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.
by John Heiderich member of the Blue Ridge chapter The Avenger was made by Impala Craft which was a division on Impala Oil Company of Enid, OK. The company was incorporated in 1969 and manufactured boats until 1973. I have not been able to find out any additional information on the Impala Craft company. I…
by Stephen Fox member of the Manotick chapter I like old launches. Really old launches. The ones that frequently show up on retro covers of Rudder but are rarely seen at boat shows or anywhere else. These are the high-speed long deck launches built between 1902 and 1911. The are round hulled displacement boats, between…
by Cindy Jordan member of the NC Coastal & Piedmont chapter Driving down Main Street in Sylva, North Carolina we saw a for sale sign on this little wooden boat. Stopping for a closer look, we quickly called to learn more. We made an offer and it was accepted! We were now the owners of…
by Bob and Char Shadduck members of the Bob Speltz Land-O-Lakes chapter In December of 2015, I received a telephone call from David Watts of Little Rock Boat Works, Rice, MN, my boat restoration friend, regarding an unusual and significant boat needing total restoration and available for purchase. It was not an unusual call in…
by Dave and Amy Drew members of the Water Wonderland chapter Our venture into the world of classic boating may be different than most. We had never owned a boat, we have never lived on the water, and in fact we always looked at owning a boat similarly to owning a swimming pool. We would…
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…
The SML (Smith Mountain Lake, VA) Chapter of the Antique and Classic Boat Society participated in the Vintage Boat Cruise on Saturday, August 8, 2020. Over 15 wooden boats were on the lake for this long cruise. The participants started at the Hales Ford Bridge cruised up the Roanoke River to Indian Point and then…
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…