Your first Boat

Great pic, Jonny Quest! And the color looks cool

My first boat was built by Carina and was an inboard "tunnel hull" V-Drive powered by a Ford 460.  The boat was not a true slalom tug, but it had a reasonable wake and we put many hundreds of hours on that boat.  I wish I had a good picture of it, but I can't seem to locate one.  I found a photo of a similar Carina on the internet and it looks reasonably close to mine.  My boat did not have the rear hand-rails.  The boat was brown and white gel coat with burnt orange shag carpet in the interior.  1976 icon.

Saw some folks posting pictures of their first boat.

bkhallpass wrote: Great post Stepper. Those old Lyman's are unbelievable. Really happy to see some new life in this old thread. There are couple thousand members here and only a fraction have shared their stories. BKH

Thanks. My father grew up around boats, and has always had a passion for them. He and his brothers used the Lymans on Lake Erie as kids, and actively tried to break them or flip them, to no avail. My father built the canoe you can see in some of the pics above, and used to have a small wood boat and canoe building/repair business in the garage where we worked on the white one.

I guess you could say it's in my blood.

Don't think I've ever come across this thread before. But I do have some old boat pics from the past.

We used to have a few Lymans around, small outboard lapstrake runabouts built in Ohio (where my father was from). My grandfather loved them. In my memory there were 3: the green one, the white one and the black one. The black and white ones spent most of my childhood in our basement stacked on top of each other. We played in them like a fort, it was great. Then when I was maybe 10 we set about getting one of them going, I painted it red, then eventually blue, although it was always still called the White Lyman.

My grandfather driving it when it was white;










This black one supposedly came to NH from Ohio on a train, way back who knows when.


We eventually gave the black one to a (maybe the only?) Lyman enthusiast who restored it and an old engine we had (a SportFour, 18hp - according to my grandfather). It's apparently quite rare in the Lyman world, but then, that's a small world. The same guy said the 10-footer (the "white" one) had to be pre-1930 because he's not aware of any of that size produced after that date. Pretty cool! My father used it as a kid on Lake Erie, and had put a crude layer of fiberglass over the outside of the hull when he was about 12.

I had a red 16' 1972 Starcraft with a 70hp Suzuki, but can't find any pictures. We also had a 13' whaler with a Tohatsu 40hp. Then, the first boat I REALLY bought with my own money was this gem, a 1981 Century Riviera.







Powered by a Mercruiser 470 and a lot of 70's/80's styling, this boat was comfy, fast, relatively quiet, and totally impractical. But it was fun. I owned it when I met my wife, but we hardly used it in favor of borrowing various CorrectCrafts we had access to, including a '66 and an '89.

Then I had my '89 Supra from 2006 - 2017.









I did love that boat, but not everything about it by any means. The gigantic bow storage was nice, but I'd rather have interior / cockpit space.

Then the Nautique, which I love and will probably never sell. Famous last words, I know.





Almost forgot, my father now has this 1958 Thompson - it's replaced the Green Lyman as his favorite, mostly because of the windshield.

I think I have the most unique Nautique. This paint Job was put on the boat by Thieves.
Boat was stolen around 1980 in Reno NV. Used by those that stole it for 2 years. Recovered and sold off by the insurance company in 1982 when I purchased it.
We had it for 8 years. Great Boat.   I was broke at the time so the paint job stayed. It was well applied and grew on me.   I liked it after a while. Caught a bunch of flack from many Nautique owners for not flying the flag.   We bought this boat in December of 82 after getting married in November of 82. Purchased for $5,000 and sold in 1990 for $7,500.
Everything was like new when I sold it. Not so much when we bought it.
We had a custom cover built to help store it outside shown as we were picking it up,

Good to see this old thread pop up once again.

BKH

1st: Picked up this Gem for 500 bucks, best money I ever spent. Introduced me to water sports and I've never looked back.




2nd: After a season with the MFG I wanted a "real" boat so I started looking for a Correct Craft. I though I was onto something when I found this one in the "free" section of c.list.
Not only was it busted up on the driver side, but it was missing EVERY single piece. Instead of wasting time looking for parts I turned this lemon into lemonade and made some custom furniture.




3rd: With the floor & transom rotting out in the MFG I decided to strip the running gear and transplant it into this '66 MirroCraft Ski N' Troll. Although it's not a CC it technically was a "ski" boat.




4th: (Current) After years of searching I finally brought home a Correct Craft, actually 2 of them. Plan is to resto-mod the Tique using the good parts from the totaled Nautique. Then when all's said & done I'm going to make a few more bars from the Nautique carcass.

Bruce just looking through all these threads there are two red ..c/c on the channel on lake ossipee maybe four houses apart. between broad bay and the main lake. they look the part you never know..

The reason I asked he looks a youmger version of a co-worker.If I had been reading a little closer I would have seen he named in the post...duh!

Jbear,I recognize the lovely Patty,but who's that guy driving your boat?

Thanks for the props Brian. But its easy...Patti does not like to shop, does not like a fancy house or furniture, does not like jewelry, will ride in the boat all day without complaint, is one of the better drivers in our club, especially for barefoot and can back a trailer or load the boat. Not much else to say about a girl like that.

I sure married way over my head I can tell ya.

john

Thnks Brian..you gotta be the only guy paying attencion. Still I am always proud of my first and more proud of the young Patti pictures. Man I liked that long hair.

john

Our '78 on its first day at the Ski Club dock on Sandusky Bay



The '78 on vacation in Tennessee



Sandusky Bay again..Patti with the rope..our nephew Brett who is now close to 30 sitting next to Mark Lastovka, who is driving.

Probably put these on before but..oh well.

Seems that you have had lots of boat driving experiance Adam. What color was the boat? How long was the season up there? Coupla weeks?

john

One of my best buddies built a boat similar to that little hydroplane when we were in 8th or 9th grade. I think he used plans from Popular Mechanics. 10 horse Johnson. That was a lot of fun. BKH