- Boats, they've been around for thousands of years.

Essential for transportation, for commerce, for exploration today, primarily recreation.

Join us on a journey into what it takes to keep and maintain classic wooden boats.

We'll explore the craftsmanship, the history, and the stories from those who keep these vintage vessels on the water.

- Vintage vessels is made possible in part by -Kozmiuk wooden boats.

Custom wooden boat builder of ore sail and power boats traditionally built with old world craftsmanship.

Born from knowledge passed down through generations.

Custom built and restoration service at kozmiukwoodenboats.com The Grundy Insurance Classic Boat program was born from their family sailing tradition, offering vessels full agreed value coverage, protection from uninsured boaters, marine environmental damage, and search and rescue.

online@grundy.com Pettit Paint Captain's Varnish, available in pints, courts, gallons and aerosol.

This marine grade spray on varnish is made to protect wood from ultraviolet light drying to an amber color.

More information is available online at pettitpaint.com ACBS celebrating 50 years of vintage boating in 2025.

Chapter locations across North America can be found at acbs.org Closed captioning support is provided by Peter Henkel incorporated.

online at chris-craft-parts.com In today's show, the oldest race boat in Canada, the 1916 boat called Heldena II all right here on Vintage Vessels of the water.

- First of all, this is a race boat.

It's the oldest race boat in Canada, built in 1916 down in Toronto and built by an industrialist and built it to take his business clients around the harbor.

There was a lot going in the on around the harbor and construction and things like that.

He was a construction firm.

So then he discovered that he could race this boat.

So he started to do pretty well with it.

And then after the World War I ended quite quickly, there was a surplus of liberty aircraft engines that had been used in the war by the us and so he got one of those and he raced a boat with that engine and won many victories here in Toronto, in Buffalo, some in Detroit, Hamilton.

And so you can see this was an era of racing, which you can see on these photos here.

This is Toronto at the CNE 1918, 50,000 people in the stands watching these boats race.

This picture is in Buffalo in 1920.

And these are news clip clippings, random news clippings of held in a winning the cop held in a sets a new American record on the water.

And mind you there, back in the day, there were records being set all the time because guys were building new boats and putting these liberty aircraft engines in them.

And they, you know, it was a lightweight, high horsepower engine.

So it made them go really fast compared to everything that had been prior to the boat has a history as a race boat.

It also has a history as a police boat.

And so it, it, it, when, when this fellow died at age of 42, the family sold the boat to the Toronto Harbor Police.

And so the Harbor Police used it from 1922 to 1958 and it used to be their fast rescue boat.

And then they put the dinghy in the back of the boat and they would race out to rescue people in the lake.

One day they went out so fast they hit the break wall and put a hole in the boat in the back corner.

And they didn't realize it because the boat was going so fast the water never had a chance to get go in.

But when they slowed down, the boat filled up and it sunk.

And so this is a picture here in 29 of the boat sunk out on Lake Ontario and the only thing that saved it was there's an air pocket in the bow and otherwise she would've been gone and we wouldn't be standing here today 'cause big water out there, nobody would've bothered saving it.

So then it went along to 58 and it got dumped in a junkyard and there it remained until 1985 and a young young man saw the boat, fell in love with it, bargained with the junk dealer to recover it.

And so that boat was then recovered like that and eventually turned into a boat like that in 2003, which is a major league project, right, in terms of reconstructing it, building it back up.

And he started it and we finished it and we had used pictures, pictures like this that show a lot of detail in the boat.

So the boat is as complete and as authentic and to the detail as it possibly can be.

So that's the history of the boat and it, it should go on, you know, for another a hundred years as far as I'm concerned.

If it's looked after, it's, it's in perfect condition today.

I've owned it for 20 years.

I launched it 20 years ago, almost 20 years ago to the day, 'cause we went to the boat show today.

It was the poster boat 20 years ago.

This is Helen and her mother was Edna.

So that's how you get held Inna out of that acronym of those two names.

And she was 89 and she had never ridden in this boat until this day.

And she rode in it there for the first time big day.

And we had, they're illegal to do, but we had a race out in the lake here and we raised money for cancer that day.

People were betting on which boat would finish first and which boat had the pink teddy bear.

And so these are the three guys who are racing boats.

That guy was at the boat show today.

He's since passed.

And we had them racing out here, this Clary two boat.

They had not been side by side for 83 years.

They raced in Buffalo the last time in 1920 and they had never been beside each other for 83 years.

And we raced that day.

It was pretty amazing.

I saw this boat, it was a Canadian race boat with heritage and I've been talking to Peter about building a replica boat and here was a Canadian boat ready to go with all kinds of histories.

So I called him over and said, Peter, can we do this boat?

He says, absolutely.

And so I bought it on the spot and we embarked on a journey that's never ended.

And here we are standing talking about it today.

But first, first thing was to get it to Peter's shop and start looking at all the photographs we had of the boat so we could make this totally authentic and original.

Why did I have to have this boat?

Well, Peter got me started in wooden boats and then, you know, who doesn't like a race boat?

And so when I built this, this boathouse, I made the slip 40 feet long and I thought I'd get myself a racer.

