21st Annual Smith Mountain Lake Antique & Classic Boat Show And Festival
Located in central Virginia along the Blue Ridge Mountains, Smith Mountain Lake was the place to be last weekend if you wanted see some cool antique & classic boats. Despite the less than perfect weather this year, the 21st Annual Smith Mountain Lake Antique & Classic Boat Show and Festival hosted by the Smith Mountain Chapter ACBS was once again a big success. Robert & Linda Miracle were on hand and as usual, they captured some great images of the boats and shared them with us here at Woody Boater.
Fellow Woody Boater Phil Jones was there with “Betsy” – It was her “Coming Out Party” this weekend and she looks great! And the best part for Phil, his plastic bucket stayed dry. “Betsy” won the award for Best Cruiser this year, congratulations Phil!
Phil commented… I think even our group was surprised at what Bill Gool and I turned out in 10 weeks. We got two coats of CPES and four coats of varnish on in seven days and then put her back together (all stainless buffed) in two days (on Fri.) by 2:30 pm just in time to get her to the show. Fresh varnish fumes were in the air!
I always enjoy logging on to the Miracle Photography website after they return home from a boat show, to review the hundreds of photos, but honestly I have a terrible time deciding which photos to use for the Woody Boater report because there are so many cool shots to choose from. So this time I decided to bundle a series of photos together to present a few of the boats at Smith Mountain Lake from a few different angles. So here we go…
“Spiffy” is a very nice 1948 20′ Chris-Craft Custom (#236) owned by Alan & Jean Frederick from Tonawanda, New York.
It’s just great to see these elegant post-war Custom runabouts out on the water.
The Miracle’s captured some very nice shots of Roger & Sybil Smith’s orange striped 1940 17′ Chris-Craft barrelback.
The pre-war Chris-Craft barrelbacks look so good from every angle… static or running.
“Coronado’s Gold” is Dave & Kristine Olson’s 1957 21′ Century Coronado powered by an original Grey Marine V-8.
“Flapper” is an amazing 1926 Chris-Craft 26′ Triple Cockpit Runabout which was originally sold new to the Kermath Engineering Company for marketing and testing of their products back in the day. It’s currently owned by Michael & Dolores Mutchler from Moneta, Virginia.
“Flapper” was originally powered by a Kermath Model 100 engine when it was delivered from Chris-Craft. The massive Kermath engine weighs 1,300 pounds, measures 69 inches long and holds 16 quarts of oil!
Remember the old Evinrude Tri-Hulls from the 1960’s, there was one at the show that looked sporty running across Smith Mountain Lake. I think these were called Sweet 16’s…
“Happy Days” is owned by George & Joan Blosser, also from Moneta, Virginia. It’s a big 1956 23′ Chris-Craft Continental.
And of course an antique & classic boat show is never complete unless there’s a Thompson on hand… here’s a nice looking 1964 Thompson Thomboy 16 outboard, owned by Don Clement.
“Miss Anne” a classic Century Arabian with that cool interior and big V-8…
Thanks again to Robert & Linda Miracle from Miracle Photography for sharing their awesome photos with us, you can see and purchase any of their photos from the Smith Mountain Lake show at their web site by clicking here.
Texx
Fantastic. Lapstrake and all. Love that outboard at the end. Thanks again to the Miracles for all the great shots. I am off to their site to drench myself in another show I could not attend.
Betsy sure looked nice!, but I got to say that Thompson was beautiful.. Wonder how he got the seats to match his stripe or vise versa?
Color on the buckets is a little much though.
The buckets are fun, that way you will never miss them under water! This show, year after year gets better, this group.. The Smith Mountain Gang… Is o top of it big time. The lake is fantastic with almost year around use. Our Caps our off to them for making this happen.. Congrats!
Get the “h” in there. It is Thomboy!
I ahve a 1955 version – the strip built hull, not lapstrake.
Andreas
Phil, wow, Betsy looks fantastic. Today , the real “Congrat’s”. Yesterday’s was speculation. Bob & Chris Ann (Smith) Braaf from Colorado were at our show in Quincy, IL with their 1957, 28′ Chris-Craft Sedan with Fly Bridge. They haul it around the country on a triple axle trailer and are in route to Lake Geneva as we speak. The helm is identical to yours. I sure wish they would have kept the same helm in my ’60, 27′ Connie but…
The green buckets are a little more nautical looking but still hard to tuck in somewhere. Looks like the start of a new trend, all they need is a show logo on the side and they would be perfect.
Andreas – The correction has been made, sorry – my mistake, looks like I need to sharpen up on my Thompson knowledge…
George Blosser from the Smith Mountain Lake Chapter ACBS send us the following comments on the show. He said…
We had a record number of boats registered for the show. ACBS members from far and wide registered 52 boats.
Our awards dinner was the largest in recorded history with 108 folks in attendance to listen to Charles Mistele’s “eye watering” presentation on Miss America IX. Our senior member Bob Banta attend with 4 generations of his family in attendance. Bob turned 90 years old this past year.
