Category: Boats

Andiamo

HAPPY NEW YEAR. The start of a new year signals that all the old vintage hydroplanes and owners, like a very fine wine, are just getting better with age. (Hmm….that sounds good, so I’ll go with that). Every year new year also brings forth a few more vintage hydroplanes that …

Mom’s Worry A-55

Mom’s Worry A-55 has 24 photos posted to their webpage. This is the boat built by “Pops” Weber for his son Ray in 1962. They raced the boat for 5 years then sold it. It was located by Ray’s son, Mark in 2007 and restored by Scott Liddycoat.

Berlin VI

Rolf Gersch found his father’s old boat (that his father originally built) and restored her back to life. Click here to read more of the story on this beautiful boat.

Detroit’s Packard Plant cranked out 70,000 engines during wartime

PT boats! Kittyhawks! Hurricanes with 40mm guns to rip open Nazi tanks! Mosquito bombers! And, of course, the mighty P-51 Mustang! What do all these marvelous manifestations of the Allies’ mechanized might have in common? Why, they’re all powered by might V12 motors assembled by America’s Master Motor Builder: Packard. …

making a carbon fiber hydro

UPDATE ON THE TWO PIECE CARBON FIBER MOLD.

Today was lifting the carbon fiber mold off the mule (or donor hydro).The first two photos are before we lifted it off and the remaining photos are after it was broken free. The plan was to lift it far enough to temporarily place carton between the mold and the hull (tomorrow we will actually lift off the mold and place it on a cart we built. The reason for the delay is because the Spokesman Review was going to come over tomorrow to an article, but that has been moved to Monday. We will go ahead and take it off tomorrow and start cleaning up the hydro and mold. We used two cherry pickers and a fork lift to pry off the mold. About 9 air ports were molded into the mold to help free it from the hydro and those same air ports will be used to free the production part. The only casualty today was me, when the rear cherry picker I was counter balancing, kicked out from under the boat – scared me a wee bit.
Bob Bolam
N-22 Vintage Hydroplane Team

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Day 2, UPDATE ON THE TWO PIECE CARBON FIBER MOLD REMOVAL. At 9 AM we reconvened at NIC Composite School to continue removing the mold from the master. We three UNWISE men (Murdo, his son and myself) lifted it with the forklift and moved it away. That went fine, then we rolled the wood temporary cart under the mold. All’s well.. until the wooden cart decided to brake while on was on top of the mold removing the straps… OOPS !! I got back off the mold and we lifted the mold up far enough to get the cart out. Then I proceeded to fix it and make it stronger… Lowered it again and this time everything worked as PLANNED… Murdo, Holly and her son started removing all the aluminum foil. That aluminum foil worked great to protect the hydro and actually did make it easier to pull the two apart. Murdo started pressure washing both the hydro and the mold. The process to get the hydro ready to be put back on the trailer and returned to her owner begins. But I over heard the mold saying, “I’m Free, I’m Free, I’m really Free.

Bob Bolam
N-22 Vintage Hydroplane Team

Carbon Fiber

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