- 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 episode, Peter and Jeffrey Breen showcase their boat collection.

They'll provide some history about their boats and take them and take them out for a spin.

All right here on Vintage Vessels of the water.

- So this is a, in the early twenties, they had what they called gold cup halls.

They were all pretty well designed by one or two guys.

George Crouch, John Hacker, with the famous boat designers, mostly Hacker in the late later twenties.

And, and his race boat hulls had to be 26 feet.

That was the early on.

They had Unlimiteds and they were mostly entered by yacht clubs.

So they had big V 12 engines in 'em, and they were 36 feet long, mostly war surplus stuff.

And because it was too an expensive sport for people to get into, it was mostly either really wealthy people or yacht clubs formed a committee just like they do with a sailboat.

And they entered a, a boat and they all chipped in.

So in about 1926, they made it a 26 foot rule.

The boat couldn't be any longer than 26 feet.

So they all used the same hulls ha, Hacker hulls.

And what you have to remember is the engines were getting 10 or 15% lighter every year with 10 or 20% more horsepower.

So almost y every two or three years, the hull was obsolete.

They'd make another one.

So basically the one of the earliest ones was really narrow at the trance, but it cornered really well.

Like it was on rails.

The next couple hulls were a little bit faster than a straightaway, but they wouldn't corner as well.

So that first, A PBA hull held all the speed records for six or seven years until the next one finally got fast enough that it could overtake it in a one mile heat going around corners.

So what this is, this is actually a combination of the two.

It's halfway between the Rainbow three and the Rainbow four.

So a corner's real well, but it also goes nice and fast.

And it's 20, 28 feet long.

We made it a little bit longer to accommodate the higher horsepower.

- Gotta have a UGA heart.

- No, this is a brand new boat.

The trouble is there's very few originals because they had to be 26 feet.

They, they were race boats, they were lightly built.

They weren't built to last.

There are a few around, but they're all virtually brand new boats because most of 'em had canvas decks and decks were cedars 'cause it was very light.

They weren't made to last two or three years.

They were made to run race one season and go.

So these are, what happened is in, in, in certain parts of the world, Muskoka and some of the wealthier lakes in the states, they reproduced them.

The factories, Garwood Hacker Ditch Burn Manette.

And they called them gentleman's racers.

So the, the wealthier people of the day had a gentleman's racer.

It wasn't a full race boat, but it was the same style with way more hardware and a little bit more mahogany finished off and done a little bit better.

And that's what this, so this is, we do 80% of our work's original boats.

We do boats, historic boats like we did one that was done in allergen or Bell's Graham Bell's laboratory.

But back in Elva Scotia took four years.

We did William Randolph Hearst, V 12 Liberty.

That was shown in the 1926 Chicago Boat Show.

That's what we really do for a living.

But about 15 or 20% of our work is one of a kind custom bonus.

So this is a gentleman's razor, all the fancy hardware, everything in everything here we cast and make every piece of metal.

You see we make from the cleats to the dash to the throttle, the windshield glass.

If it's bent, we bend glass, we make the lights, the hardware.

The only thing old in this boat is the, the steering wheel's old and the ignition switch are up from the twenties.

Everything else is Brandon replicated.

Okay?

This is a 1911 Mullin's boat company made in Salem, Ohio.

They were the largest boat manufacturer in the world from 1880s till about 1910.

They would send, they, these boats are made of iron, four pieces of iron like the Titanic and riveted together up the center and up each side.

And then all the wood frames in them were all steam bent ribs and all wooden super structure.

This was built before the Titanic.

So this boat was $24 new in 1911.

And for $8 they would put it in a crate and send it anywhere in the world.

Most of them went to Africa and Asia because they didn't swell.

They were, they weren't a wooden boat.

You could put it in salt water and they didn't leak and they were bulletproof and, and can you imagine the crate?

It would be, you could live in the thing it would for eight bucks.

This has got a little 1939 Buchanan Midget in it.

My son, when I finished this, I bought it the year my son was born.

And I, in my spare time, I finished it when he was eight years old and he, he did the St. John River trip from Georgia to Orlando.

250 miles one way down the St. John River.

So this has been down to Florida twice on the St. John River.

I did it another time.

Fabulous boats.

So they're a little more reliable with the little bit more modern engine in know.

So the ones that weren't melted down in World War I by World War ii, they were pretty well worn out and they needed metal badly.

So there's very few of them left.

Even though they were largest bull company in the world, very few Mullins survived 'cause they needed metal.

- These boats are among the back, can go really close to shore.

They don't burn any gas.

And you can lots of myat boat.

- This is a 1929 Peterborough.

Peterborough was a huge boat company in Canada.

They started up building canoes and rowing skis and then they progressed into boats.

So they were just getting into big launches and fancy boats.

They only built a handful of these.

The first one was in 1928 and they started getting in 1929.

This is a 19 foot launch, which is a fairly small launch, but to what they, they built cedar strips and canoes, tens of thousands of them.

They just started building these to compete with the big boat companies like Ditch Burner and Vete and Chris Craft.

