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View Full Version : The Corsican's Cousin



Looped
02-25-2002, 08:48 PM
Anyone looking for the Corsican's cousin?

http://www.antiqueboat.com/boats/MoreInfo.asp?SKU=mart18

Craig

Dr. Dan
02-26-2002, 07:47 AM
Wow, pretty neat, I had not heard of this before? What's the history here Brownie or Owen? :rolleyes: Curious minds want to know????....Doc

Tony
02-26-2002, 08:01 AM
My friend has an orange one that has been in his barn for many years. It's original and in great shape, but would probably need a re-power. The "one of nine built" may be a stretch, but there were not a lot of them built as Donzi apparently warned them to cease production or be sued. They are exact replicas, even down to the pictures in the brochure being very alike!

Unlike some knock-offs, the Cobalts were very well built. Craig Zimmerman owns one, and has a ton of info on these boats...he even has a web page with some really sweet pictures that align the Cobalt model numbers with their Donzi counterparts.

No time right now to search and link it, maybe someone else will...or I will later.
Cobalt Craig...are you out there?

Looped
02-26-2002, 08:15 AM
It looks like Craig Z's site is down at this time:
http://www.homestead.com/cobaltclassic

The other pictures that he had posted on Photopoint are no longer do to Photopoint having money issues.

Hmmmm?

ALLAN BROWN
02-26-2002, 11:18 AM
Aronow and I confronted them at the Chicago boat show, about 1970. Their entire line was copied from Donzi (neither he nor I had any relationship with Donzi at that point.) All their boats were designed by him or me. He jerked the shift control out of a 16" lookalike by the roots and said "these boats are built like s*#t". They didn't realize what a serious problem they had. In deference to Pack St. Clair, still President of Cobalt, they stopped building them, and "went straight". They build one of the finest boats out there today. You should have seen his face when we came into his booth!

Formula Jr
02-26-2002, 03:51 PM
Come on Allan. No body can rip a control right out of a boat like that by hand. I've tryed. The Cobalt Donzis were well made. They were copies, but they were really, really good copies. Did You and Wynne have some bad blood going on at this time. Wondering, cause ya say Don and you designed the Cobalt line and that is'nt entirely true. You being a god, of course, i ask forgiveness if i have offended you in any way.

Still waiting for you to tell the real story about the Donzi 14. The real story.

CDMA
02-26-2002, 05:26 PM
Great Story!!!

Chris

zzzzaaappppp ... guess that was the wrong spot for that wire...glad it was 12v

Donzified
02-26-2002, 06:49 PM
I don't know Jr.
There are only a few screws holding it on.If I was motivated properly it would pull out or break off. Did you ever arm wrestle Mr. Aronow?

BigGrizzly
02-26-2002, 09:41 PM
Jr. I doubt that you tried to rip one out of a Cobalt copy or even seen one. Yours is a Formula jr. and I don't think you would abuse it in any way. The other thing is I've seen both Brownie and Don in person and small isn't the word I would use to describe either of them. I sent Craig a copy of the Corsican adds be he though it was a 16. There was a long discussion about 2 years ago on the subject. Something about mat vs. cloth and lay-up. They used a very coarse cloth in the stern and a lot of mat. Just so you know my 1971 Corsican came stock with a 351 H&M Ford Cleveland and a Volvo outdrive. The exhaust was the H&M log type, good than but poor today.

Randy

Formula Jr
02-26-2002, 11:08 PM
Oh, thats right. Don did beat Dan Blocker in an arm wrestling match........... Oky, so it could have happened. But I'll bet he used both arms........ :D

ALLAN BROWN
02-27-2002, 09:51 AM
I should not have have left Jim's name off the list. He and Walt did the real designs of the bulk of the boats. Dick Cole and I did the 7 Meter. What the hell was I thinking?

Formula Jr
02-27-2002, 02:13 PM
Brownie from reading all your posts, I'm getting an idea of how you guys went about designing things - let me know how far off the mark I am.

That there were four distinct sources for the early boats.

You and Dick Cole
Wynne and Walters
Harry and Gene Schoell

And Don's method of drawing designs out on a cocktail napkin and then telling you guys to build something that resembled the sketch. Which, production boats, if any, started out with one of these napkin sketches?