Wuzz a Fuzz: Tom Flood’s former police boat still thrills

In 1948, the Hacker Boat Company built a boat for the City of Detroit to operate as a police patrol boat on the Detroit River. She’s special, and not just because Hacker produced only 10,000 custom boats during the company’s existence.

Back when she was known as Fireball.

They named her Fireball. Originally, she had twin Chrysler straight 8 engines, but in 1955 the department changed them to Chrysler Hemis. After her 20-year “tour of duty” with the police department, she went into private hands as a pleasure boat. 

When I found the boat in Chesterfield Township, Michigan, it was sitting in the front yard of someone Tom knew from the marine hardware business. He knew the boat had been left in the water in the winter and, consequently, the ice chewed holes in the boat all around the waterline when he purchased it. Serious repair and refurbishing was in order! Though the boat would undergo a complete restoration, as Tom says, it’s still a Hacker.

Tom bought the boat in 2002 and brought it to Florida in the fall of 2003. It took about 3,000 hours to restore it before her formal debut launch at the Lake Dora Show in 2006. Evey frame was changed because they were either broken or rotten.

The only original parts left were deck carlings and some of the transom. The entire inner structure, including the keel, chine and planking all had to be replaced. He also changed the deck back to the original Hacker design, which was a runabout style. The sides consist of mahogany frames covered with 4-mm Okoume Plywood applied using 5200. West Epoxy was used between the planking and the plywood. 

The interior layout is now the same as it was in the original Hacker blueprints. The previous owner had removed the bench seats and installed individual pedestal seats. Back when it was a police boat, the rear cockpit had room for two stretchers. This was to accommodate injured persons in need of first aid who had been pulled from the water. The stern was also squared off in order to enable the gurneys to be easily lifted out of the water. 

However, since the original Hacker drawings called for a tumblehome, every frame from #7 back rolled in 9-inches.

Wuzz a Fuzz, renamed to reflect its previous life as a police boat, received all new maroon leather upholstery. Since the front cabin area was previously used for storage, space was available to install two berths and a head. The windshield was redesigned and changed to open in the center; it was originally fixed according to Hacker plans. The arrows on the sides were also in the original plans. 

Flood redid all the chrome and most of the hardware. Some of the period hardware Tom had, and the rest was purchased through Maine Classic Hardware. Tom installed two Mercruiser 454 engines in order to make more room and create a passageway between the front and rear cockpits, a “hallway” as our friend’s son called when he was 3-years old. 

All these years later, Wuzz a Fuzz still resides in Tom’s boathouse on Les Cheneaux Islands.