And then the Depression came after the depression.

Money was tight.

They survived.

They lasted for another 70 years, but they went right back to canoes and rowing skis and they never built another big boat.

So this is a really rare boat.

We've only seen another couple like it.

It's a smooth skin.

This was a fancy, fancy boat to compete with.

The best of the best.

Built in gunnel, trimmed, just a really fancy boat.

My son did this.

I think he, we bought this maybe, maybe 14 years old and it took him about three or four years in and out of the shop in his spare time that he repowered it with a original engine, original Flathead.

That's okay.

But this is not a 1929 flathead, it's a 19 probably just pre-war flathead, you know, 35, 30 to 40 range here.

The Reation was safe.

They run, they work.

I haven't had this running for a month now.

I bet it starts as soon as we touch the key.

This is your original boat.

So built in 1929, you can't touch anything.

You can't change anything.

You can't add anything.

You can't give more leg room.

It's the boat is the way it was.

And that's how you redo it.

So this is a really rare original boat, but it shows you when you do an original boat, you're, you're married to how they did it.

Now this is a wonderful boat, pretty little boat, great seating.

I mean, I don't think there's anything you'd change In the twenties.

Most of the, most of the cottages in Muskoka and a lot of think of the US lakes too.

There were no roads.

They were all boat access islands or boat access.

So this is what they, what they call a, a launch, displacement launch before boats plane and went fast.

Everything looked like this.

They were all launches, different variations, but basically displacement halls.

All the islands are bigger lodges or bigger.

Wealthier cottage had a hard top launch that they could get.

The passengers and everybody in and out and rainstorms.

There are very few of these survived.

There's only one or two in the world because they were very flimsy.

The hard tops, most of them kind of got broken off over time.

And if the boat survived, there's no hard top on it.

So I I, I always wanted one and there's none available.

So I built this for myself, took me 10 years from start to finish.

But very practial boat on a hot day like today, it's 30 some degrees out today and you're cool as a cucumber in this thing because you get a bit of breeze and you're out of the sun.

Just a very practical boat.

Again, it it, it's got eight model T roll up windows.

It took a man a year just to do the roofing windows.

Huge labor intensive.

There's no plywood or veneer or anything.

This boat, it's all we do.

Boats the same way they did in the twenties.

All real wood fashioned with real screws.

Varnish with varnish.

No plywoods, no laminates, no veneers.

And this is all steamed.

You can't build this boat outta west system reconnaissance.

It's too, too round.

So it's all steam bent ribs, which we do in all real plant.

Very hard to do.

So for that reason, there's simply none of them around.

You can see why they had these boats for islands because you can roll the windows up and go in a snowstorm, carry your luggage outta the rain.

And all the big islands had a lodge boat, hard top And yet almost none survived.

They were just too fragile.

Hey, how's that?

How's that for a land?

It's pretty good.

So this, this is a gold cup race boat that we trimmed down and made two feet shorter.

My son built this for himself for a project boat.

So this took him six or seven years in his spare time.

It's a rain original rainbow.

Three short and two feet.

One of our customers, we put a couple new fuel injected Mercury v eights in.

So he donated an engine, a three 50 Chevy.

So my son had that.

Our engine shop rebuilt that and my son built the whole thing.

Every piece of metal you see on it.

He designed his own.

If you, if you see these engine hatches from the side, almost no one does it.

These are curved hatches, which is next to impossible to fit.

Nobody does it.

They all go straight with a piano hinge and build 'em simple.

That's curved all the way, all different ways.

You can't put a business card in the trim anyway.

And he made, he makes wooden patterns and he made raised hinges, made his own Indian arrow type hinges so that the hat lifts up and it doesn't scratch lifts up off the deck.

That's a real nice three 50 carbureted, about 340 horsepower mild cams.

But the workman, this is all real wood, all all dovetail coven bead.

No laminate in here is plywood or anything, any of our, they're all real wood, all dovetail corners if, if you do it properly, outta real wood, this has been to Florida twice, been to Texas, been to Michigan boat trips.

He's had it all over North America to show us.

We run around for a week.

We did the St. John River both ways, which is about 600 miles from Georgia to Orlando and back.

We spent a whole week.

He took this and I took another hard top boat I have.

So it really gets used.

And then he, he pushed the envelope, did all kinds of neat things like that.

That's alligator upholstery, that's real alligator.

Same stuff they did in the twenties.

If they could find something real trick that was available, they did it.

So that's what he did when he built this.

The only old piece in it, it's got an old spotlight head.

He made a new bracket for them and it's got a tilt man tilt steering wheel.

This was patented in Canada as they were patented as fat man steering wheels.

'cause in the twenties if you had lots of money, they tended to be the first overweight people.

So they patented as a fat man steering wheel.

'cause the wealthy people tended to be a little portly, kind of neat history.

This is all original, all original hardware.

He made every piece himself instead of a four seater, it's a two seater.

He made his own name.

