Your first Boat

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.

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.

Saw some folks posting pictures of their first boat.

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.

Great pic, Jonny Quest! And the color looks cool