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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by Brian Fogarty member of the Indian Lake chapter My interest in Wolverines began when Steve Hale sold me his father’s 1955 14′ Runabout in 2005. I tried to find information on the Wagemaker Company but there was no club or internet site. So, I started the Wagemaker Wolverine and Cadillac Boats Marque Club site…
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by John Maddox member of the Southern California chapter This particular boat is interesting in that a 28′ model Hackercraft was not officially offered for 1928. A raised-coaming, wood vee-windshield Dolphin DeLuxe was offered one-year-only in 1927. For 1928 the Dolphin DeLuxe was stretched to 29′ and had a completely flush deck with a flattened…
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by Steven Perkins member of the New England chapter Gray Owl is a very original 1928 22′ Chris Craft, Model 1, hull # 1509. It was delivered new by train to Irwin Marine on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. In 1936 my grandmother’s uncle purchased Gray Owl from Downing’s Marina for $600 and it has…
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by Douglas Hansen member of ACBS Escapee, my “built strong for the Southern Ocean” sailboat for the past 38 years, is far from home and those waters. In 1940, she was commissioned in Sydney, Australia by Henry M.T. Lehmann (more on Henry later). Two years later she was re-registered in Vancouver, BC. In 1946 Henry…
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