Story by Clay Thompson, Photos by Forrest Bryant, Heartland Classics Chapter
Continuing with the second installment of stories about “firsts.”
Many think disc brakes came out in the 70’s, but Tucker did have them in the 40’s, however, in England, Lanchester offered them in 1902. With boats, well, they just are much more simple than cars. Not much for headlights, or stoplights and, of course, the biggest thing is NO BRAKES! What’s up with that? Seems no one has come up with much of anything in the way of brakes, just a little reverse maybe to stop forward motion. One must utilize judgment when approaching a dock, and when that judgment is poor, well, the results are well documented! There is a small gate on the jet pump that gives modern jet skis a reverse, kinda like a brake. But not too effective when off the throttle, not dependable like a car. Automatic transmissions are generally credited to Oldsmobile in 1940, but REO motorcars had a 2 speed auto in 1932. The transmission on an inboard boat is very simple, forward, neutral, and reverse, usually controlled by a large handle rising up from the floor. In 1949, Chris-Craft marketing showed many new buyers might be female, so they created a more user friendly dash push-pull handle, trying to simplify the shifting, then in the late 50’s, Chris-Craft introduced the chris-o-matic hydraulic shift. Easy to use, but it was not perfect, it had an undesirable, and scary delay in response, and some renamed it the CRASH-o-matic.
We see the fabulous Ford Fairlane had the first really cool retractable hardtop in 1957, or did they, yes, Peugeot did it in 1935. And with boats, they are not even really convertibles, just open cockpit, but there were some tops offered in the 20’s. The Kroh company had made tops for many early carriages, and these were adapted to boats. They were in the Chris-Craft catalog as early as 1925. Upscale automobiles used a top designed by the upscale DIETRICH company, and these showed up on boats starting around 1930. None were power, and quite a lot of trouble to use. The Century boat company had several hardtop, and interesting sliding top style boats in the 50’s, very stylish construction, and they provided much needed shade. Some boats had windshield wipers, and the first ones were hand operated. Ford gave us the handy intermittent windshield wiper system in 1969.
Ford was also the first to offer whitewall tires as an 11 dollar option in 1939. More firsts were the anti fouling bottom paint to thwart barnacles and growth by the British inventor Francis Petitt, who in 1880 also happened to invent the first screw propeller.
A great thinker indeed. And to hold the boat, Richard Danforth designed the first lightweight anchor that had great holding power in 1940. No more rotting hemp dock lines due to the invention of “nylon” line and rope, introduced at the 1939 worlds fair by Dupont.
Now for a ‘super’ first, FIBERGLASS. Used for cars and boats, it was discovered by the Corning Glass company in 1933, knowing it had to be useful, it was then paired with polyester resin by American Cyanamid in 1942. This was a game changer first for the boating world, now allowing all types of seamless shapes of watercraft, all from a mold, not wood frames and planks. It was a revolution! Along with the first electric starter on outboards in 1957, and small trailers to pull these boats around, the new fiberglass outboard boat was now in many driveways, and ready for weekends at the lake. Real family boating was born, and just in time for the fabulous 50’s!
Also, in 1952, Amrose Weeres of Minnesota welded barrels together end to end with a common platform and created the first pontoon boat. We all see how that turned out, pontoon things are everywhere! Sorry, did I call them a “thing” instead of a boat?
Still today, we have all kinds of innovations and “firsts,” like the most talked about new electric car, except William Morrison created one in 1890. The Detroit Electric car was popular for a while in the 20’s, and now the Tesla car is a success, although much is still left to be done for that battery technology.
Now, are you ready for this? Driverless cars are here, but again, my brother in law pioneered that 50 years ago when he got out and mistakenly left the car in gear and the car took off, rolling down the street a ways and over the curb into a ditch! However, that may have been a different technology.
The list of firsts is a long ongoing one, but hopefully we have covered many here to get you thinking.