It’s Your Classic Boats Birthday Today. Happy New Year.

    mmmm a boat slice of cake. Its got 5200 in it.. We guarantee you wont leak..

mmmm a boat slice of cake. Its got 5200 in it.. We guarantee you wont leak..

When folks ask how old your boat is, you can now add a year to it’s history. My 1960 boat is now 54 years old. Dang, sounds more valuable to me. To be correct though one needs to have a hull card, and there is the build date on it. But who does that? OK, Don Ayers… But other than Don, you can now add a year. Below is a sample of a famous hull card. Have fun guessing.

This is your boats birth certificate, you can get yours at the Mariners museum in Virginia.. Click here.

This is your boats birth certificate, you can get yours at the Mariners museum in Virginia.. Click here.

42 replies
  1. Greg Lewandowski
    Greg Lewandowski says:

    Happy New Year to all. It’s only about 3 1/2 months till we get them wet again in Michigan. Let’s celebrate!

  2. Chris B
    Chris B says:

    no idea so i will agree with floyds guess. since thats the only guess so far. happy new year.
    Can you feel it…… the days are getting longer. yaa.

  3. m-fine
    m-fine says:

    1460 is a little to easy for those who followed the Thayer IV drama.

    The problem with the year change is it is not just the boats that are getting older, and not everything improves or sees rising values with age. My knees for example…

    Salter has the look down, but I think he needs to get a little more aggressive with the throttle. If mom and dad aren’t tense and sweating, you’re going too slow.

    • Alex
      Alex says:

      I swear the boat was going faster than the throttle suggests.

      And yes, Dad sure is tense and sweating. That’s why the K has only 3 spark plugs. The Scripps is missing one of its distributors. And the 8.1 Crusader? It’s burning the fuel equivalent of near beer.

      We have a jet boat and a HAL. HAL’d be better for you.

  4. Wilson Wright
    Wilson Wright says:

    Probably Thayer IV…but if not, one of Chris Craft’s most popular U 22s… Wish I had one…

    Happy New Year

  5. Sean
    Sean says:

    I don’t think you can get a “Hull Card” for a Greavette. I’ve never seen one.
    Here’s to my 42 year old baby… that has no problem runnin’ with the quick boats. Happy Birthday.

    • Kentucky Wonder
      Kentucky Wonder says:

      Contact Mary Storey at the Muskoka Grace and Speed museum. They have all of the surviving records kept by the Greavette factory. The records were not highly detailed, but can shed some light on how your boat began its life, and for whom it was built. Our 1949 runabout was advertised for sale as a Shearliner in 2012, but Mary and husband John dug up the records and began our education of the Greavette marque. Turns out our boat, hull #2 of 1949, was not a Shearliner, but the more common runabout built just before the Storey’s own runabout, which I believe was #5 of the same year. The records also validate the authenticity of our spare engine as having been the original power plant installed at the Greavette factory.

      • Sean
        Sean says:

        Thanks 🙂

        I’ve been to Grace & Speed. Mary let me go through all the Greavette stuff. I found my boat’s original owner (he lives 10 minutes from me) in the sales book. I have the assigned shop number for my boat and the assigned serial number.

        It’s just that IF Greavette kept any hull cards… they have not survived as not much has.

        • Kentucky Wonder
          Kentucky Wonder says:

          Grace and Speed museum, and the Muskoka area in general, is definitely on our bucket list. Eau! Canada needs to get her belly wet in the waters she once plied. If not this year, then definitely next.

          Would love to somehow trace the ownership lineage after the original owner, Mr. W.H. Burgess. The Burgess family name is associated with Curlew, a 1935-era Greavette widely considered the best boat ever built in Muskoka. Curlew still travels the lakes from what I can gather. Maybe we will be able to find out out who owned our boat for all of its years when we visit Gravenhurst.

          • Sean
            Sean says:

            I love Muskoka. We don’t have a cottage there but, I’ve spent most of my summers there. Let me know when you’re coming up and we’ll make an event of it.

            Curlew is a very well known boat in these parts. I’ve seen her on several occasions but, never had an opportunity to ride in her.

