One with the water
Tom Riggle can trace his love of boats to a pier not far from his grandparents’ house in Charlevoix, Mich., where as a child he used to watch wooden boats cross the lake. “They have a unique sound – kind of throaty and mellow, a soft rumbling,” said Riggle. “I thought, ‘Boy, someday I am going to have one of those,’ and then they quit making them.”
Someday came six years ago as the Lake Lanier resident was preparing to retire from a job as senior manager of the Marine Division of American Honda Motor Company. He and his wife, June, decided to dock their fiberglass Donzi and purchase a 1952 22-foot Chris Craft Sportsman. “It felt different driving the boat because the boat came from nature, being made of wood. There’s just a different smell and aura about it. You feel like the boat belongs on the water. It’s not attacking the lake; it’s part of it – part of nature. You almost think that if God had intended us to have fiberglass boats, he’d have made fiberglass trees,” said Riggle.
Although the Sportsman’s top speed reaches only half the Donzi’s, that’s fast enough for the couple, who named the boat “Slow Dancing.” “We decided that retirement was a good time to change the pace of life, and the name refers to that lifestyle change for us – slowing down to enjoy the ride more. Speed is not what it’s all about. It’s the joy of being out there and helping to preserve a part of history, so to speak,” said Riggle.
Today, he serves as membership chairman for the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Antique and Classic Boat Society. The organization brings people together who share an interest in historic, antique and classic boats, and works to protect the heritage of boating by preserving and restoring antique and classic boats. The society’s approximately 7,500 members form 56 chapters across the country and Canada and host events every weekend through the year. The shows feature historic, antique and classic boats with classes of boats built up to and including 1918 through 1975, and also contemporary wood boats built 1976 through today.
Among the Blue Ridge Chapter’s annual events are gatherings hosted at mountain lakes such as the annual Lake Chatuge Rendezvous. “I will never forget the first time we went to Lake Chatuge, coming around the bend and seeing the mountains dropping into the lake. It was the most stunning sight I think I had ever seen,” said Gail Turner, a Gainesville, Ga., resident and immediate past president of ACBS International. Meanwhile, Al Olsen, who lives at Lake Hartwell in Georgia, said the beauty, clarity and wealth of wildlife sets mountain treasures such as Lake Chatuge apart. “The birds we see are just amazing. That’s what we like about the mountain lakes,” said Olsen.
Walk with club members such as Charles H. Mistele from Bluffton, S.C., past parked antique and classic boats at the Lake Chatuge Rendezvous, and they notice details. Mistele can point out small scratches indicative of a boat’s original parts, a historic Johnson Super Sea Horse 35 hp outboard motor, and a row of AristoCraft boats, a line first manufactured in Atlanta in 1946 by Claude Turner, whose son and grandson are active in the Blue Ridge Chapter. “Back when these boats were new, you were the fat cat on the lake,” said Mistele.
For many members, the boats carry a lot of nostalgia. “It’s not always just the boats that are antique,” said Riggle lightheartedly. “A lot of us have fond memories of the old boats from our youth.”
Lake Junaluska resident Randy Cunningham vividly remembers his first experiences with a wooden boat were skiing behind a family friend’s 1964 16-foot Century Resorter at Lake Summit south of Hendersonville. “You don’t ever forget that – the sound and the smells an inboard boat makes,” said Cunningham, an architect who founded the Lake Chatuge Rendezvous, which will celebrate its 25th year in 2012.
For Olsen, riding in a neighbor’s antique boat and witnessing its craftsmanship reeled him in. “The sound and the ride is just so different,” said Olsen. “It’s like when a Harley Davidson rides by on the highway, you know it’s a Harley. It’s the same kind of feeling when an antique boat goes by. From the water line and the way they ride, you can see them coming from a long distance away and know it’s an antique boat.” Another part of the appeal for Olsen is actually working on and restoring the boats. He bought his first in Cincinnati, Ohio, and did a partial restoration. “It only took a couple of months, and then I sold that one and bought one that needed a total restoration from a new bottom and frames all the way up to the deck,” said Olsen. “That was a big project.” Today, he has a Canadian 1948 22-foot Shepherd Runabout named “Chat Noir,” which means black cat and is so named because the sides of the mahogany boat are painted black. “We have another boat, too. Well, one more that’s running,” said Olsen, laughing.
Not every antique or classic boat requires a lot of work, and owners such as Cunningham say modern products, finishes and techniques actually make boats that are already restored relatively easy to maintain. “People will ask if these are hard to keep up, and I haven’t found that to be the case,” he said. Another common question is what the best boat to buy is. “I say, ‘Buy one that runs and floats. And if you have to pick one, pick ‘float,’” said Cunningham. “There’s so many different makes and models. I tell everybody who is interested they need to join the Antique and Classic Boat Society so they can learn a lot before they buy a boat.”
