Mike Needs Your Help Finding His Boat!
One of the coolest parts of this hobby is the vast amount of different boat makers out there. Of course one of the problems is if you had one of those small oddball boats. Once its gone from your life, it aint like there are others around. Or at least you may not think so. So as part of our service here, if you have seen or know the wearbouts of fellow Woody Boater Mike Gruenauer’s. boat! Chime in. Just think, ya got this wreck in your garage covered with old car crap.. Wondering if you would ever restore it, And here is a guy dieing to find it. Here are Mikes words in his…well..own words. Take it away Mike.
Here she is. Good luck. This photo was taken in 1963 at Lake Chautauqua Ny
Thanks Woody,
We had a family boat wooden, plywood 14 ft.I have searched internet for months trying to find out the make and year of this boat with no luck even searched Canadian manufactures . It was built in 1958 -59 with 58 Evinrude 35 hp the dash had name “DAVIS” CARVED OR BURNED INTO IT.
Family bought it in 1963 from a private owner who lived on Grand Island NY would it be possible (I know this is not a classic) to put a picture of it up on would boater to see if anyone has a clue to its origin I have some pics we would really like to solve this as we have all the others tracked down including a 1947 century sportsman (powered by a 6.0 martin that’s in my living room) my dad owned before this one.
At some point it was painted another color, Her name, Honey Girl II The Century was Honey Girl .
I know its a long shot but hope we can find out a little more about her finding it would be nothing less than a miracle thanks again for your time and help never miss a day of woody hope to meet you someday as my brother is a judge at many antique and classic boat shows.
Mike Gruenauer
I am forwarding this to my good friend Sherleylock!
Troy, I’m sure she’ll get some part of her wrapped around this mystery right away….
Is it an optical illusion that the sheer rises up at mid ships and then flattens out at the transom and is there a black stripe there too?
Are you talking about the boat or Sherleylock ?
they are finns, but no black stripe
it changes to clear varnish at the gunwale
the finns rise flatten out then rise again to the stern
interior was all varnish along with all the decks
sides and bottom paint
all interior was original with port side controls
thanks for the interest
mike
Nice looking boat. Dunphy?
Probably ought to go to the Lake Chatauqua show…Maybe some ole timers there would recognize it….or post a note at the antique boat museum there.
boat spent just a few weeks at lake chautaugua lake
most of the time it was at fish creek in the adirondaks ny
mike
BTW
we sold it in 1969 to some one local in the buffalo western NY area
mike
Most of these ’50’s vintage plywood outboard runabouts, as they neared the end of their useful life, were pushed out of garages and parked in backyards with a tarp over them (if they were lucky). Once the tarp biodegraded the boat followed suit. Not many were deemed saving by owners who moved on to that newfangled ‘fiberglass’ material, plus their degraded value precluded even giving them away.
Far more classic planked runabouts survived due to their far more substantial construction (framing, etc.) — they just held together longer to the point where restorers could eventually locate and save them. In most cases these early plywood runabouts are far more rare than many of the sought after classic inboard runabouts today.
Way to keep his hopes up, Randy 🙁
not always true! i had this one in a barn for years waiting to start it!
I have a 1955 step hull race boat made from Boat Building Plans, it is plywood with mahogany planking. The boat rides flat as a dime, and it runs with checkmates, voodoo, or even the big baja inboard boats and it is running a 50 hp tohatsu.
I cannot say I have ever seen another boat like it, it came out of Greenback Tennessee where it was in storage for over 50 years. I had to replace the forward portion of the inner keel and the outside keel. Otherwise she was pristine.
The key words there are “In the barn…” Like Randy, I maintain that plywood boats are the rarest of all due to the material used to build them. Plywood is ideal until it gets wet! If you keep them dry and don’t allow damage to linger (especially on the edges) or any flexing to occur they are great boats.
To me, Mike’s boat looks a lot like one of the popular Glen-L models, but with the fin construction considerably modified to appear more conventional.
The photo is one of mine – that spent the majority of it’s life in a barn.
Beautiful header today!
What camera was used
I dont know what camera was used. Herb Hall from Seirra boats took the photo and sent it in
I heard the suggestion that it would be more effective if the “missing” poster was put on a wine or booze bottle rather than milk!