          • Mary Hughes
            Mary Hughes says:

            It’s Mr. Frederic C. Burgess … who was the racing enthusiast who had the double ender Curlew. That picture seems to show a flat transom, altho I may not be seeing it correctly.

  6. Cliff
    Cliff says:

    That is the sportsman that you purchased for your self from Jim Staib. You are filling up the woody boater truck with provisions like beef jerky, coke a cola, chips snickers….and hitting the open road with some lucky member of the woody boater community in the copilot seat. The woody boatress is heading to the spa for the day and then dinner with her girlfriends. You on the other hand will be stoping in Toledo Ohio to get a Tony Packo’s hot dog and gas. You will arrive at Staibs at around 9:45 and proceed to get hammered in Jim’s kitchen. Have a fun ride back tomorrow. Congradulations Jim on the sale.

  7. WoodyGal
    WoodyGal says:

    It’s more fun to celebrate boat birthdays according to the hull card. Too cold to lavish love on your boat on January 1st, unless you live in Florida. And if you have more than one Boat, you get to celebrate more than once.

  8. Redbeardsraven
    Redbeardsraven says:

    That’s it by god…. lets have a hull card day!!
    everybody post a copy of a hull card.
    That’s bound to stir up conversations of all sorts.

  9. Redbeardsraven
    Redbeardsraven says:

    or maybe not…. I can barely read my card full size.
    now reduced in size, cant read it at all…

  10. Grant Stanfield
    Grant Stanfield says:

    An early ‘Happy Birthday’ to our new 22′ Chris-Craft Sea Skiff DENBY, who will turn 60 this summer on June 4th!

    According to SK-22-169’s hull card, DENBY was born June 4, 1954 in Cadillac, MI and was shipped 3 days later to Gregory Boat Co. in Detroit, MI.

    One short year later, she was sold again on July 23, 1955- this time in Eagle River, WI by Joe’s Marine Service. The nearly-new Sea Skiff found her way to her happy home on Denby Island in Three Lakes, WI- where she would enjoy the next 59 years as a pampered ‘island girl’.

    I am very grateful to DENBY’s original family, who presented me with her original 1955 bill-of-sale from Eagle River as a Christmas gift this year!

      • Grant Stanfield
        Grant Stanfield says:

        WoodyGal-

        Yes, it IS a cool boathouse…wish it was mine! DENBY and a couple smaller wooden boats shared a pair of 2-bay wet boathouses on Denby Island for many years…thus her nice, original condition.

        This beautiful place was DENBY’s home from 1955 until 2012.

  11. Grant Stanfield
    Grant Stanfield says:

    HEY…I just noticed that THAYER IV (#1460) and I share the same ‘born-on’ date- October 17th!!

    Sure, she’s 19 years older than me, but I like older women, especially ones with curves like that!

    Ahh…my brush with fame…

  12. Tommyholm
    Tommyholm says:

    If you desire a hull card research on a 1950-1968 Century, or a production record on a 1968-1974, contact me via centuryboatclub.com web site.

    Ride a Thoroughbred

  13. brian t
    brian t says:

    No hull card for a boat built by a Navy man and his brother in a warehouse back in 1929…. Zoomer turns 85 this year….

  14. Dick Dow
    Dick Dow says:

    Nice header – Last night our granddaughters, Kathy and I were hanging out and the 4-year old snuggled up and said: “I wanna go on Granpas boat!” – Our little skipper is getting cabin fever. 🙂

    No hull card on this one either, but pleny of history – “Sindbad” and it’s original tow vehicle…

  15. Troy
    Troy says:

    CL-21-013’s date is 2/22/57 Cadillac

    X4S-38-305’s date is 11/25/57 Holland

    I have assumed that this is the complettion date when they left the factory. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

  16. Alex
    Alex says:

    I have 15 boats. Ain’t no way I’m having birthday party for each one. Way too expensive. So I’ve arranged for a group rate at the water park.

    Wait till they get a load of the invitees! The jet boat will be awesome in the lazy river!

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