Inland Empire Scuttlebutt

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Click on the below link to learn more about the history of boat manufacturers

Riva  Pietro Riva began building boats in 1842 at Sarnico, a small town in northern Italy on the shores of Lake Iseo. By the 1930s the business was managed by Pietro’s grandson, Serafino. But it was Serafino’s son, Carlo Riva, who transformed the company, making it the worldwide legend it is today. As a young man, Carlo Riva had very different ideas about boat design. Carlo began designing by modifying his father's boats. At 19, Carlo designed his first twin engine boat, and before he was 30, he had designed and built more than 45 different models. Under Carlo’s leadership (which was hard fought), the company produced boats of the absolute highest quality and consistency. A succession of owners have owned the company since Carlo Riva sold it in the early 1970s, and today the firm is owned by the Ferretti Group and produces boats made of fiberglass. According to the Riva Society GB, no one is sure how many of the 4,000 or so wooden boats built by Riva survive today. They are rare and highly collectible.

Gar Wood  Garfield A. Wood "never intended to go into the boat building business. His goal was to personally set every speed record on water and be recognized as the world's speedboat king. However, as he set forth to achieve these goals, he was influenced by colleagues and friends and as a result built the world's finest line of production recreational sport boats," according to the Gar Wood Society. Gar Wood produced boats from 1921 to 1947, not including the four years of World War II. It is estimated that over 10,000 Gar Wood boats were built during that period. In fact, for many years Hall’s Boat was a Gar Wood dealership. Today, Gar Wood Custom boats is a family company that builds wooden powerboats " in the tradition of Garfield Arthur Wood himself."

Belmont  This company does exist today in Fresno, California. They were founded back in the early fifties and it has been a father-son business for years. They made two or three luxury runabouts starting in 1956 until 1966 then converted to all fiberglass flat bottom jet boats until 1985.What is unique is that they were one of the first companies to fiberglass their boats below the waterline over the marine plywood. They would hold 8 passengers and would roar across the lakes and seas at 60 plus miles per hour.The old shop which is now called Belmont Marine is still in Fresno, CA and was bought from the son, Lynn Weeks. Founder Smitty Weeks passed away years ago at the age of 93.According to a former employee, Brent Rim at Belmont Boats, "We were mostly building jet boats. Smitty had designed a custom v-bottom hull using the 19' flat-bottom as a template. He actually got it patented. It was the fastest stock boat using the Berkeley 455 Olds Pack-a-Jet power unit. He also retrofitted the design into a 21' luxury day cruiser. While I was there, a guy named Simon did all the fiberglass work out back, and I did the hardware installations along with a guy named Bob. Lynn would stop by periodically. The most awesome part of that job was listening to the many stories Smitty told us based on his years of custom boat building and racing. There were many photos around the shop of his old wood boats, including one that resembled a shark and many custom wood inboards that he built for clients at Lake Tahoe. The most famous Belmont might be the Purple People Eater which was the first drag boat to run over 100 mph in the quarter mile and reached a top speed of 115 mph with Allison power at Fremont California in 1961.

Chris Craft  One of the most widely recognized names in wooden motorboats, Chris-Craft got its start in 1922 in Algonac, Michigan, with Chris Smith and his sons Jay and Bernard at the helm. Chris led several boat building ventures prior to that, including a partnership with Gar Wood building race boats. Chris-Craft focused on standardized boat production, enabling them to build boats year-round and at a good profit - while still being affordable to the average guy. Chris-Craft's boat lines included the runabouts, utilities, cruisers, and sea skiffs. The founders sold the company in 1960, but Chris-Craft continued building wooden boats until 1972. The company is still around today, building boats made of fiberglass.

