by Brent Howard, Heartland Classics Chapter
One of my Grandfathers was a railroad carpenter that trimmed the fancy Pullman Car interiors. He took me under his wing while Dad was a Commander on a troop ship during World War 2. I have worked with wood ever since but did not discover working on wood boats until 50 years later. In 1999 a friend talked me into going to a wood boat auction. My friend bought the Chris-Craft he was after, and I could not resist buying a 1946 Chris-Craft Sportsman 25’. The boat needed everything and I had no place to work on it. A few months later I bought a shop at Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees and the restoring Classic Boats adventure began.
Brent and team continue to do magnificent things with wood boats!
Beautiful! How many years to restore?
It took about a year to restore.
I can’t share a picture here, but was surprised by the similarity to my ‘41 Chris (Nemesis) which I modified in the 80’s from 22’ utility to runabout. I didn’t have any knowledge of the Sportsman when I did the work, but ended up looking a lot like it.