Vintage Boats

[Matt Crunk]

Anyone here into vintage yachts or speedboats? Old Chris Crafts and the like?

I have been an avid sailor for 20+ years and have always owned older boats of various vintage, both power and sail.

While not exactly of Golden Era vintage, I currently have an AristoCraft runabout that friends have dubbed the "James Bond" boat because of it's classic 50s/60s styling.

It also occures to me that many yacht clubs are still very steeped in Golden Era tradition. I remember being at the Pensacola Yacht Club a few years ago after a regatta and looking out over the lawn, seeing most of the attendees in there finest summer whites, that it was a scene almost as much at home in the 40s as the 90s.

-MC

 

[panamag8or]

I love those old wooden speedboats. I don't have one, and if my lake doesn't come back up, I probably never will.

 

[dhermann1]

I was just on Chautauqua Lake, in western New York State, and had intended to get a few pix of some oldies up there. A good friend has a 22 ft Chris Craft all mahogany inboard that I grew up with (launched the same year as yours truly, 1946).
There used to be ("used to be" those sad words!) a 53 or 56 ft Elco yacht that gave tours around the lake. And I saw a neat 1948 Chris Craft speed boat at a boat yard (kicking myself I didn't get a pic, sorry!). Those oldies are such works of art. When I was a kid there was an old guy who rowed across the lake every morning in a gorgeous two ended lapstrake rowboat. All natural wood with deep varnish. Like a Stradivarius.
There are also lots of wooden sail boats to ooh and ahh over. Another neighbor had an all wood Thistle that he sailed until there was nothing left of it. The mast still hangs from the ceiling of his old porch. Our lake has a fleet of C Scows, most of which are now all fibreglass, but here and there you see a wooden one. Real antique hotrods.
Great idea for a thread! I hope somebody can come up with some pix!

 

[Diamondback]

Does "Vintage Design, down-scaled" count? I know of a guy who built a 1/20-scale powerboat version of KM Admiral Graf Spee (Deutschland-class WWII heavy cruiser/"pocket battleship").

I'm thinking about trying to build a similarly large crewable model of a Brooklyn-class WWII light cruiser someday.

 

[CharlieH.]

There's a fella here who has a most amazing vintage boat:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=6159

As for me... closest thing I ever had to a vintage boat was a model of the RMS Titanic. Now I'm longing for a live-steam model tugboat with a matching carfloat... with matching boxcars.... and a matching miniature waterfront.

 

[Diamondback]

Now I'm longing for a live-steam model tugboat with a matching carfloat... with matching boxcars.... and a matching miniature waterfront.

But will you actually be able to sail aboard yours, or just R/C it around? I'm talking something I could actually cast off aboard, preferably enough room to use as a floating "field office"...

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Does "Vintage Design, down-scaled" count? I know of a guy who built a 1/20-scale powerboat version of KM Admiral Graf Spee (Deutschland-class WWII heavy cruiser/"pocket battleship").

I'm thinking about trying to build a similarly large crewable model of a Brooklyn-class WWII light cruiser someday.

How does he see where he's going?

 

[CharlieH.]

But will you actually be able to sail aboard yours, or just R/C it around? I'm talking something I could actually cast off aboard, preferably enough room to use as a floating "field office"...

Maaaybe, if I can get a barge big enough for it.

 

[Diamondback]

How does he see where he's going?

The guy designed some kind of window into the front of the conn/bridge/forward superstructure:

Project photo page is at http://www.bismarck-class.dk/shipmodels/german_models/admiralgrafspeeterra.html

Maaaybe, if I can get a barge big enough for it.

What scale you thinking in? Biggest barge I've been able to find is 10x30 meters if I'm readin' the charts right, and carfloats were generally long but very narrow, only about three tracks' worth of width.

 

[CharlieH.]

What scale you thinking in? Biggest barge I've been able to find is 10x30 meters if I'm readin' the charts right, and carfloats were generally long but very narrow, only about three tracks' worth of width.

I really haven't given it much thought, but it would have to look right with one of these. A rather expensive pipe dream, but it would sure be alot of fun (that is, if I had some water around me...)

10x30 meters? Is that a model you're talking about?

 

[Diamondback]

Charlie, that's fullsize, built for 100-ton-capacity cranes.

 

[CharlieH.]

Well, I thought we were talking models... well, back to real boats then.

 

[Diamondback]

Charlie, that's what's called "scale dimensions"--Graf Spee is 30' actual/600' scaled, for example. 30 meters scaled to your tug is about 3'...

 

[CharlieH.]

D'oh!
Of course... Happens every time I read a modelling rag as well.

 

[Diamondback]

OT: Nothin' so annoying as an author who mixes actual and scale dimensions without clearly indicating which is which...

 

[Rooster]

I've owned several classic boats back in the 70's and 80's. I had a 1940's River Queen 34' house boat and a 1968 Correct Craft 16' Mustang with a Ford Boss 302 in it.
I lived on the house boat for a couple summers.
You know what they say about boats.....nothing but a hole in the water you throw money into. I'm glad to be rid of them. I've been boat free for 10 years.

 

[Matt Crunk]

There's a fella here who has a most amazing vintage boat:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=6159

As for me... closest thing I ever had to a vintage boat was a model of the RMS Titanic. Now I'm longing for a live-steam model tugboat with a matching carfloat... with matching boxcars.... and a matching miniature waterfront.

I actually plan to go a little farther back in the history books and someday build a 3/4 scale working replica of a spanish galleon. At that scale it should come in at somewhere around 30' LOA and carry 6 passengers comfortably.

-MC

 

[Matt Crunk]

Check out this illustration of 50's boating fun . . .

http://www.fiberglassics.com/galleries/bitb/cover.jpg

Makes me want to head for the lake right now.

To view this guys amazing collection of 50's and 60's era fiberglass boats go to: http://www.fiberglassics.com/galleries/bitb/default.htm

-MC

 

[Twitch]

I love the boats like these from the 30s-50s http://www.mbbw.com/WIP/wip.htm

 

[Rooster]

I love the boats like these from the 30s-50s http://www.mbbw.com/WIP/wip.htm

Yep those old chris crafts are great. living on the shores of the Mississippi all my life I've seen more than a few. My brother , who is a hospital administrator has been considering getting into the boat building/restoration business for the past few years. If he does I'll be building boats instead of guns I suppose!