Club members say what grows out of their shared interest in boats are deep and lasting friendships – the kind where you call each other on Thanksgiving and Christmas. “We keep these old boats going,” said Art Hampton, an ACBS member from Florida who owns a house in Murphy and enjoys taking his boat, “It’s Someday,” to mountain lakes such as Lake Chatuge. “We do it as a group. We do it to protect the history. We all get together, and we are very close knit. It’s a family.”
New members Susanna and Wayne Lloyd from Cumming, Ga., said the family atmosphere itself was a big part of what appealed to them. Last year, they bought a 1977 AristoCraft Nineteen to enjoy with their two children and started attending ACBS events. “There’s something for everyone,” said Wayne Lloyd. Indeed, Cunningham said classic and antique boats were so much a part of his family’s life that his kids grew up thinking everyone had old, antique boats, and they continue to value their time together on the water. “My daughter would fall asleep as a baby when we put her on the boat, and she wants to bring her baby to the lake because she wants her child to experience the same feeling,” he said.
Sharing and stirring the fascination of classic and antique boats with the next generation is a key for fulfilling the society’s mission to protect boating heritage – to keep antique and classic boats alive. “Saving this history is important,” said Gail Turner, immediate past president of ACBS international from Gainesville, Ga. “The early builders had such a great spirit, and these boats are part of their story and the stories of those they touched. When you are standing on the dock and hear someone say, ‘I had a boat like that,’ they tell you their story and you take their story with you. We are just the caretakers of the stories right now.”
The stories behind the boats
Norwegian Son
As Al Olsen got to know a 1950 23-foot Chris Craft Holiday during the two years he spent restoring the boat, the Georgia resident’s thoughts turned inward to his family’s roots and the Viking spirit. “I named the boat ‘Norwegian Son,’ because I’m Norwegian, and the boat is the same year as my birthday,” said Olsen, who in April completed a total restoration of the mahogany boat, including a new bottom, frames and sides. “It gets in your blood. It really does –the smell of the wood when you are cutting it, the warmth of the wood when you are sanding it.”
Olsen, who was a homebuilder by trade, has restored a string of boats and does not consider his work done until he shares them with others. “We love to have other people appreciate the boats, not just because of what we’ve done but because of the history and the beauty – the preservation.” Among the ACBS Blue Ridge Chapter’s most important activities to Olsen, the chapter president, are events such as the boat rides and barbecues hosted for terminally ill children. “Sharing with people who otherwise would not have an opportunity to get to do something like this with their families is probably the most meaningful part of the hobby,” he said.
It’s Someday
The 1958 Chris Craft Capri left to Florida resident Art Hampton by a friend who knew Hampton liked the boat didn’t get the attention it needed until Nancy came along. A veteran waitress, Nancy had told Hampton that “someday” he was going to marry her. An entrepreneur who had gone through a divorce, he doubted that. Then after the couple got married, she told him that “someday” they would have a home in the mountains. Once again, he doubted… until they went on a vacation to Murphy. They bought land and built a home. So when she asked when he was going to get the boat working, he said, “Someday.”
“Unbeknownst to her, I found a guy who could get it done,” said Hampton. He enlisted the help of Steve Thurlow to not just restore but actually preserve more than 60 percent of the original boat. “When I brought it up to North Carolina, I had ‘It’s Someday’ painted on the back, and she cried. It was her idea to get the boat done and done nice. That was our dream.”
Today Hampton, his dog, Tater, and his son, Joel, take the boat – one of only 18 of that kind known to exist and one of only two that is seaworthy – to events with a poster-sized photo of Nancy under the words “In Loving Memory.”
Miss America IX
The rundown condition of a 1930 Gar Wood named “Miss America IX” – the first boat to ever break 100 mph – so depressed a then-25-year-old Charles H. Mistele that he gave the owner his card and told him to call if he was ever going to dispose of it. “I said, ‘I can make a commitment to repower it and put it in front of people where it belongs.’ Two years later, he called me on a Friday afternoon,” said Mistele, who was working with his family’s fuel oil business in Michigan at the time. To see the boat, Mistele and his wife, Diane, loaded their two young daughters in the car for a foggy, approximately 75-mile drive – part of it on a two-lane road with water on either side.
All “Miss America IX” had then was a steering wheel, bow rudder and two propeller struts. His wife questioned why he – a sailor, not a power boater – wanted a boat that steered from the back and was not something they could sleep on. He told her it was part of the nation’s racing history. “Someone has to preserve and protect this boat,” said Mistele, whose grandfather had captured the boat on film at a time when he recorded on 100 feet of film and then had to turn the film over to record on the other side. The boat is to water what the Spirit of St. Louis is to aviation, he said. “It was just fate. I was chosen to protect this boat,” he said.
