Buy or restore?
I love boats, can you tell? I have been around boats most, if not all, of my life. A typical vacation involves me making a model sailboat that I always fantasize could be life size! I made a trimaran this week out of bottles. Named "T4" it has a hard time going to windward but does nicely on a close to broad reach. A life size version of T4 would do well in the Vendee Globe race… needs a good blow to get moving. Each year I make one of these boats and each year I think of "Lastcall."
Back in Toronto I have a beat-up, 14 foot 1963 Cutter motor boat. The Cutter is somewhat of a little brother design to the Bertrams with deep V bows and flat hulls at the stern. I found it in 1982 while racing on the 8 metre yacht Quest in Crescent Bay, New York, on the south west corner of Lake Ontario. The generous owner/skipper of Quest, Joe Balogh, arranged for us to stay at a gorgeous old resort. The property was occasionally rented out by the proprietor (a big fan of Molson Golden beer, unavailable at the time in the US) to vacationers but for the most part inactive. Shame, as it had a huge "club/boat house" where people could arive and moor their boats on the first floor while the top floor was a gigantic dance hall that opened up to view the lake and sunset. Despite being very much run down one could see shades of Gatsby-type parties gone by. Point is, one night while walking around this property time capsule I found the 1963 Cutter – complete with wings like an old Cadillac – sporting a 1953 Evinrude motor. I joked with the proprietor "how much?"
"$300 US," he replied.
I returned the following May to close the deal with the required cash and a case of Molson Golden. Friends and I lugged the treasure back to Toronto. We spent some time sprucing it up after which I named it Lastcall. (Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures but did find the one at left of a restored 1958 Cutter… same colours, too!) The boat was the tender for my boat service from 1983 to circa 1991 when I pulled it up to my parent’s farm in Omemee, Ontario for safe keeping. By then my life was re-routing elsewhere.
Today Lastcall sits behind a log cabin, with bushes and grass growing in, around and out of it. I always regret not flipping the boat in 1991 to provide some protection but there were only two of us at the time and the vessel is quite heavy. A modest lump of cash would restore "Lastcall" to original condition but doing so would still bring with it a host of other problems, such as where to keep the boat and when would I ever enjoy it other than 1 – 2 weeks each summer? (At left, the kids enjoy some ice cream from a visiting Mr. Cool truck; Auntie Pammie and Sebastian.)
I mentioned to my sister, Penny, my idea to restore Lastcall. She did the math in under ten seconds… "You could buy another 1963 Cutter in decent condition for a fraction of what it would cost to restore Lastcall."
"Like on Ebay," I thought silently, "probably with shipping included." But Penny would know – also around boats most of her life, she and her family have a similar genre (but larger, younger with no wings) motor boat for their cottage. It’s a very pretty pale blue they’ve named "Robin’s Egg." Plus, Penny’s husband, Dave Harris, is a leading authority on pleasure craft, both sail and motor. Are Cutters still available? Yes, if I hunted for one. Believe it or not, in 2000 when Tess and I stayed at the Furama Beach Resort on China Beach, Danang, Vietnam we saw a 1963 Cutter. Crossing a bridge in bicycle rick shaws the exact model and colour (red deck, white hull) could be seen at a distance down one of the lagoons. Someone probably brought it from the US during the Vietnam War where the boat has remained since. "Amazing," I thought. (At left, Fintry kids enjoy a morning story.)
All these streams of thoughts rambled through my head this week while we drove to Kelowna via Vernon one day for a grocery run. As we cruised down the highway, without warning at 90 km/hr but almost in slow motion, the pinnacle of classic motorboats floated past my peripheral vision: an old wooden Chris Craft. I was ecstatic, telling everyone that a Chris Craft was for sale in Kelowna!
Defiantly I returned the next day to investigate the discovery: a 1962 Chris Craft Holiday. On sale via well known antique boat restorers Bruce & Peter Middleton of Absolute Classics Marine. Bruce also manages the Okanagan Antique Classic Boat Society. The wooden motorboat is in very good condition with a 300 horsepower engine… that’s about 2.5 X the power of the cars we’re all driving. Tess asked later, "That would go very, very, very fast on this lake, wouldn’t it?"
Bruce and I had a good chat and I told him about Lastcall. Wood is their specialty but they would undertake a fibreglass restoration for something like a ’63 vintage. I learned that Bruce had been in business about 25 years and his first client was the immediate neighbour of the place where we stay at Fintry… talk about a small world! He also spent his young summers directly across Lake Okanagan from our current locale – just around the corner from where Seb & I touched down for a snack during our kayak lake crossing a few days ago.
I left without buying the boat but a few steps closer to a summer boat in the coming years. Bruce did have some beautiful classic boat shirts and of course I bought one. I love it but I don’t expect most people to like the shirt… probably requires an enthusiast’s taste! Tess was apalled at the cost but it was easy to justify, "Tess, I didn’t buy the Chris Craft but the shirt instead. Think of the thousands of dollars we’ve saved!"
Later I returned to Bruce’s web site and it occured to me he probably KNOWS my sister Penny and B-I-L Dave. I looked enviously at the stunning, restored craft. What should I do… buy a Chris Craft at some point in the future? Restore Lastcall or find a Lastcall replacement?
Regardless of where you are in the world, it is still cottage season in Canada… please visit my sister’s blog at Cottage Life Magazine! Try the corn with lime & pepper suggestion… quite tasty!