Several outboards were entered in the show this year. Bill Salisbury’s Stauter 14’ Runabout with a 22hp Johnson, Sean Simonds entered his 1957 Yellow Jacket with a Johnson 35hp and Adam Gray entered his 1958 Duracraft 15’ Runabout with an Evinrude 75 HP. It should be noted that both Sean Simonds and Adam Gray are new members of the SML Chapter of ACBS.
Mechanical difficulties were limited to one minor trailer failure during the “pack up and leave for home” part of the weekend. Thanks to chapter member Leigh Conrad a part was located and the folks were on their way home with little delay.
Thanks, George Blosser
Good morning Woodyboater and Miracle Photography fans. It’s a sad morning for Linda and I, as we photographed our final boat show for the year.
We want to express our thanks to the Woodyboater readers who have supported us with purchases of our photos, either in prints or electronic downloads. With the money that we made from our photography, we invested in buying better equipment to get the results that you are seeing now.
We are looking forward to another great year next year and hope to get to a variety of different shows. We are members of the Blue Ridge Chapter, and have concentrated our efforts on their shows for the past three years. Most of their shows are less than a three hour drive for us. We have fallen in love with the classic and antique boats, and enjoy their owners who have supported us.
We always look forward to reading Woodyboater after Texx posts the story with our pictures. We read your replies and comments and thank you for your kind words.
To give you something to look at during the winter months, check out our photography webpage and look at the other types of photography we post. We have some great wildlife shots, along with many landscape subjects such as waterfalls, sunrise/sunsets, birds and flowers on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The Smith Mountain Lake show was a great venue with a beautiful resort and plenty of dock space to spread out. We really enjoyed photographing this show.
Our next outing will be in Hilton Head, SC for the Hilton Head Island Motoring Festival & Concours, October 28-November 6 2011. In addition to showcasing some very special antique cars, there will also be a few antique boats including “Miss America IX” owned by Charles & Diane Mistele, and “It’s Someday” owned by Art Hampton.
We love photographing the classic boat shows. If you would like us to photograph a particular show for your boating club, please drop us an email to discuss the details. You know that your beatutiful boats have a good chance to be featured on Woodyboater and receive the attention and admiration they deserve. Thank you again for a wonderful classic and antique boating photography season.
Bob and Linda Miracle
Hey the green buckets matched Betsy’s trim and top. They are also good to set on while out in the fields of Va. Dove hunting. As a new member to this club ( six years) I am biaised These are some of the best people I know, always willing to give a hand and we attract the very BEST VISITORS in this hobby , John, Art, Chuck & Di, Lee and all I left out you guys and ladies make this show worth the trip.
A special shout out to Bill Goold our show chair, who not only coordinated this show, but has also worked side by side with me for eleven weeks from July 1 till Thursday of the show, three, four and five days a week every week eight hours a day to get Betsy ready. When I would wake up in the mornig sore and tired from draging in at 9:30 – 10 pm from the shop the day before I knew I still had to keep going because I knew Bill and Don would be waiting at the dock to start the day. And they can ride ya hard when you’r late. I won’t mention there ages but Dad and uncle would not be far off the mark. Good frinds are dead on the mark. And that is what this is all about, the people. Now I’m going to go take my second nap of the day. By Friday the weather will be improved and the boys and I will enjoy the weekend on Betsy. It just doesn’t get any better than this.
OMG! A Tri-hull on the masthead. I’m really feeling old now.
Guess I’m going to have to start looking for our families original 1970’s Tri-hull to restore. 🙂
Andreas, I stand corrected. Still a beautiful wood boat. Please throw down on the hull in the hopes of the educational possibilities raising the standard above some of the recent posts.
For a “Clorox Bottle”, that masthead doesn’t look to bad, ACBS SML Chapter. 🙂 “Sweet Sixteen’s” were built in ’64 and ’65 and were outboards. This is a 1968 Evinrude Sportsman 155. Thanks Miracle Photography for a job WELL DONE!!!
Chuck – Thanks for the clarification on the “Sweet Sixteen’s”… I think the Evinrude / OMC Tri-Hulls from the 60’s are Groovy!
Yep: Next group of cheap collectables.
What a wonderful weekend! I enjoyed meeting so many wonderful members and friends of the ACBS Chapter, plus seeing the vast cross section of beautiful boats, runabouts and cruisers alike. I really enjoyed looking over “Flapper” and give much credit to the owners for keeping the original Kermath engine in her. Of course, Charles Mistele’s Miss America IX is a real treasure and so many others so finely restored. It was hard to take it all in with such a short time. Looking forward to next year!
I went to the show this year… Had not been there since 2001 or 2002… New venue loved the location… Talked to the Century owners at the show and also talked to Charles Mistele for quite a while at the end of the show.
Also put a bid in on property on the lake… If all goes through I’ll spend some time at SML…
If anyone wants to see my photos from the show click here…
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1772440251256.70995.1846797673
Sorry we missed all the fun, this was a first for us! Betsy looks great can’t wait for a ride. We understand that everyone had a great time and again some of the best guests and visitors could attend. Look forward to next year!