Triple Screws for the Masses

A Chris Craft!

Back in the early fifties when Chris Crafts were parked in Marinas like Hatteras are today, the hot set up in a Motor Yacht, the ne-plus ultra of the Marina crowd was not a filigreed Grebe, a fine bowed Trumpy or even a macho grey-on-grey Huckins.  No, it was a Chris Craft for God sake!

Not just any Chris Craft, mind you but a 51-foot Chris Craft Catalina with THREE ENGINES!  THE FIRST TRIPLE SCREWS FOR THE MASSES!  The ultimate in one upmanship at the Marina!  Anybody could have a twin screw boat, but this was something to be coveted.  Yes, triple screws with all the accoutrements: three brooding exhaust pipes in the transom (although the designers never got that quite right with two pipes on one side and one on the other); three beautifully chromed shift levers and three equally beautiful throttle controls; three sets of engine gauges and three ignition keys!  This was a real marketing coup by Chris Craft.  How could anybody resist the lure of starting three engines in sequence (brooom... broom ...broom) and maneuvering around the docks with three shift levers and throttle controls?  Top speeds were rumored to be over 30 miles per hour even though the boats were powered by three Hercules blocked Chris Craft gasoline engines of only 160 hp. each.  This may sound anemic for a 51-footer by today’s standards, but, remember, back then boats were narrower and light-unladen by the “comforts of home” commonly heaped on today’s yachts.

I was just a kid and really into the new boat scene.  My dad owned a 1932 Wheeler and my uncles and cousin who cruised with us, all owned boats from the 30’s.  But old boats didn’t interest me much.  I was completely taken by the fastest, newest and latest chrome and varnish vessels of the period; the level riding Matthews, Richardsons, Colonials, the lovely Wheelers, and of course Chris Crafts -- especially Chris Crafts and especially the triple screw Catalina. To my mind, this boat had it all. She was beautiful but, most importantly, she was FAST.

Chris Crafts of that era were really something special.  Atop their rather prosaic, flat bottom hulls, were set beautifully rounded superstructures with some of the best joiner work ever seen on a production boat.  Supplementing the effect was the hardware – custom cast chrome bronze pieces liberally sprinkled throughout the boat.  The bows had a distinctive “bullnose” -- with the stemhead well-rounded and faired into massive rounded toe rails.  The sheerlines, were rather straight but incorporated rounded steps in nearly all models.  The transoms were beautiful curved, raked affairs.  Then there was the varnish! Above the sheerline, nearly everything was varnish including, in many cases, the main deck which was available in varnished mahogany.

Back then, boats looked bigger than they do today.  This was not because I was looking at things from a kid’s perspective.  Even today, old Chris Crafts look big for their length.  Back then, a 50-footer was a big boat!  The reason was that the bows had little overhang or rake thus rendering the hull itself longer and giving it more mass.  Most importantly, the boats were low.  Today, level upon level of accommodations is heaped upon one another to increase living space thus producing a vessel that looks something like a watermelon.  In the 50’s a fifty-one ft. Chris Craft was, essentially, a single level boat appearing like a big speedboat.  Today, most fifty-foot Motor Yachts would be triple level boats.

Perhaps the most alluring thing about early fifties Chris Crafts was the exhaust sound.  I could write a whole article on this subject alone!  Chris Crafts had a very special sound due to the configuration of the exhaust system.  Larger models had engines installed well forward resulting in a long exhaust run of large diameter pipe.  Part of this long run was uphill resulting in an exhaust which, at idle, delivered water at great gushing spurts interspersed with a long pipe throaty rumble.  Fifties Chris Craft exhausts were definitely a piece of work.

A commuter boat named Go-Go

As caught up in modern boats as I was, I was reluctant when offered a week¬end job by the Captain of an old 62 foot commuter boat named “Go-Go.”  “Go-Go” was built in 1923 and was over thirty years old.  Thirty years old!  I didn’t want to have anything to do with her, but accepted the post because I needed spending money and liked the captain.  He would pick me up Saturday mornings and we would drive to City Island, New York, where “Go-Go” was laid up at Minniford Yard.  I would scrape, varnish, do engine work and sand teak. “Go-Go’s” long, skinny round hull and squared superstructure looked pitifully obsolete compared to the sleek Chris Crafts that I loved.  And the engines!  They were the original Speedway 6-cylinder gasoline engines -- massive and heavy, putting out approximately 300-hp each.  Each cylinder, the size of a bucket, had its own removable cylinder head.  These heads were pulled yearly for decarbonizing. I really thought these slow turning engines were a joke compared to the modern, high-speed Chrysler Imperial or Chris Craft Hercules units.  I was a little em¬barrassed to tell my friends what I was doing on the weekends.

