The Vintage Hydroplanes

Welcome 2017.  The 2017 monthly calendars are, once again, posted. Well, I have posted January & February. If you have a neat vintage-related photo and would like to see it featured, please email it to me. If no pics come in, I will rely on ‘borrowing pics’ from Facebook as well as other sources. When the 2017 Vintage Events Schedule becomes available (hopefully someone at the APBA V&H will email that to me), I will add the event dates to the monthly calendars. I hope everyone has a great 2017!

Hey Folks – I r’cd the following below from Chris who just acquired this beautiful hydro. It is always great to read about another hydro that survived just enough to be restored. Interesting that it appears to have water-cooled headers running on-board. Perhaps a cool lake racer in it’s last version, but what was it before that?
If anybody can help Chris out with history, please post here or click on Chris’s name below and send him an email.

Hello, Vintage Hydroplanes
My name is Chris Sztuke and I have recently purchased the hydroplane called Black Magic. My plans are to restore the boat, however I know very little about the boat. The lady I purchased the boat from new very little about it as her husband passed away and the paper work and any information on the boat was lost in a fire. I would be very interested in any information I could get to help in the restoration and to understand the history of the boat.
I am located in Southern Ontario near Belleville.  I know the boat has been in this area for the last 25 years.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Chris Sztuke

Editor notation: History found – Ross McCracken and Bob Abbott both responded that this is the former Miss Maple Leaf II.
Bill Ireland was former owner / driver.

Hi
I live in New Zealand and I am building a replica vintage hydro from the Alter Ego plans.
This is my 3rd boat building project and I have a website showing details and progress (actually just a good way to ensure I take photos as I go – which I didn’t do enough of on the first 2 projects) and thought that this site and stuff may be of interest to your website visitors. The link is www.bootlegger.co.nz
I would really love to find an original type rudder setup for the boat and maybe one of you may have one lying in the corner of their shed – well you never know. I do have a cast transom bracket and quadrant – Glenwood marine – and could have a rudder bracket and blade made but a genuine one would be the one to have. Please send me an email if you can help me out.
Regards,
Greg Roy

Editor’s Note: I highly recommend that you surf through Roy’s website (link above). He is a very talented builder (great air brush work as well).  One other item I would like to point out — Neat that Roy is framing his latest boat build in Kauri. If you are not familiar with this wood, worth reading up on it.
I work at a wood shop and I’ve seen the “old-growth”  Kauri wood. Not talking about wood that’s been around since  just BC…we’re talking 50k+ years old trees that fell into the great peat swamps during prehistoric times in NZ. These prehistoric bogs are usually farm fields or ranch lands today. They dig them out and sell them. They are available in the US at a facility in Ashland, Wisconsin. (http://www.ancientwood.com/).  Also – Google “Kauri” images on the wood species and you see some of the most impressive beautiful slabs (huge chunks) of wood ever.

Anyways Greg replied back with more info on the woods available in NZ:,
“Yes we still can get the odd bit of Kauri milled here. They exported all the best logs a couple of hundred years ago, dumped or left the stumps and those are now being pulled from the ground for all sorts of uses. The Kauri is protected as such but they allow some land owners a certain number to be cut each year. The other great native timber used in boat building in NZ is Kahikatea, and this is a bit more readily available and I will use this for the deck battens if needed. We also can get Fijian Kauri which is a nice wood”.