. Old wood boats are usually cheap to buy, and if you own one you'll quickly find out why!

With one notable exception. all were bought well used, kept on a trailer, maintained by me (worked as a boat mechanic 3yrs during my summers off from teaching) and were never an expensive hobby, except for that big CCC. It is a great family activity, so much too do, fishing, cruising, skiing tubing, wake boarding, something for everyone. If you have any mechanical skills you can get a very decent boat for $2000

BTW when we did have the Chris, I did delve into their history. Chris Smith started out in the teens/20s and they were always built in Algonac MI in their glory days. It was sold off in the '60s and through several owners since. Their biggest competitor, Owens, were built in Baltimore, I always wanted one but never did.

Here's the '66 CC Crusader we had, I love the looks of this boat;

https://www.google.com/search?q=1966+ch ... d90ovMNeYM

[TC Chris]

My first varnish work was on a neighbor's MFG. The mahogany plywood deck forward was neglected so his nephew and I refinished it. The work was not to professional standards but it did improve the looks (anything would have).

We pulled the spark plugs on the old brown Johnson 35 hp outboard and when replacing them got a bit too enthusiastic and stripped the threads on one. We made a quick run to a local OB shop and came back with an Evinrude head--right shape, wrong color, but aesthetics were not the goal.

Most of my skills come from correcting mistakes.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

The first several years of MFG were those fiberglas and wood hybrids. They had classic lines because the hull mold was supposedly a splash of a Lyman lapstrake wood hull. I have 2 pics of ours taken around 1965 hanging on the wall at camp in Vermont. (We're there now doing the gardening and yard work always needed at the beginning of the season). A little known fact is that MFG (Molded Fiber Glass Inc of Union City PA ) made the bodies of Corvettes in their early years.

Evinrude and Johnson were both OMC products, basically interchangeable except for minor details and color. Green then Bronze on early Johnsons, Blue of course for Evinrude. We were always OMC owners, and saddened when Bombardier discontinued them due to Covid (big mistake! outboards are more popular than ever and sales boomed right after they stopped making them!). OMC made a tragic mistake around 2000 when a hedge fund bought them and they started making motors in Mexico, sourcing cheaper parts, plus they introduced a German designed fuel injection that was groundbreaking but highly flawed, so flawed that the big motors blew up and caused so many warranty claims it put OMC into bankruptcy, resulting in Bombardier buying it out. They re-opened the Wisconsin plant, perfected the RAM injection, and made it profitable, even as the very last US 2 stroke maker. At one time OMC was by FAR the world leader in outboards, so it was a sad end to a once-great company. We still have one of each, an Evinrude and Johnson and am having the 1983 Evinrude 70 completely rebuilt, I love 2 strokes and hopefully it'll outlast me.

[TC Chris]

I always suspected that the MFG hull had some illicit relationship to the hulls from Sandusky. My Dad always wanted a Lyman but he knew how much work came with a wooden boat. His first purchase was a ca. 14 foot Cadillac aluminum boat (1955) and then when we kids wanted more power for skiing he bought a Glasspar with an early Volvo Aquamatic I/O 80 h.p. (1962). It was an outboard hull adapted to take the Volvo, which was transom-hung anyway. Still have both. Waiting to find a new flywheel for the 15 h.p. Fleetwin Evinrude for the aluminum hull. The keyway got damaged. I may try just keying it up and making sure the nut is at max torque.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

Here's the place to look for or put an ad for any OMC or other vintage outboard part: www.aomci.org
(And there's always you-know-where).

We had neighbors here at the lake in the 1950s who had a '14' Old Town wood lapstrake boat with a '55 Evinrude "Fleetwin", what great motors Evinrude made. We kids would ski behind it, though I'm sure none of us was much over 100 lbs then.

My Dad's first boat was a '59 14.5' plywood hull Broadwater kit boat (unfinished hull). He put fiberglas cloth on the outside of the hull and finished all the mahogany trim, put a windshield on it, a steering rig, and a 4 yr old used Evinrude "Big Twin" 25, their biggest motor for '55. It was very torquey for a 25 and my mother could actually slalom ski (one ski) behind that thing. When I think of it now, though, it seems crazy to put a family of 5 in a boat that small on a lake as big as Champlain... I would never!

Broadwater was an interesting MD company that started by making inexpensive little skiffs and small plywood runabouts in the early '50s and by the late '60s were making plywood hull cruisers up to 32-35 feet, very popularly priced and a competitor undercutting (the also MD built) Owens who was 2nd only to Chris Craft in cruiser sales. Broadwaters were a common sight on the Chesapeake, but they didn't make a successful transition to fiberglas hulls and were done by around 1980.

[Hydrolastic]

Hello guys, I had a few boats. The ones I liked were the Kettenburg PC and the cal 34. the Cal is a good boat did everything well you could cruise in it if your into that but primarily an excellent daysailer. The Kettenburg was a love though. It was a pure race boat of its day. I would do every sail setting I could think of and every once in a while I would get it right. You could feel the boat accelerate and take off. only to have something change a little and you would be doggin it again. But boy when in that sweet spot.... I lost all photos of it on a early computer. But I found one on the internet of an earlier owner.

[TC Chris]

Hello guys, I had a few boats. The ones I liked were the Kettenburg PC and the cal 34. the Cal is a good boat did everything well.... The Kettenburg was a love though. It was a pure race boat of its day.

Seems to me that WoodenBoat magazine had a piece on the Kettenburg PC a few years back.

My "newer" sailboat is a 1967 Cal 20, a sweet-sailing little vessel from Bill Lapworth. They have crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific to Hawaii. I always think of her as half of a Cal 40, one of the most famous fiberglass sailboats ever. I knew the original owner, although I did not know that until after I bought the boat. He was a really good sailor, an older guy when I was a kid. It's an honor to own his boat. A keeper of local sailing history scanned some photos of him on the boat for me. Here she is on her mooring.

P8230419.JPG

Chris Campbell