Warmth From Canada, Just In The Nick Of Time.

Rainbow IX 1923 Chris Craft

A huge thanks to Looooooooooooooooongtime fellow Woody Boaters Chris and Julie Bullen for sending in this cool info an a very cool series. Take it away Chris, Here we are in the dead of winter, it’s colder than I have seen it in my location in a long time. Seems like a good time to tell a summer story. I had a very different summer, I retired, so that was a huge change that allowed me to have the freedom to do very different things with my time.

Ready to rumble! HELDENA II – 1916 – J.J. Taylor

Back in the spring, we found our club was really being shut down with the covid restrictions we needed to produce something for the members of our club.  We are a club, getting together is the club, and having a spring tour is the start of our boating season we needed to find a way to have something to bring us together virtually. None of us had done much with video but we were up for the challenge. We did the spring tour videos of the boat shops in our area and we think it was very successful. 

DIX doing her thing

As a result of that experience, I was asked if I could help in the production of boat videos. This would eventually become a webinar series to be held by the Muskoka Steamships and Discovery Centre in Gravenhurst, Ontario.  Ian asked me to help little did he know I was thrilled with the idea. I had thought about doing this myself but now we had a team with connections to great boats. With a few volunteers and cobbled together video equipment we were off.

L Aiglon Ditchburn

I started off with just a DSLR camera. Then we needed a mic as it was not working as well as I hoped. Too much background noise and wind. After that, we purchased a wireless mic to put on the guest speaker. You will hear the difference in the videos as they got better due to equipment improvements and some experience for the guy holding the camera.

From the cock pit of Fancy Landy

That being said they got bad again as on vintage boating day I managed to drop the camera in 100’ of water so we started using different cobbled together equipment at the end. 

We filmed many different types of boats with lots of stories from the captains. It was a wonderful summer hanging out with so many interesting people and our crew which were just the best. All in all, we are quite happy with the results. It’s a fun bunch of videos made up by a few folks just winging it. I hope you have time in March to watch them. 

Register at Webinars | Muskoka Steamships and Discovery Centre HERE!

The boats from Ditchburn, Minett, Greavette, Disappearing propeller boat Hutchinson and Chris Craft

Wigwassan III, Shirl Evon, Aegis, L’Aiglon, Black Prince, Lady Elgin, Llansakes, Robin Adair, Dix, Fancy Lady, Clarie II, Rainbow IX, Rita, Baisong, Gladys, Wharerah, Curlew,  Eaglet, Heldena II, Scud II,  Silver King, and Alzed

Rita 1914 Minett

Llansakes 1919 Borneman

Shilevon Ditchburn

two Minetts on the left a ditchburn omn the right

Thanks again Chris and Julie for the info, this makes the cold winter a little warmer for all of us.