The second picture down was taken of my first boat that I used on Okanagan Lake in 1965. We were on our way up the lake from Penticton B.C.to Commando Bay which was one of our favorite places to picnic.
Commando Bay has Quite a story about being a training site at the start of W.W. 2 for Chinese commandos. A long dock about 200 ft. long was built at the time and was still in usable condition in the 60,s. Getting back to the boat. It was 17 ft. in length and had a Chevrolet 265 V8 for power. A Borg Warner reverse gear made the power system very smooth. I bought the boat from an old friend in Summerland and with the use of his shop and garage made some extensive changes. The main problem was the motor was installed too far back which placed the rudder too close to the prop and bad cavitation was the result. I bored a new shaft hole and moved the engine a full 8 inches forward which allowed the proper clearance for the propeller between the rudder and the hull. this solved the cavitation problem and the boat performed very nicely. Myself and family used the boat for two summers and sold it in 1967. One problem with cedar lapstrake boats is it is difficult to stop them from leaking in the dry Interior climate. The top pcture is my second boat which is a Grew plywood lapstrake that I bought from Woodwards Marine division in Vancouver. It was 19 ft. and built for an outboard. They were going out of business and asked me to make an offer. I offered $ 1800.00 delivered to my house in Penticton and it arrived on a dolly two days later. I had always wanted to build a " V drive " engine set up so this was my project. I wrote a letter to the Grew factory in Ontario for plans on installing the engine as a " V grive " and they wrote back and said they had never done a " V drive " in any of their boats and lots of luck. At this time Cal Van was a major supplier of marine conversion kits so through them I contacted a man in California. He was the designer and builder of a small drag boat called the Glen L Missile.which you could buy and build as a kit. He was kind enough to send me back drawings and instruction on what to do The main thing was to build a full size elevation of the boat from plywood so you could measure things full size. This worked well but drilling the 1" shaft hole through that oak keel at 11 degrees was very difficult. The oak keel was 1 3/4 " thick and 6 ".deep. I had a special bit made out of 1" steel pipe 4 feet long long with case hardened teeth on the cutting end and made to thread on to a 3/4 "drill. This workrd well once we figured out how to get enough pressure on the drill bit. The drill was held in place and on line by 3/4 " plywood props that would not let the drill go off line. It worked perfectly and the whole was off less than 1/16 th of an inch. I installed 2x 8 clear fir engine stringers 10 ft. from the transom screwed to the oak ribs to facilitate installing the engine and V drive unit. The engine was installed about a ft. from the transom. Because of this arrangement the drive shaft was about 20 " long which really reduces vibration. A beautifull Borg Warner Velvet drive reverse gear completed the drive train. The propeller and rudder clearances were right on so the boat performed perfectly. You could take your hands off the wheel at 45 M.P.H. and the boat went straight as a die with no torque pull.