Now, more than 40 years later, Mistele and his wife live in Bluffton, S.C., and take Miss America IX to shows and events from Wisconsin to New York. They share the boat’s history – how it twice defended the Harmsworth Trophy against British challengers and broke the 100 mph record on March 20, 1931. Mistele warns spectators before turning on the engines because of the thunderous rumble. Danielle Ragland from Fort Myers, Fla., sat in the driver’s seat of “Miss America IX” at the Lake Chatuge event and said the power of the boat takes you over. “Oh, she’s literally one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” said Ragland.
Visit www.missamericaix.com to learn more about the boat.
Junaluska
Architect Randy Cunningham named his 1965 Philbrick Runabout with a 354-hemi engine, “Junaluska” in honor of his Lake Junaluska home. Cunningham can trace the history of the boat, which was made in made in Oakland, Calif., to a New Jersey pilot who regularly flew in and out of San Francisco, saw the boat and ordered one. “The boat was in pretty rough shape when we got it,” said Cunningham, who estimated he tinkered with the boat off and on for 20 years before finally finishing it.
The boat, one of only three of its kind known to be on the East Coast, is not the first he has restored and will not be the last, as his collection includes, in various stages of repair, a 1962 Correct Craft plywood boat and a 1954 Duracraft aluminum boat. “I’ve also got a 1937 Gar Wood that I hope one day to get started up,” said Cunningham.
He and his wife, Linda, founded the Lake Chatuge Rendezvous because they wanted there to be an event for ACBS members solely for enjoying their boats together without the pressure of competition and judging. “Half of Lake Chatuge is in North Carolina and half is in Georgia,” said Cunningham. “It is one of the most picturesque lakes. When you get on the water in a wood boat with the sound of the engine, people come back amazed at the beauty. Next year’s Lake Chatuge event is not set yet, but we always try to have it the second weekend in June at The Ridges Resort. It will be our 25th year, and it also happens to be the 25th anniversary for The Ridges Resort, so we are planning for a celebration.”
Cardboard boat race
The first time Kristopher Winter entered the Lake Chatuge Antique and Classic Boat Society Rendezvous’s annual cardboard boat race, he turned two 4-by-8 foot sheets of cardboard and a roll of duct tape into a canoe to race from one dock to another and back. “It didn’t end up well,” said the 21-year-old from Johns Creek, Ga., who has competed in the race every year since he was 8 years old. “The cardboard gets wet and just dissolves.”
Gainesville, Ga., resident Gail Turner said she and her husband, Bill, introduced the cardboard boat race to the Lake Chatuge event to capture the interest and enthusiasm of youth and adults alike. “It creates a wonderful camaraderie among the participants and spectators that eagerly look forward to it from year to year,” she said. Lake Junaluska resident Randy Cunningham, who co-founded the Lake Chatuge Rendezvous with his wife Diane, said the addition of the race has been a lot of fun. “The creativity of the young boat-builders amazes me every year,” said Cunningham.
For the 2011 event, Winter fashioned a cardboard pontoon boat and focused on strategy: Paddle fast. Paddle, he did, but not fast enough to make it to the dock before the boat became a submarine, and he swam back to shore. At the sight of racers laughing as their cardboard creations began to sink, spectators called out “Time to get out the bilge pump,” and “They don’t make cardboard like they used to.”
Miracle Photography
Bob Miracle and his wife, Linda, do not own a classic or antique boat but have taken thousands upon thousands of photos of them – enough to be honored by Woody Boater website as January’s “Woody Boater’s of the Month.”
After Bob retired, the Anderson, S.C., resident began dedicating more time to photography and hiking, and a fellow hiker who was a boat enthusiast, Cathy McLay, saw how many photos he took of waterfalls and nature and invited him to a Blue Ridge Chapter Antique and Classic Boating Society event. “I took 1,800 pictures in three days on Lake Keowee, and sent them to everyone who came,” said Bob. “I was told anytime I wanted to come, I was welcome. I haven’t missed a show in three years.”
Taking photos at boat shows presents interesting challenges, such as bright sunlight, he said. “The camera will see light and blow it out,” he said. His wife, Linda, began taking photos at the shows too. “I love the beauty of the boats, and I enjoy the people,” she said. In fact, Bob said it was Linda who helped him learn how to wait to get the perfect natural background. “She has a great eye,” he said.
See more of the Miracles’ photos online at miraclephotography.smugmug.com/Boats.