“Go-Go” was launched each spring, allowed to “soak up” and then run up Long Island Sound to her home port of Port Jefferson.  I was asked if I’d like to ride the old boat up the Sound.  Though I would really be embarrassed if anybody saw me aboard, I accepted.  So started a Saturday which is permanently etched in my brain.

“Go-Go’s” engines, when fired up, sounded like a locomotive.  The twelve low speed bucket-sized pistons produced individual, low frequency pulsations that threatened to interfere with your heart rhythm!  The engines were controlled from the bridge deck by two humongous shift levers sprouting out of the pilot house sole; each cast bronze and approximately three feet high!  This, I thought, was really a joke compared to the tiny round “Chris-0-Matic” shifters recently introduced by Chris Craft.  You had to lean on these monsters to engage forward or reverse gear.  We smartly backed out of the slip, turned and proceed up Long Island Sound at what seemed like a leisurely pace.  After all, the boat was making little or no wake and she was running level.  My favorite boats produced mountainous white wakes and stood on their tails.  To me, this meant they were going fast.  Somewhere off Hempstead Harbor, I spied ahead huge mounds of white foam being pulled by a brand-new Chris Craft Catalina.  

Well, I really couldn’t tell it was a Chris Craft Catalina until we were on her quarter because the wall of water completely obscured the boat!  As we pulled close alongside, we could observe the owner and his party.  It was evident they were the kind of “yachtsmen” that the Captain detested.  While he managed “Go-Go” in a professional, almost military manner and considered running a boat serious business, this guy was having a party aboard.  The bar was definitely open indicated by the cocktail flag flying from the mast.  There was loud music and half-naked women dancing on the bridge.  Fenders were hanging over the side as was the boarding ladder.  To top it all off, the boat had a very original name like “Betty-Bill” or “Myrtle-George.”  The owner at the helm, a tall, tanned, trim man glanced over at us and sneered as his hand moved to the throttles.  We were close enough alongside that I could see he had three throttles and, sure enough, there were the three exhaust pipes in the transom. 

This was my dream boat!  As Mr. Party-time shoved the throttles forward, the Captain couldn’t resist and did the same.  We were racing a triple screw Chris Craft!  In my heart, I knew what the outcome would be and I began to feel a bit sorry for the Captain who loved his old “Go-Go” so much.  Five throttles were put “in the corner”.  The Chris Craft wallowed, hesitated a minute then slowly picked up speed while sitting on her tail with daylight showing under her forefoot.  “Go-Go,” on the other hand, accelerated smoothly never changing running attitude.  As we quickly slid by the Chris Craft, I looked over at the owner whose ego must certainly have been deflated.  Not only was his ego deflated but so was his physique.  The tall, trim guy exhaled and turned into a rather short guy with a pot belly!  He had had it “sucked in” all this time.  His head hung low, he pulled back on the three throttles and turned the music off.  In a few minutes, the “Chris” was but a speck on the horizon behind us.  I think I felt worse than the owner of the Chris Craft did.  A triple screw Chris Craft “blown away” by a 31-year-old funny square narrow boat with clunky original engines!  How could this happen?  Similar occurrences on the remainder of the trip confirmed the fact that the first encounter was no fluke -- “Go-Go” was fast.

After that trip, I still liked new Chris Crafts, but it was never really the same again.  Maybe there was something to these old boats after all!  I started to like my Dad’s Wheeler more.  When I thought about triple screws, images of three dinged propellers, three buggered strut bearings, three misaligned shafts and, worst of all, three wheezing engines now came to mind.  My first introduction into the world of reality!  I started realizing there was hunger and pestilence in the world and there were wars going on.  I also realized there was something to these old commuter boat hulls and started extensive research on them which led, 20 years later, to the design of the Midnight Laces’ which are a throwback to the fast hulls of the 20’s and 30’s.  Yes, that run up Long Island Sound gave me my first inkling that all is not what it appears to be in this world. Later experiences inside and outside the boating world would confirm this.

October 1985

(Reprinted with permission of Regina Fexas.)

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