Browse news articles, stories and media for the the Antique & Classic Boat Society; including photographs and stories related to ACBS International and it’s chapters.
A 1964 28-foot Chris-Craft Sea Skiff gets a new life and steals the show. Story by Kasey Rideout, Kyle Jamar, and Brent Howard, Heartland Classics Chapter members Photos by Kyle Jamar In the beginning, according to Brent Howard, he wanted a boat booth for Heartland Classics to use at Workshops, Boat Shows and Events, resulting…
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…
By Neil Satterly, Adirondack Chapter The annual Rendezvous in Old Forge, NY was held July 10 and 11. Perfect weather combined with over 45 boats registered on land and in water, a very rare 1940 Packard Woody station wagon, live music and several other land displays made for another wonderful show. On Friday morning the ACBS Directors…
Story by Clay Thompson, Photos by Forrest Bryant, Heartland Classics Chapter We all seem to love to document things, the highest, the cheapest, the best, the biggest, most expensive, and even who did it first! I think we all just adore the guy who thought of it first, So for today, let’s entertain ourselves with…
Russ’s love affair with mahogany boats began as a boy living on Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York. It was the 1950s, and wood was about the only available option for boats. Years later, Russ set out to find a classic “woody” boat like the ones he’d grown up with and,…
As Alan Jackson closes his final tour, here is a highlight of a boat once owned by the country music superstar. Donated by Jackson to the Antique Boat Museum, it is now part of the museum’s in-water fleet and enjoyed by visitors as a fantastic piece of history. The Chris-Craft Semi-Enclosed Cruiser models from the…
By Joe Roberts, Northern California/Lake Tahoe Chapter Millie or as she was known as for the first 55 plus years of her life, as just the unnamed family Chris-Craft boat. My father-in-law Ray bought her new in 1958, so the family could have a boat when they were at their lake cabin in Clearlake, California.…
When an autonomous Navy boat rescued two downed Army helicopter pilots in the Straits of Hormuz in June 2026, it was interesting to note the technologies enabling the rescue directly trace back to classic boats. The boat, nicknamed the Corsair, is fully autonomous, 24-feet, with a maximum speed of 35 knots, that can travel 1,000…
By Ted Lyman, Northern California/Lake Tahoe Chapter Green Hornet is our second Philbrick; the first, Born Again, was restored by my father and me in 1980 — the year we joined ACBS. It was during the follow-up restoration of Born Again in Don Philbrick’s Oakland shop in 1990 that Green Hornet fell into our ownership.…
Award Winning Fatal Attraction Featured in Hollywood Productions By Bob Newcomer, SoCal Chapter In November 2009, I attended a workshop at Robinson Restorations in Fallbrook, California, when Tim Robinson called me aside and showed me a loose-leaf notebook that had details of a boat for sale. Tim knew I was looking for this exact model…
What a weekend it was in Yorktown, VA, when Sail 250 tacked and jibed into port on the York River as part of the America 250 celebration. Yorktown, the site of Cornwallis’s surrender and the beginning of the end of the Revolutionary War, was just one of many backdrops across Virginia that celebrated both naval…
Frizzy Atwell was in charge of all new yacht construction at Trumpy’s. Jim Emmeric headed the plumbing shop, Frank Thomas, the joiner shop, Rob Childs, the electrical shop, Ed Norton, the mill shop, Frank Wagner, the carpenter shop and Bunky Durham, the boat building shop. The division of labor was well defined at the Trumpy…