And as I said earlier, original plan was to build a replica of a US race boat because they seemed to have more story and and looks and everything else.

And then we stumbled on this one.

And so here it is.

So I just always wanted a race boat.

First boat here was a gentleman's racer and so it's pretty natural to grow up and get a big racer Gold cup racer.

So we got one - When the boat from the field of dreams was they'd, the father and son team had worked on it for quite a few years.

When they got it, it was all complete and then they'd done a lot of the bottom work and taking it a certain amount and they had an engine for it, which was the wrong engine.

And Rick sourced the original engine that was in it.

And away we went and everything was there.

We just worked our way through.

We had so many pictures from racing from the Harbor commission days, so we knew where every cleat, the few things that were missing, we knew exactly where they went.

The Harbor Commission redid it a little bit when they had it and used it for a police boat in Toronto Harbor.

And then it went, then it went and sat and that's where it came, that's where the next customer found it.

So it did sit there like for years, but everything was there so the seats were in it.

They were pretty moth eaten and rough, but they, everything was there.

So we it all the way through, Rick had the engine all done as the boat was being built and that kind of, that took a couple years.

Yeah.

And then the next thing was it is getting it running.

Once the engine was in the boat, we learned that everything about Liberty's kind of the hard way because all the people that knew how to work on 'em were gone and everything was kind of hearsay that you learned and heard about.

So we, we worked our way through and it was, I mean it was a lot of fun doing it.

So this is every gauge in it and everything you see is original.

We re nickel plated them and put them right back in.

These big site windows here, portholes one on each side are for these.

Most of these boats burned the carre.

Everything was pretty dangerous if they backfired, everything was open in the air.

Almost all of them burned.

So when the, if you got a fire in the engine room, which was very common, you could see the flames through these two portholes and you knew not to open the engine hatches.

'cause if you open the engine hatches and gave it air, she was gone.

So what you did is you pulled the chain and it's got a seal, it's got a, what they call a lux fire extinguishing system.

This was really high tech in 1919 called a lux fire extinguishing system.

And it sprayed the white powder out and put the fire out.

But you, you had to know there was flames through the window.

First pull the chain and do it before you open the engine hatches.

So a lot of this boat, the original boat, it, it had certainly been pulled several times 'cause in the skeleton and frames and sides of the boats, there was white powder and black charcoal everywhere.

They, it was very common.

These engines, I mean they all burned, they all blew out and they were wood boats.

The oil, as you'll see, this thing runs, the valves and everything are open.

So it's not like a car engine where the oil drips into the pan.

The oil here off the top drips into the bilge.

So you have to keep it clean.

Remember they were made for airplanes and light when this thing left the airport in, in Europe going to war, the, the life expectancy of the engine was something like 40 hours and the life expectancy of a pilot was 10 or 20 hours.

So they were made light, there was six guys on the ground to flip the propeller.

They didn't even have a starter.

They were marinize for boats after the war.

All of they were cheap.

They had lots of 'em left over from the war.

So all the boat guys and a lot of the later on the tractor pole guys used them and they were repurposed and that's where this is.

They repurposed the war circles engine, put electric starer in it and a transmission and away you went.

- This engine that's running perfectly today is the second rebuild.

And so what happened was when we got the original engine, it had 10 cylinders, which was the way they made them for the war because they wanted the light as possible and the, for an aircraft engine.

So the tin cylinders eventually wore out and Peter patched the cylinders up a couple of times with high, high heat resistant rubber and bailing wire.

But then that gave away.

So we very luckily found a set of cast iron cylinders that came from South America.

And so we rebuilt the engine again and with new cylinders, you got new pistons, new rings and the whole thing we discovered in that process we had a crack in the block and these are aluminum blocks and we sourced another one out in California and put the engine back together again.

And the fellow who did this work, his shop anyway of superb work and that that's really helped half how the engine runs so well today and, and starts so well today.

'cause you can't start it unless it's in a, the spark is fully retarded and which is the easiest place to start the engine and then it just turns over and starts.

Yeah.

So this is a 1930 ditch burn, 31 feet long Commodore launch.

Had it for just over 20 years, 22 years.

Peter Green restored it and it was a gray boat.

It was in rough shape at the beginning, but it's restored to its original condition and, and look and everything else.

No modifications.

And it's used by the family all the time.

My favorite time to go out in this boat is at night, 11 o'clock at night dark and just go along at two or three miles an hour and just with family and enjoy the, just enjoy the evening.

And this boat, I've had as many as 14 people in it 'cause it's got a mother-in-law seat up front and all this seating behind us.

They sit on the stairs and just a great social event to go out in the boat.

And that always promotes kind of conversations that don't easily happen on land when you're spread out everywhere.

So it's, it's a fun thing.

I have four different boats for four different purposes and this is, this is a cruise boat launch.

Go out.

The latest person to drive this who really loves it new to it is my 6-year-old grandson.

He loves to get behind the wheel and drive this boat.

Very easy boat to drive, steer with the length of the boat.

It, it takes the water well and it's very dry so we can go out in rough weather if we want to.

