On friday I just bought myself a new "Antique " mahogany speedboat.
It is a 1929 Chris~Craft Mahogany 28' Tripple cockpit runabout .
The boat is mostly all original & unrestored.
I bought it from a friend who has owned it for about seven years.
The reason I bought it was because he and an older so-called wood boat "Restorer" was butchering it's old bottom.
They were cutting strips of plywood and using Stainless Steel Deck Screws to fasten it on the old outer sanded bottom with 3M 5200 trough both old double planked bottoms into it's oak frames.
They were actually screwing this mahogany faced 3/8" plywood through both old bottoms on this double planked boat..
They should be shot for doing this to such a rare boat.
About sixteen of these boats were originally built.
The boat in 1929 had a Chris~Craft designed & built A-120 V8 . That original engine is long gone.
Sometime in the 1930s an A-120-A Racing engine was installed in this big impressive boat.
The A-120-A is 845 Cubic inches with 375 Horsepower at roughly 2800RPM max .
What a beast.
That is the engine I bought with this rare boat.
The Museum where all the old Chris~Craft factory records are stored has only six hull index cards still existing on these sixteen originally built boats of his type.
In my short research only two A-120-A engines are known to still be in running condition.
My engine seems to outwardly be in good shape.
The marine exhaust maniolds and elbows
are most likely shot; so I will need to have some new copper custom manifolds and naval bronze elbows hand fabricated,or .cast.
The engine has twin ignition, and multiple carbs.
I am already on a waiting list of a noted wood boat restorer to have a new proper double planked mahogany strip plank bottom put on this project.
I am trying to decide if I should have West System Epoxy applied to it's new bottom ?
Does anyone here have any experience with a Double Planked bottom with 3M 5200 to bed the outer mahogany strip planking ?
What about West System Epoxy to seal the outer bottom?
The boat's frames appear to be in good shape ?
The boat is very solid indeed.
We shall see when it is flipped-over and the old bottoms are actually finally removed ?
The boat has an up-swept front deck,
& a very large raised twin-hatch area in it's mid section.
The interior, or what's left of it, was all dyed leather.
The mice have had a real field day living in this boat over the years.
The boat was last used in 1950 and has been sitting in a Md boathouse ever since on it's original cradle bolted to a home-built trailer with wire 21 " Buffalo Wire Wheel Company of America wheels.
These wheels are similar to the wheels on my old 1926 Springfield Rolls~Royce Silver Ghost and my Springfield Phantom I autos.
The boat has two fold-up windshields on it's middle and aft cockpits just like a duel-cowl phaeton auto of this era.
One very large windshield is also up foreward at the driver's cockpit.
This project cost me $65K.
It will be moved to my home shop in Pa in a month or so.
I just spoke with Scott Pearson about this project a few weeks ago never knowing that I would soon be it's new ower.
I told Scott at that time that they were butchering this very rare boat.
We were both outraged to say the very least.
It just tore my heart out~~~
I had to do the right thing and save this boat & restore it properly.
It's another black-hole for tons of cash .
BUT~~~
It will be worth every penny and all the time spent on it's restoration.