Wooden Runabout Co. Blog

Our complete restoration of a rare 1936 Chris-Craft 19′ Special Race Boat is complete. Photos of the water test as well as the complete restoration can be seen in our photo gallery. 51 of these amazing boats were orignally built in 1936 and 1937 and the number remaining today can quite literally be counted on one hand.

Our restoration of “Trudi”, a 1939 Chris-Craft 19′ barrel back is complete. Photos our water test as well as the entire restoration can be seen on our projects page.

A 1938 Century Sea Maid which was in the shop for some varnish maintenance over the winter received an award of excellence at the Bay Harbor Concours d’Elegance this past weekend. This boat was restored over 12 years ago and is still winning ribbons. The show was filled with stunning cars and boats including two gold cup race boats with original engines as well as the 96 foot Ted Geary designed Canim, which took best in show honors.

This Century Sea Maid was Century’s response to the 19′ Chris-Craft special race boat that had been tearing up the race boat regattas for the previous two years. It was even available with Lycoming 6 cylinder racing marine engine, as was the 19′ special race boat from Chris-Craft.

Kirk was recently out in Lake Placid, NY servicing some boats when he recorded this video of a 1929 26′ Hacker Craft that he restored nearly a decade ago while working for MBBW. She still looks and runs great!

We recently had a visit from our sign painter for gold leaf lettering on both the 1936 19′ Chris-Craft special race boat and the 1939 Chris-Craft barrel back.  The photos of the gold leaf work have been added to the appropriate pages in the current projects section of our website.  The Chris-Craft script and transom names add a finishing touch to the restorations of these classic boats.  A special thanks to Bill Basler, director of marketing for the Chris-Craft Antique Boat Club, for assistance with accurately recreating the original Chris-Craft hull script.

We’ve had a busy spring at The Wooden Runabout Co.  Many of the projects highlighted in the entries below have progressed through various stages of their restorations.  The 19′ Chris-Craft barrel back with hull number 48513 is awaiting the final couple coats of varnish along with engine installation and gold leaf before she hits the water this summer.  Our 24′ Chris-Craft Holiday has the new bottom completed and work on the hullsides is progressing smoothly.  The 19′ Chris-Craft special race boat is in the final stages of assembly and finish work.  Check our current projects page to keep up to date with these projects as well as others, both past and present, in our shop.

We are in the process of installing a new bottom on a 1954 24′ Chris-Craft Holiday in our shop.  There are many photos detailing the process and progress in the current projects section of our website.

We’ve updated the current projects section of the website with a new project. We have a 1939 Chris-Craft 19′ Custom, also known as a 19′ barrelback, in the shop for a show-quality restoration. We will be installing a new transom as well as doing the shaping, sanding, staining, and finish work. In addition we will be installing the engine and all mechanical and running gear, wiring the boat with correct style cloth-covered wiring, and installing a new interior with authentic spanish-red leather. You can follow our progress as the restoration progresses here.

We moved a new boat into the shop in the last few weeks, a 24′ Chris-Craft Holiday. The boat is coming to us for a no-soak 5200 bottom, minor frame repair, refastening, stripping, and refinishing of the hullsides, and new decking. When the hullsides are removed and refastened, they will be installed with 3M 5200 used as an adhesive bedding compound, this will help to stabilize the movement of the mahogany planks, resulting in a much stronger boat and longer life for the varnish finish. The photo below shows how easily we can roll over even fairly large runabouts such as this 24′ Holiday with our gantry crane.  See more photos of the rollover and the entire project on our projects page.

This past summer we shot some video footage of a 1959 Century Coronado with a sliding hardtop. This boat is currently in our shop receiving a full strip and re-finish along with some refastening and plank replacement. After you’ve seen the video, you can follow the restoration work as it progresses on our projects page.

You can view a larger version of this video at Jumpcut.