Sunday, September 15, 2024

He's got wood

 


7 comments:

  1. Built one of these back in the early 60's in shop class made using plans from Mechanics Illustrated (I think) Used a 10 Hp Merc. Never could afford the Merc with the 'quickie' lower unit. Delivered much fun.

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  2. I had a cousin that had one that he and his dad built. It had a 25 HP Evinrude that had a speed prop. It was fast.

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    1. Maybe my brain is broke but I remember the old 18HP Evinrude that my father had on the back of his wood 16' Amesbury skiff and that thing flew.
      I look at some of the pictures of these boats posted lately with not one but five or six 250HP outboards and it just seems crazy.
      I don't get it.

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  3. My dad built one in the early 60's from plans in a popular mechanics mag.
    I drove it once, when I was 10, terrifying.
    And exhilarating.

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  4. My father had one in the 50s and 60s. I think my brother still has it. This is a class B with a 20HP motor. His was a class D with a 40HP. It had a doped canvas front deck.

    I drove it once when I was 10 with the 40hp and it scared the crap out of me. He put an old 7-1/2 hp Evinrude on it and I drove it all over Lake George NY, by myself, at 10 years old.

    Between all that and my uncle's unlimited, overpowered, gold cup hydroplanes (He replaced the 4 cylinder Offy in Ethyl Ruth with an Allison V-12. No such thing as too much power, he said) I am lucky to have made into puberty.

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  5. That may be a Quicksilver racing lower unit but it is not the real racing lower unit Mercury made for Class B in the late 50s early 60s. This was perhaps 8" square and held 2 expansion chamber exhausts. No muffler, you could hear it miles away.

    You can see some of the Henry race boats, including Ethyl Ruth with the Allison peeking above the deck, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQgPZ8CzP6Y&pp=ygUZZmFzdCBib2F0cyBvbiBsYWtlIGdlb3JnZQ%3D%3D

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  6. friend built one, marine plywood monocoque, without an engine it was like picking up a potato chip, he put a hot rodded Ford 3.2 pinto engine in it, made a tuned header system for it, Webber side drafts, u be like a paper clip shot out a rubber band if you put it to the boards, crazy power to weight ratio.

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