As the 2024 ACBS Vintage Boat Week enters its final day, it is only right to reflect on what a week its been. The boats, the folks, the rides, the smiles… The Bob Speltz Land-O-Lakes Chapter has offered the best that Northern Minnesota and all of these beautiful waterways have to offer. Enjoy this sneak…
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By Gregory Rice, Michigan Chapter For over thirty-five years, I have been scratch-building Radio Controlled boats. Since 2008, I have focused on the unique designs of John Hacker. When I was growing up in the 60s, like many boys at the time, one of my hobbies was model building. My work was nothing special, but…
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By Andreas Jordahl Rhude (originally printed in the Glacier Lakes Chapter newsletter, At the Waterline) When most people conjure up an image of a wooden era Thompson boat, they picture a lapstrake hull with white painted sides and stained and varnished mahogany decks, transom, and interior trim. In a way, this is the quintessential “Thompson.”…
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Gil Maringer, North Coast Ohio Chapter When the Antique and Classic Boat Society created a new “Resto-Mod” classification for boats that have been restored and modified with modern engines and equipment while preserving the classic boat style and historical significance, it almost seemed to be tailor-made for a certain Chris Craft Holiday on Portage Lakes.…
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By Kevin Bamerick, ACBS Member and Regular ACBS Rudder Contributor E. Murray Lombard wrote entertaining epithets of boat names in the 1929 Motor Boating magazine. The “999 sounds fast,” he wrote, “999 was a super hydro.” The hydro-plane was owned by Edsel Bryant Ford of Detroit, Michigan. Resemblant to Horace Dodge’s Baby Delphine, John Hacker, in…
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“Once you are on a tugboat, you fall in love.” – Paul Vassall, owner of the Jessie T. The mystique of a tug is like none other and though these working boats may seem an unlikely pleasure craft once retired, the tug community is passionate. ACBS has 6 member tugs, each as unique as its…
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Member stories are beginning to pour in (over 1,100 have responded already) and we are so excited for the way the ACBS 50th anniversary Oral History Project is already taking shape! A few quick notes about this project.. ACBS has contracted with Publishing Concepts (PCI) to assist with creating our 50th Anniversary Oral History project…
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A People’s Choice Pink 1958 Century Roan In 2011, she saw it. A pink 1958 Century Roan. A boat fabricated in her favorite color. “I fell in love with it in about two seconds,” says Kateyln Marsden, member of the Finger Lakes Chapter, a third generation member, in fact. “My grandparents were founding members.” The…
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By Graeme Hoatson Beattie, Manotick Chapter William L. Ralph was the adopted son of Michael Ralph. Little is known about Michael, yet he did have the financial means and wherewithal to acquire a 99-year lease from the Canadian Crown to establish Ralph Island in 1889. Ralph Island is a mile away from Portland near the…
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In the coming days and weeks ACBS members will receive both postcards in the mail (pictured above) and emails (pictured below) with information about our upcoming Oral History Project to celebrate the ACBS 50th anniversary. ACBS has contracted with Publishing Concepts (PCI) to assist us with gathering the great stories and photos from our members…
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By Rob Wilkinson, Pacific Northwest Chapter Photos by Colleen Chartier Several decades ago, while sitting on the banks of the Montlake Cut near the University of Washington where the Boys in the Boat practiced and raced in the 1930s, my friend Elizabeth and I spotted a beautiful mahogany speedboat cruising through the canal. We swooned.…
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By Amy Scanlin Slow down. Disconnect. Unplug. There is art in nature for those willing to take a look – clouds reflecting on a mountain lake, the gentle curve of a polished gunwale, a new day dawning as oars pull through the water, leaving ripples, like fingerprints, fading into the the shoreline. The breath slows…
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