by Rog Moberg member of the Bob Speltz Land-O-Lakes chapter According to the birth records of “Lollipop II”, she was sired in Little Falls, Minnesota at the Larson Boat Works in 1957. This was about the last full year that Larson was producing most all-wood models. The records show that she was delivered to the…
by Carman Keyes member of the Manotick chapter When I was young, my parents took me to visit my aunt and uncle in Grand Bend, Ontario, on Lake Huron. While there, I got to ride on an inboard boat that was so smooth-riding and fast, and started my love of boats. Over the next number…
by Myndy Woodruff member of the Lake Champlain chapter My wife Kate was chatting with a nurse in Montpelier, Vermont and disclosed our old boat habit. Everybody has an old boat story. It just so happened that this nurse had an old Penn Yan Boat and motor that had been hanging for decades in her…
by Roger Norberg member of the Bob Speltz Land-O-Lakes chapter I grew up with the privilege of spending summers on a small lake in Northern Wisconsin. My first boat was given to me for my 9th birthday, a 14-foot aluminum Smoker Craft with a new 1966 9.5 Evinrude. In those days’ parents thought nothing of…
by Gerald Petersen member of the Blackhawk chapter My 1912 Morris canoe was built for my father, Waldemar Petersen, when he was a youth living in Dundee, Illinois. My grandfather was a family physician living very near the Rock River in downtown Dundee. He had a large lot with a barn for his horses which…
by Gerard Cerand member of the Finger Lakes chapter When I was in high school in Elmira, NY in the mid-1950s, I had a lot of friends whose families had cottages on Keuka Lake. My close childhood friend, Jack McLeod’s family had a cottage on the lake with a beautiful GarWood Wooden Boat to water…
by Brad Rhine member of the Adirondack chapter While growing up spending summers on Lake Placid, learning how to care for and drive a boat became a rite of passage, with the size and horsepower being age appropriate. For this reason, when our three kids became of age to pass their boater safety course, I…
by Jim Russell member of the Chautauqua Lake Twin Tier chapter My wife and I became first time boat owners April of 2017 after a longtime fascination with classic wooden boats. Our local paper had a listing for a 1956 Chris-Craft, Mahogany Sportsman Runabout completely restored with trailer. I called the seller and after he…
by Valerie Stabenow member of the Glacier Lakes chapter I grew up around wood boats on Lauderdale Lakes in southern Wisconsin in the ‘60s. Boy, those were the boats to have, but unfortunately, that was not possible for my family. Fast forward to 2006, living on a lake north of Madison, WI, when my non-boating…
by David Berett member of the Pacific Northwest chapter My 1941 Chris-Craft started its life as a 22’ Utility. I found it sitting outside on a forested bluff overlooking Puget Sound in La Conner, WA in 1980. The original wood top had been cut off with a chainsaw and was laying over the engine box,…
By Steve Dagg member of the Heartland Classics chapter She is a 1957, 20’ Chris- Craft Holiday. In 2016, I found her through an ad out of Crosslake, Minnesota. She was originally delivered with hull number HY-20-118 to Minnetonka, Minnesota, powered with a Chris-Craft M-130 and, at that point, had been in storage for more…
By Elinor Miller member of the Mid-Atlantic chapter Fuzzy Beast is 37’ 1967 steel-hulled Chris Craft Roamer designed for boating on the Great Lakes. I acquired her in 1974 while I was living in Chicago. She was my second boat and I was her second owner. The name referred to my cat. My first boat…