We actually had a, a guy carve this forest with a computer out of wood and then we took it to our casting shop and it had it cast in bronze and then we cleaned it all up in foam.

It's got the mother-in-law cockpit in the front.

Same alligator.

Seldom are these used because a couple big guys sitting up here, it kind of blocks the visibility a bit.

It puts a lot of weight in the front.

They work good but they're seldom used unless it's the grandkids you're taking out for a ride.

But they're fabulous restoring the bumpers and having your picnic basket and everything with you.

So we normally leave them pretty well closed So they're right down to the antique toolbox with the oil can.

And every boat had a toolbox built in so that they weren't very reliable.

You needed a pair of pliers and a screwdriver with you.

And then we make everything, everything down to the everything down to the wire.

We have a guy in New Hampshire makes custom collect wire for us.

We build our own fuse boards, terminal boards.

We, we build everything in house.

We buy nothing.

Every single piece we manufacture ourselves.

We don't buy anything.

And it, if you buy it, it doesn't fit.

You gotta adapt it.

It works, but not really.

We found over time each boat, each boat taught you how to do a different thing.

So when we need a a porter starboard light, we make a mold and cast it.

It's quicker and easier.

It works and fits perfectly.

We use nothing new.

That deck that the putty in the deck is window putty, same glazing, putty a glass, glaze a window.

And with putty down we use nothing new, nothing.

No sfl, no modern caulkings, nothing.

We use everything they use in the twenties because it's proven, it's hey this stuff dries out in cracks.

But we, that's because they didn't seal the back of the deck.

What you gotta remember is they were just boats.

They had to get 'em out quick so they didn't seal the back of it.

So on humid days or weeks, the moisture get in and the boats move.

So the putty tended to crack over time.

But when you build a boat, if you put two or three coats of varnish on the underside, it's like a shock absorb on a car.

The moisture doesn't get in in quick or out quick.

That window putty lasted 80 a hundred years the first time around and they weren't looked after.

Really done properly done properly.

It lasts forever.

It's proven.

So we use nothing to, nobody knows how long sikaflex is gonna last in there.

If you encapsulate it and it gets in the sonic and bubble and do all kinds of weird stuff, we, we do everything the way it was done back then with real wood because it does not, if it stands up and it's proven the test of time, why would we try something new?

So we're probably one of the only boat shops in North America.

That's all we do.

Everything's hand sand cast.

Everything's real wood.

No laminates, no veneers, no glues holder boat together.

The new boats are all plywood held together with glue.

You get water in 'em, they fall apart.

You can't sell it.

They're worth nothing.

Our boats are all real wood fastened with screws.

Even if you don't look after, you can't fall apart.

We, we get hauls back.

People get old and I picked one up the other day.

It's 18 years old.

It's as good as the day left the shop.

You saw how empty pockets right there.

There isn't a fiberglass boat around on low performance boat.

It's a 1920s design.

It's, it's unbelievable.

And if the steering squeaks, you put some oil on it and you, and it's safe, you can feel it.

If you put mechanical hydraulic steering in one of these things, it's like racing a school bus.

You, you can't feel what the thing's trying to do on you.

You have to have mechanical steering to feel what's under you and make and run.

Right.

'cause if you can't feel what it's doing, wow they're dangerous.

- Listen, so this is your first boat that you built?

- Yeah, this is the apprenticeship still my baby first one.

Right.

- What would you do differently?

- Nothing honestly.

Like nice.

Every boat you try to improve a little bit here and there, but I can't think of anything I would really change.

My Perspective is a little biased though.

I guess he might say.

Like my dad says, we get paid to do something we love.

So it's pretty lucky.

And how many people get to do that, right?

My dad's dream, like I kind of progressed with the boats I own.

Like we had a Boston Whaler at first and kind of realized the center consoles weren't much good and had a couple fiberglass boats.

And being in the boat business, we always, you know, wanna have this as our kind of our, our sales room up here.

So our dream was kind of have a two seater that I built for myself someday.

'cause he had his cash injection, which is like a four seat confi configuration.

So yeah, that was our dream.

And then, yeah, we kind of were lucky enough to make that happen and just kind of went from there.

So yeah, it's definitely my favorite boat, I have to say that.

- Why is that?

- Well, just 'cause of exactly that.

Like I built it my first boat, right?

So it kind of has that nostalgic added element to it.

Kind of fun.

You just dream of something different on each boat and then just kind of make it work.

Like a lot of people look at it and kind of, it's overwhelming when you look at a full project done, but you just break it down into little tasks.

You know, day by day it's, it's really not as crazy as one would think.

Yeah, it's, it's fun, fun stuff.

Get right in.

It's kind of like two seaters are more like sports cars kind of on the water more, a little more thrilling and stuff.

Less practical.

As you can see.

It's kind of two, three people and that's it.

But yeah, there's definitely nothing like them for sure.

- We're going down to the annual boat show in Gravenhurst There'd probably be a hundred votes there.

And I'm taking one called the Jeffrey, which is a 1939 gentleman's racer, 21 feet long, 225 horsepower in it.

- 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