Lyman  Bernard and Herman Lyman, brothers from Cleveland, Ohio, started building boats in the late 1800s. Their boats were designed and built to handle the powerful chop of Lake Erie. Lyman Boats quickly established a regional reputation for quality lapstrake rowboats and sailboats. In the 1970s, the company turned to fiberglass production and by 1980, Lyman had stopped new boat production entirely. By 1988 the new owner of Lyman reached out to Tom Koroknay, a Lyman enthusiast and restorer who ultimately purchased the wood boat patterns, jigs, tools, hardware and even the plans and archives dating back to the original days of the Lyman brothers remained, which included drawings, half models, racing trophies, and hull records. Today Koroknay, known affectionately as Doc Lyman, operates Koroknay's Marine Woodworking/Lyman Boats in Lexington, Ohio.

Century  The Century Boat Company built some of the pleasure boating most talked about styles. The company was founded in Milwaukee in 1926. It began by building fishing boats, sailboats, canoes, and the champion racing outboards. Century soon moved to its home of the next 60 years, Manistee, Michigan. There they added mahogany runabout inboards, and even challenged the small inboard race classes with the 14-foot Thunderbolt. Struggling through the lean years of the depression, Century offered a wide variety of finely crafted, 15- to 20-foot runabouts, utilities, and outboards. During World War II, the company supplied over 3,500 small assault boats -- a dedication that earned the defense department's Army-Navy "E" flag. In contrast to the decline experienced by noted wood boat producers at the time such as Gar Wood and Hacker, Century enjoyed a period of unprecedented prosperity after the War. The company immediately began production of the popular Sea Maid model and introduced the highly versatile utility type Resorter shortly thereafter. In 1955 the company introduced both the Coronado and the Arabian. Cadillac and Chrysler V8 engines were also added to the line-up. The new models of the '50s, the Coronado, Arabian, Viking, and Palomino, boldly incorporated the stunning design trends of the automobile industry from that time. A well-restored Century from that era is highly collectible. Today, the Century Boat Company is based in Florida and produces fiberglass boats.

Stancraft  StanCraft was founded in 1933 by W.H. "Billy" Young and his son Stanley Young, when they handcrafted their first mahogany wood speedster in Lakeside, Montana, on the shore of Flathead Lake.Over the next 35 years, they constructed over 800 wooden boats, with Stanley Young as head designer and builder. In 1937, when StanCraft built its first factory near Somers, Montana, it was the only boat-building factory in Montana.[4] Stanley and his brother Donald Young operated the factory until the beginning of World War II, and resumed operations after the war. During the war, Stanley operated a plant on the West Coast, building boats for the US Coast Guard. In 1948, StanCraft's sales offices and headquarters were moved from Somers to nearby Polson, Montana.On March 9, 1966, a fire burned down the StanCraft manufacturing plant in Somers, destroying 11 boats that were in storage. Stanley Young and his wife Delores had three children, including Syd Young,who took over the business in 1970. As fiberglass boats grew in popularity, the company began building fiberglass boats in addition to wooden boats. Syd Young moved the company to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 1981. The company's main business at the time was restoring wooden boats, building only a few new boats per year. The 1981 film On Golden Pond, which features vintage wooden boats, was credited in part with sparking renewed interest in the vessels. In 1997, Syd Young cut back on operations and sold much of the company's assets to Hagadone Marine Group. Robb and Amy Bloem (Billy Young's great-granddaughter) took over what remained of StanCraft in 2003, rebuilding the custom manufacturing operations while expanding the company's storage and restoration services and adding three brands of fiberglass boats to its offerings

Shepherd  The Shepherd Boat company was a small semi-custom builder of wooden boats, somewhat understated in styling but of high quality. The company was established in Ontario, Canada after World War II, initially selling boats only in Canada. In 1949, Shepherd introduced its first boat for sale in the US – a 17-foot twin cockpit forward model runabout. Its American distributor, Jafco Marine Basin of Buffalo, NY marketed the Shepherds heavily in the US, and the boats gained in popularity. By 1953, Shepherd was producing five models, including a convertible express cruiser, an 18-foot V-drive runabout, an 18-foot direct drive utility, and the Seamaster Twenty – a "roomier and stauncher 20-foot utility that can ship a he-man cargo of luggage, camp gear, or provisions . . . [with the] grace and agility of a runabout" as exclaimed by its advertisement in January 1954 Motor Boating magazine. In his book The Real Runabouts I, author Bob Speltz notes, "Shepherd did not switch from wood [to fiberglass] as most other inboard builders did and it seemed by 1960, the wooden inboard runabout market had all but dried up." And with that, so did the Shepherd Boat company. Speltz goes on to say, "Today, Shepherd runabouts are gaining favor nationwide with collectors. It is hard to find a better constructed or nicer equipped speedboat than a Shepherd!"

