- Owner
- Lance Ehrke
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Email
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- Home
Town - Brookfield, WI
- Boat
Builder - ChrisCraft
- Boat
Model - Dual Cockpit Deluxe Runabout
- Boat
Lenght -
18'
- Boat
Year - 1933
- Boat
Hull - Wood
- Boat
Name - Miss Molly Ann
- Engine
- 60 HP, 4 Cyl.
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- Additional
Information -
Our Chris Craft is a 1933 18 foot Dual Cockpit Deluxe
Runabout. Built in the winter of 1933, she was delivered in early
1934 to Green Lake, Wisconsin. She is serial 33013 and is an early
model of the Chris Craft family of Runabouts that were built over
the next 5 years. She has a number of unique features: a black
waterline, an oversized 1928 steering wheel, a nickel plated robe
rail, the rub rails are from a Chris Craft Triple, an oversized
front cockpit, and a
finished mahogany front floor panel under the dash board. After
a 25 year life on Green Lake she endured a lot of damage. A hole
was chopped in her deck for a large anchor. Finally, dragged partially
ashore, her engine was run until it blew up. Dirty bilge and burnt
oil covered the interior and she was left partially submerged.
The engine was removed and used as a buoy anchor. After about
8 years in this condition, we acquired the remains in 1968 and
began planning to restore her to operating condition. We spent
several years cleaning, reading, and retrieving records from the
Chris Craft Factory. One summer, our 5 young children said they
were bored. To relieve their boredom, they began the project of
stripping varnish, cleaning oil soaked interior wood, and looking
at pictures of what the boat would look like when she was restored.
They never claimed to be bored again, even to this day.
In 1980, we located a replacement Model B engine in New York and
Peter Henkel restored it. Restoration began in fits and starts.
Cleaning and replating hardware, new windshield glass, checking
and testing instruments, saving all of the 33013 stamped parts,
and we salvaged virtually all the hardware, but the deck damage
and the dried out hull were a mess. We stored her over the years
at our stable in Dousman and storage shed at Green Lake. We attempted
to
repair the decks, but they were too far gone.
Finally, with the arrival of a 5 grandchildren we decided to completely
restore the boat. A year
in planning and a year in working with an excellent group of skilled,
experienced help, the boat is now restored to her original delivered
condition. She was finished at the beginning of July and is beautiful.
She is completely restored and works perfectly. She has returned
to her home on Green Lake. Our bored group of children, who spent
hours working on her, and our
grandchildren have now enjoyed cruising on a very happy Chris
Craft. She is back at her Green
Lake home again with smiling, laughing children.
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