Beschreibung:

ONE OWNER FROM NEW 1935 22ft. CHRIS-CRAFT TRIPLE COCKPIT RUNABOUT The young Christopher Columbus Smith earned his living in the marshes of Michigan as a market hunter while he learned the characteristics that would distinguish Chris-Craft motorboats: a rare confluence of intuition, skill, materials, art and craft that became a legend in high speed watercraft. Through the 1870s, Chris and his older brother Henry supported themselves by supplying the Detroit market with waterfowl while building a reputation as carvers of exceptional decoys and builders of duck boats, canoes, rowboats and launches. Chris Smith established his boatworks in Algonac, Michigan, hired 'Nap' Lisse, a master wood crafter, and proceeded to develop speedy and responsive displacement-style motorboats that evolved into the Reliance record breakers . In 1914 Reliance's patronage from Jack Ryan ended, but Smith conceived his first planing hull racer, Miss Detroit . Successive Miss Detroits won Gold Cups and Harmsworth Trophies galore and solidified Chris-Craft's glorious reputation. Walter P. Chrysler, Vincent Astor, Charlie Chaplin, Eli Lilly, Philip Wrigley and others owned Chris-Craft boats. The company adapted to the Depression's market with a line of smaller and practical runabouts, barely surviving the trying economic times, and by the mid 1930s it was again profitable. Chris-Craft's survival and the marque's continuing reputation were based upon a recognition of the market's needs and a constant assimilation of the latest material, styles and powerplants. Chris' son Jay established Chris-Craft's own engine production facility at Algonac, building 4, 6 and 8 cylinder engines up to 225bhp, supplementing 8 cylinder Chrysler Imperial engines (said to have been specified by Walter P. Chrysler) specifically to allow adaptation to marine use in Chris-Craft boats. Throughout the thirties, Chris-Craft's construction was exclusively from the beautiful, strong and poetically but botanically inaccurately named Philippine Mahogany , establishing a look that remains the signature for wooden speedboats. Chris Smith's direct involvement in the business declined during the twenties, but he was more than ably succeeded by his sons Jay, Bernard and Harsen, who developed the financial, product and marketing strategies that enabled the company to survive the Depression. The Chris-Craft Triple Cockpit Runabout offered here is the quintessential classic Chris-Craft. It was purchased new by Donald Weesner and has seen little use in the last 64 years, reportedly having been in the water no more than five or six times, and mostly during the late 1940s and '50s. Since then the 22 foot Chris-Craft has been in dry storage at Donald Weesner's Minnesota lakefront second home. We understand that some time in the late 1940s, Mr. Weesner upgraded the Runabout's performance with a purpose-built 323ci., Straight Eight Chrysler Marine engine. An opportunity to be the second owner of an original and essentially unused Chris-Craft Triple Cockpit Runabout is almost unheard of, even rarer than barn find original and unused Lincolns, Rolls-Royces or Hispano Suizas. The Chris-Craft is accompanied by its original manuals, owner's instructions, flags and paddles. Wooden speedboat enthusiasm is at a high level today, with important regattas and gatherings held across the country from Lake Tahoe to Lake Winnipesaukee. A Chris-Craft Triple Cockpit Runabout is the queen of the fleet, and Donald Weesner's one owner, original Chris-Craft is the standard by which restored boats of this marque will be judged for technique, materials, fittings and authenticity.