Hacker Craft  John Hacker was a design artist with a knack for what made a boat go fast. In fact, over the course of his life, John Hacker also designed boats built by other firms. Hacker bought his first boat works in 1909, and within the first three years had built nearly 30 hydroplanes, including some that could go over 50 mph. In 1913 Hacker joined with L.L.Trip and formed Hacker Boat Company, which later became the Albany Boat Co. After a short period Hacker sold the company and then started the Hacker Boat Company again, this time in Michigan. Throughout the 1920s, John Hacker and his company built luxury speedboats, including one in 1923, initially named "Miss Mary" and later renamed "El Lagarto." "El Lagarto" made racing history when she was repowered with a 300-horsepower Packard engine by George Ries and won the 1933, 1934 and 1935 Gold Cup Race. Today, "El Lagarto" is on permanent display at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, NY.The characteristic and highly innovative Hacker bottom had concave sections the entire length of the boat—a departure from other bottom designs of the day from Chris-Craft and Gar Wood. This bottom shape gives the Hacker Crafts an inspiring, solid feel in the water, along with great speed. The construction of the original Hackers had many refinements, from using rivets to fasten the planking to the intermediate frames, as well as using forgiving red cedar for the longitudinal, outer planking below the waterline, rather than hard mahogany. By the 1930s, Hackercraft was under new ownership but the commitment to building high quality boats was going full strength. The 30s saw a full lineup, including a 42-foot twin engine cruiser and the popular 24-foot and 25-foot triple cockpit runabouts. Those 1930s runabouts are characterized by their long decks, 3 piece windshields, and lots of chrome. By the 1960s, the company was defunct. The Hacker Craft name was re-started on Lake George in the 1980s by Bill Morgan, and even today you can buy a modern, wood epoxy version of these classic boats. than a Shepherd!"

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Ventnor 2002 marked the 100th Anniversary of Ventnor Boats. Adolph E. Apel first established his company in Ventnor, New Jersey. His vision was to build boats that would successfully adapt the gasoline engine as the predominant source of lightweight, efficient, and fast power. As in early automobiles, gasoline engines had to be proven to the public to have virtues of speed, endurance, and reliability. Adolph was an excellent mechanical engineer, and chose his commercially built power well. His ability to adopt new hull designs of lightweight yet durable construction was proven in his successful involvement with inboard racing. Ventnor boats continuously updated their designs, as lighter and greater horsepower engines became available. A 1913 example was Tech Jr., built for T. Coleman Dupont which was the worlds first recorded boat to exceed the over a mile-a-minute (60.3 MPH) mark. The Ventnor Company built a wide variety of custom launches, tenders, utilities, runabouts, and commercial small craft into the 1930’s. Their racing involvement remained strong, and the 1931 American Power Boat Associations (APBA) creation of a 135 cubic inch displacement racing class was immediately dominated by Ventnor. The Flying Eagle set the 1931 speed record of 35.7 MPH, and in the succeeding years of the 1930s, the 135 class records were held by Ventnor at 54.08 MPH lap speed, and 67.5 MPH flying mile.  In 1934, the APBA introduced the 225 class, and Ventnor set a record of 44.14 MPH. Later in the 1930s, Ventnor set the record at 66.4 MPH lap speed, 87.5 MPH flying mile. Ventnor boats, privately owned and raced, held virtually all records in the 91, 135 and 225 cu. in. classes, as well as many divisional and national championships. Adolph Apel invented the five-point suspension hull in 1935, and refined it to the three-point style. He patented the three-point suspension hull in 1936 in the US and UK, and it is still used today.