And Now For Something Different, Sea Sled Brochure
Fast Enough? For who? Whom?
If you have been lucky enough to one of these in person, they are amazing. But I have never seen a sales brochure on them, and such is the joy of our little community. Lots of variety and a true representation of Real Intelligence vs Artificial Intelligence. No computer stuff here. Just pure human brain power and a WHY NOT TRY? I think this is one of the most attractive part of our shared passion. Analog design, analog construction. You can still feel the humanity in each part of these, and all our boats. Anyway I digress into some sort of sermon about the importance of the creativity of the human soul. YA! All this from a dumb brochure on ebay. And yes the irony of technology helping me find this and publish it while listening to BB King is not lost on me. You try and write this crap every day? Wow, this is turning bitter. I guess I am just human. Okay, all good now.
And you thought Boston Whaler was the first to do this?
I am sorry, but this looks like a train wreck about to happen in the driver “situation”
Performance? Seems like a lot of Marketing BS? Sorry.
Specs. I wonder how “fast enough” is? 200hp in a 28 footer is ? and a 75 in a 23 footer? As I go through this brochure, to be honest as a marketing person. Its a lot of fluff, and with a new design concept, needs to be VERY factual. And have a rational reason why its designed this way. OH Wait, Thats what Boston Whaler did!
YOU CAN FIND THE BROCHURE HERE ON EBAY!
It’s not crap!!!
“Full double planked mahogany on steel reinforced straight grain oak frame.” What the hell is that? I have always thought of these as sort of an oddity.
I could go on for days about Sea Sled, Hickman, Surface Piercing Propellers and Boston Whaler. Professional Boat Builder magazine has done a number of articles about the subject over the years. I refer anyone interested there. In the 80’s there was an effort to revive the Sea Sled, but feel short. With Sea Sled you got two new technologies in one the hull itself and surface piercing propellers. That led to no rudders! Just flaps on the sides the extended out to create drag and cause the boat to turn. Also, Hickman had to add a non-tripping chine as the boats with hard chines tended to do very bad things.
Finally Sea Sled begot Boston Whaler. Fisher couldn’t reach a licensing agreement with Hickman so he turned to Ray Hunt. Thus came the 13ft. BW, with no hard chines! BTW they both ride like crap! I still have a 13 ft. BW which I cherish. Anyway look up Professional Boat Builder articles it is very interesting. One article if I remember correctly is titled “Sea Sled, Damned by Faint Praise”.
Early in my career I became enamored with surface piercing propellers. I hold several patents and I built a number of custom boats from 34 ft. to 65 ft. with surface props. I was one of the first yacht builders to break 50 knots.
Speed boat racing – Palm Beach, Florida 1920s
Speed boat racing – Palm Beach, Florida 1920s
If you click on my name, there’s a video of the boat’s running.
Great video Bob. Thanks for sharing. Third time is the charm.
I watched the video, in turns the boat looks a little clumsy, and not very stable. stays flat? When crossing the passing boats wake it looked a little sketchy too. Boat looks like a mahogany landing craft. If you took a chain saw across the middle of it cutting it in half it ain’t gonna float is it? I remember Boston Whalers old ad doing just that.
Great video.
you can clearly see how the Sea Sled tripped on its chine when turning. Once was almost a collision when they drop off plane. Also, the classic surface prop rooster tail. The 13 BW didn’t sink when cut in half because of the foam sandwiched between the inner and outer hull laminates, not because of the hull form.
The BW has the center hull and not the inverted vee like the Sea Sled in order to not infringe Hickman’s various patents. He was reported to have gone after everyone for patent infringement including the US Navy.
Keep in mind that we can be critical of the hull form today because we are not comparing it to the contemporary hulls back in the day. They were fast for their power. I rode in the modern version in the early 80’s during the Miami Boat Show. Interesting but couldn’t hold a candle to even a moderate modern vee hull let along the classic Hunt 24 degree deadrise Vee.
Here’s one of my favorite Hickman photos. A Sea Sled about to launch an airplane from its deck.
This 1929 outboard was a raffle prize in 2002. Photo is from the Land O Lakes Rendezvous on the river in 2002. I think the raffle was an ACBS fundraiser.
The Ebay seller of the Hickman brochure has two other brochures from the same era for sale. One brochure claims 33 mph for the 28 footer with the Hall Scott 200 and 28 mph for the 23 footer with the 75hp.
The loose wicker chair for the Captain looks scary to me.
All this cool information from an e-Bay brochure. Matt, that is why you do this every day!
We had a lot of clam boats and flat bottom dories that resemble the Sea Sled on the Great South Bay back in the day. At the N Y boat show circa 1978 Boston Whaler had the promo video at their booth showing the 13 footer being cut in half and then each half continuing on under oar and outboard power. My Dad said that’s the boat for you and placed an order.