Vintage cabin crusier

[Kez]

These are British kits from the late 60's or early 70's. They appeared to be powered by a vintage Merco .61, which is converted airplane engine. My first boat was a smaller version of the Aerokits Sea Queen (second boat in the video clip) powered by a OS 20.

It is quite amazing to see how well these vintage boats handled the rough water. The Sea Queen is quite large at 46" in length...to give a perspective of the size of the waves.



I am sure my 40 size vee or even 67 size vee could not even finish one lap in waters like this.

 

[Tom Foley]

Proper CG !!!!! Awesome !

 

[bigjohn]

I built my 1st Sea Queen in 1965, got it from Octura and put a water cooled O&R in it, built my 2nd one in 1995, from scratch copied from a unbuilt kit I have, put a water cooled O&R I found at a swap meet, it has water cooled exhaust with duel pipes, the sound is awesome when making a low speed pass

John R.

 

[Kez]

Very nicely done. I like the wet exhaust. My first boat was the Sea Rover. It took me a very long time to save up enough money to buy the OS and to complete the kit.

I was 12 and could not afford the Sea Queen. But I have fond memories of drooling all over the kit box at the LHS.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

 

[harvknox]

John,your Sea Queen looks great.Did you put the Walbro carb on the O&R?I've never seen that before.I have a Sterling kit 48"Chris Craft in which I put 8" wide engine rails and installed a 3/4 HP O&R.I glassed the balsa planked hull and used two Pittman electric motors as emergency power if the O&R died.Did not know anything about retrieve boats in 1963 when I built the boat.I liked your water cooled muffler.I built mine using a brass toilet flush tube surrounding a perforated brass tube loosely wrapped with fiberglass and also water cooled.My engine was cooled using 2 Octura Cool Clamps.Radio was a 10 channel tone vacumn tube Orbit with a reed receiver and Transmite servos.. I' ve since put in a modern radio and still run the boat once in a while.In 1968 I also built a White Heat X all wood including the cowl which has a 1 HP O&R with a water cooled jacket,barrel carb,and megaphone exhaust.You can hear this boat for miles when I run it.The starter finally broke,and I thought I was out of business,but Dick Tyndall came to the rescue with an old engine with a good starter his father had.I hope to run both boats this weekend to start the new year.The Knoxville Gang should have their ear plugs in when I fire up the White Heat.

Harvey Liberman

 

[Kez]

Proper CG !!!!! Awesome !

Proper CG for sure and probably the high freeboard helped too. The boats seemed to be moving at a pretty good clip with just a sport engine. I am not even sure a modern big cat can survive this kind of condition.

 

[bigjohn]

Harvey, yes I did put the Walbro carb on it, it works much better then the stock or Octura carb, my O&R has the Octura rotary intake valve in it, when I bought the O&R it came with the motor mount and the megaphone exhaust, here's a picture of my White Heat 10? I built the first one in wood in about 1965, in about 1990 I pulled a mold off it and made some fiberglass ones, then made a new cowl for it.

John R.

 

[Tom Foley]

Harvey, yes I did put the Walbro carb on it, it works much better then the stock or Octura carb, my O&R has the Octura rotary intake valve in it, when I bought the O&R it came with the motor mount and the megaphone exhaust, here's a picture of my White Heat 10? I built the first one in wood in about 1965, in about 1990 I pulled a mold off it and made some fiberglass ones, then made a new cowl for it.

John R.

View attachment 33187

Do you still have the molds ? Would you build another ?

 

[LarryConrad]

There is barely a good Walleye chop on that water, not even any white caps...A calm day on a Minnesota lake. Those scale cabin cruisers look pretty cool.

 

[harvknox]

Tom,this thread has switched from nitro to gas and back again.Kinda confusing.I think you're mainly into gassers.The "White Heat X?"that John pictured is I believe a White Heat 4-60 with a super looking custom cowl.It's about 36" long and intended for a 60 nitro.The White Heat 5&10 were designed for the O&R gas motors,42"long and differed mainly in the cowls.The boats were single step hydros that Tom Perzentka from Octura designed to drop the engine flywheel housing at the step to lower the engine.He had a whole family of White Heats.The gas 5&10,the 4-60 which John has,a 60 which is a single step hydro designed also for a 60 nitro engine,and a 30 also a single step design. sorry about running infintum on these boats,but I'm getting my White Heat X ready to run this Sunday,and already getting pumped up.(gotta find my ear plugs) Harvey

 

[bigjohn]

Harvey, I'm sure mine is a 10 some thing, it may be a 14, it has a small concave in the bottom of the transom, that would make it a 4 point, 10-4 or 14, Tom was making a lot of changes back then, he was a regular at our pond and always had something new, anyway mine is 42" long and was designed for the O&R, talk about loud, I ran mine for awhile with a Zenoa G38 on 40% nitro with twin 2" straight pipes, it was like driving a bomb, could barely keep it on the water, the good old days.

John R.

 

[David Santistevan]

I have a Dumas Dauntless with twin McCoy 35s, also wet exhaust. My dad built it back in the late 70's and it runs like mad, especially on rought water.

 

[Tom Foley]

Tom,this thread has switched from nitro to gas and back again.Kinda confusing.I think you're mainly into gassers.The "White Heat X?"that John pictured is I believe a White Heat 4-60 with a super looking custom cowl.It's about 36" long and intended for a 60 nitro.The White Heat 5&10 were designed for the O&R gas motors,42"long and differed mainly in the cowls.The boats were single step hydros that Tom Perzentka from Octura designed to drop the engine flywheel housing at the step to lower the engine.He had a whole family of White Heats.The gas 5&10,the 4-60 which John has,a 60 which is a single step hydro designed also for a 60 nitro engine,and a 30 also a single step design. sorry about running infintum on these boats,but I'm getting my White Heat X ready to run this Sunday,and already getting pumped up.(gotta find my ear plugs) Harvey

Good info on the White Heat hulls , would make for a good article with photos .

 

[harvknox]

John,I m glad you straightened me out on your boat.Tom P. must have been testing designs in the 60's and 70's that never made it out of Chicago.The fact that the engine is rigid mounted I believe contributes to the noise level.Also the wood construction,which I believe makes a stiffer hull also amplifes the sound.The megaphone pipe is the real star of the show.My ears ring for a time after the engine shuts down.I 've never heard the Octura V-8 exhaust,but believe it would be quieter.

The Knoxville Gang go to races in the Midwest.If you go to the same events,maybe we could bring some of these vintage boats and run a few laps-if there is no sound meter around!

Harvey