By Gil Maringer member of the North Coast Ohio and Chautauqua Lake Twin Tier chapters When Chris-Craft was completing their WWII contracts and the war was winding down, the company looked forward to national prosperity and the resurgence of demand for pleasure boats. To capture the enthusiasm and optimism for the future they designed a…
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By John Young member of the Water Wonderland chapter As far back as I can remember I have known the 1958 Lyman I own. Our neighbor on Douglas Lake, Michigan, who originally owned the boat, would use it as the committee boat for our local sailboat fleet races. Sometimes Mom and I would go along…
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By Don Veihmeyer member of the Northern California/Lake Tahoe chapter This Racing Runabout was the first boat of the model built after WWII. The factory originally installed a Hercules model KB engine for power, with a 3 downdraft carburetor model which required a metal deck cowling on the engine hatch cover. The Lake Tahoe Boat…
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By Jane Larson, Glacier Lakes Chapter & friend of Geraldine The 2019/2020 winter was not kind to all parts of the United States. Heavy snows followed by rain followed by more snow and wind hit upstate New York in particular. And it hit an extra hard blow to Joe Sabo when the roof of a…
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by Tom Thayer member of the Blackhawk chapter One day, in the spring of 1999, my wife was looking at the local Shopper Stopper paper and casually mentioned that there was an Amphicar for sale at an upcoming farm auction a little South of Evansville, WI, which is only about 20 miles from where we…
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by Richard Lowery member of the Chesapeake Bay chapter Like me, most ACBS members in the country suffer from the addiction of loving old boats. My addiction started years ago when my father used a 17′ wood catboat, without its mast and rigging, as a power boat to fish for pickerel on Lake Erie.The cat…
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by James Goodrich member of the Sunnyland chapter My ELCO 24′ electric launch is a reproduction of a late 1890s boat that, in turn, was based on larger Electric Launch Co. boats used to transport passengers on the flooded Midway of Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. In 1987 Joe Fleming and Bill Swanson planned and…
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by Lynn Kasin member of the Hudson River chapter I grew up on the south shore of Long Island where the Great South Bay beckoned me from a young age. My Grandfather had a 34′ 1924 Elco Cruisette where we often spent the weekends picnicking and clamming near West Island. As a teenager I had…
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by Bill & Jan Stephenson members of the Michigan chapter A long time ago in the early 70’s I worked for a brief time in sales at Donzi Marine in North Miami Florida. The Donzi factory was next door to the Magnum factory which at the time was owned by Bobby Rautbord (a well known…
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by Bill Watson member of the Northern California/Lake Tahoe chapter In the early 20th Century, flamboyant Captain George Whittell, Jr. was a very wealthy young man having many extravagant hobbies and obsessions, including acquiring the best machines that modern technology had to offer. He owned multiple airplanes, Duesenberg luxury motorcars, and a small fleet of…
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by Steve Shehadi member of the Finger Lakes chapter “Skim Boating is the newest fad at cypress gardens.” – Popular mechanics magazine April 1950 The Hansen Skim board was developed by Emil Hansen from Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania and was an early predecessor to the very popular Jet Ski you see today. This project started with…
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by John Peck member of the Toronto chapter In the summer of 1920 on Lake of Bays in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada, my father had just been given his first boat at the age of five,a rowboat (Bay) of his own to experience the freedom of exploring the lake at will. From my conversations with him…
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