It's not our choice, but we can.

And So it's just enjoyed by all usually put the young people are in love and put them up in the mother-in-law seat.

Have that all to themselves up front.

Introduction to wooden boats came when I was a, a very young boy, probably 10 years old.

My father got a wooden boat and much, much smaller.

It was only 16 feet long but I certainly got to enjoy my, my time with wooden boats and never lost the lump for the wood.

- This is a gray hall C in one piece.

All the hardware was there.

Just a total restoration.

We put a new bottom in it.

A lot of the boats original, a lot of the wood and sides and deck, the interior, just a total rebuild.

You've worked your way through it.

So he's been using it I think at about six or seven years it came down and got varnished.

So it hasn't been in our shop for probably 18 years.

You can see that it's nothing but a shammy taken to it.

After take the drops off, there's, there's absolutely no maintenance.

Actually less maintenance than a fiber estimate.

Fiberless boat you gotta wax.

So it kept outta the sun like most of the time, virtually they're indestructible boats.

These old engines, you rebuild a straight a Chrysler that's been in there 25 years, it'll be in there another 25 years.

They're extremely reliable.

They're low revving simple engines.

So once you get one running, they're, they're bulletproof, they're kind, they have a personality.

You gotta, when you're starting it, you know exactly how long to hold the choke out till it kicks and then you put a choke in.

And these old engines, they have a personality, you gotta get used to 'em once you're used to 'em, they're like part of you.

And once you and you know the idiosyncrasies, they all shake a little bit more at one RRP m than another.

So you just don't drive it at that RPM because the balancing and stuff wasn't as good as today's engines.

So again, again, once you've figured out, you know, the personality, you know, it runs great at 1200 and 1400 and up, but around 1300 it vibrates a bit.

You just don't run 'em at 1300.

It's right where the carburetor switches from the low speed jets to the high speed jets.

Again, everything mechanically was a little more rudimentary back then.

So you have to judge by ear of how, what works for you.

But yeah, once you know 'em, wow, there's, there's nothing more reliable than an old original engine.

I mean that liberty, we had huge problems for years 'cause nobody, everybody's dead that worked on 'em in the World War ii, world War I actually by World War ii, those guys were all pretty well gone.

So we found out by trial and error, how to set the transmission, how to set the oil pump.

There were great engines 'cause you can do everything.

But wow, it took us years to get the thing running right.

And I, I used to be able to have to go with Rick to start.

It took two, two men to start it for seven or eight years and then we figured out a, a lot of stuff did it, did the engine again, i i I come to this boat as once a year to show a customer of the boat.

Rick runs it all by himself.

I it hasn't been in the shop in, I don't know, at least 12 or 15 years.

It just runs, I think Rick says a couple Hail Marys each time.

And it goes - Now how long does it take you to do this - Restoration?

These boats, this takes basically one man two years to do a boat like this.

Maybe a tiny bit longer, 26, 27 months end to end up poles from Upholster Street of wiring.

We man make our own wiring, cloth wiring the same as they did back then.

We remanufactured all, so this boat's exactly down to the fat man and sand filled fuses, paper fuses as it delivered from the ditch burn factory in 1920.

I think this is the 28 or 29 UR recycling or reus.

So, and that's basically what we do mostly in our shop.

80% of our work is these original boats and about maybe 20% of our workers knew one of a kind.

And then we have, as you've seen, we have, you know, lots of boathouses in Muskoka with 1, 2, 3, 4 or five of these all around.

And every eight or 10 years they'll come down for, I'm picking up a 31 foot launch we did 25 years ago for a customer from Toronto.

And this is the first time it's been in the back of the shop for 25 years this fall.

So they, you get a lot of them out there and they come back every once in a while and seldom do they come for sale.

Usually a guy has them once he has it, he keeps it forever.

They usually come when they come for sale and it generational type thing.

- This is our 59th annual antique boat show and this year we have a special celebration of small - Craft.

What's happening here today is we're having a lot of awesome pieces of live history.

Come here.

We have zipper, pardon me on the water.

She has a Packard aircraft engine in her cicada, has a Liberty aircraft engine in her.

And that's a World War I aircraft engine.

So this is really just an awesome event where people who have a passion for history, fun, speed can come together and enjoy.

- Vintage vessels is made possible in part by -Kozmiuk wooden boats.

Custom wooden boat builder of ore sail and power boats traditionally built with old world craftsmanship.

Born from knowledge passed down through generations.

Custom built and restoration service at kozmiukwoodenboats.com The Grundy Insurance Classic Boat program was born from their family sailing tradition, offering vessels full agreed value coverage, protection from uninsured boaters, marine environmental damage, and search and rescue.

online@grundy.com Pettit Paint Captain's Varnish, available in pints, courts, gallons and aerosol.

This marine grade spray on varnish is made to protect wood from ultraviolet light drying to an amber color.

More information is available online at pettitpaint.com ACBS celebrating 50 years of vintage boating in 2025.

Chapter locations across North America can be found at acbs.org Closed captioning support is provided by Peter Henkel incorporated.

online at chris-craft-parts.com