 We
left the smooth-flowing water of the Spokane River and moved
out onto Idaho’s wind-blown Lake Coeur d’Alene doing about
40 mph. The mellow roar of a 415-hp fuel-injected V-8 through
chrome-plated, teardrop exhaust ports was reminiscent of
an Allison aircraftengine in a 1950s-vintage Unlimited hydroplane.
Before leaving the dock aboard Syd Young’s newest
29’ Stan-Craft Torpedo runabout, I had taken off my
shoes so as not to mark the high-glass clear-coat on the
deck or the bright yellow rolled-and-pleated upholstery.
My reason for being in what Syd calls the rumble seat—a
smallcockpit forward—was to get some close-up photos
of him at the helm of thisbeautifully finished mahogany
classic, especially with a whitewater wake streamingastern
in the background. But I also wanted to test his claimthat
this boat’s ride — something Syd has worked
a decade to perfect—waswhathe termed "absolutely
startling."
A lot of boatbuilders tell me their boats have a great
ride, and occasionally I have the opportunity to check that
out for myself. Usually, I find their boats are much like
most others of thesame size and type. Fiberglass hulls with
molded deep-Vs of 20¡ and more, plusa big power plant
to push them, tend to ride very smooth in rough water. Manywooden
boat hulls, on the other hand, have significantly less deadrise
and willbegin to pound whenever the water gets rough.
 So,
when Syd told me his double-planked hulls were special —
"You can be in 2’-3’ waves, wide open,
and feel nothing" — I was skeptical. Although
the deep 50¡-55¡ V at the bow gave it a sharp
entry, the bottom quickly transitioned to a very shallow
6¡ deadrise at the stern.
Nevertheless, as we left the protection of the river and
ran full-bore into a stiff chop, I was amazed how comfortable
Iwas only a few feet back from the stem —the absolute
worst place to sitin rough-water conditions. Sure, there
was some jostling as the forefoot wasdeflected slightly
from side to side, but none of the bone-jarring vertical
poundingI would normally expect in those conditions.
The 29’ length stretching across thelake’s
typically close wave action, plus the 45-mph velocity of
a 5,000-lbhull, certainly contributed to the soft ride.
But a key factor, according toSyd, was a bottom configuration
that has been refined since his dad, Stan Young,firstbegan
building Stan-Craft boats in 1933.
"Most of the boats built in the old days were relatively
flat-bottomed without much deadrise," he explains.
"They didn't have a lot of power, so the bottoms were
flatter to get more speed. Now we've got all kinds of power
and the deep-V. The trick is to keep the classic look and
gracefulness of these boats, and yet get them to perform
and ride soft. No one is going to enjoy riding in them if
they are getting banged around out there. So, a majorgoal
since 1983 has been to make sure they ride really nice."
 My
demonstration ride that windy day in May was a good measure
of Young's success in achieving that particular goal. But
it also underscored the success of Syd's desire to keep
alive the wooden boat building tradition as a viable commercial
enterprise. Not only has Stan-Craft Boats continued despite
competition first from fiberglass and now aluminum, but
they have done so in the lake country of Idaho and Montana
by specializing in building and restoring classic wooden
runabouts — a market that flourished during the 1930s,
'40s, and '50s for the like of Chris-Craft, Century, and
other well-known wooden boat manufacturers.
In the 1950s, Syd began helping out in the shop on Montana’s
Flathead Lake at age 10 and built his first boat two years
later. After spending the latter part of the World War II
years in Seattle building boats for the military, his dad
returned in 1946 to produce a tapered-stern runabout design
he started in 1943. It was a prototype for the unique Torpedo
model Syd was to refine and continue building more than
50 years later.
Through 1966, the company built more than 250 mahogany
runabouts and cabin cruisers, plus small fishing skiffs
and a variety of commercial and military workboats. By the
mid-'60s, however, the growing market for fiberglass boats
forced the Youngs to shift their efforts from wooden boats
to what would sell. After taking over management of the
family business in 1970, Syd produced a successful line
of 26’, high-speed fiberglass cruisers called the
Nor’wester.
Also, Syd’s wife, Julie, became an important part
of the business from the day they were married in 1968.
"It has been my job to manage the front office, take
care of all the paperwork, and keep Syd organized,"
she says. He sometimes gets sidetracked on building boats
and forgets the other aspects of the business."
During their years in high school, both daughters —
Amy andSidney A. — also helped with the family business
and have always been verysupportive of their parents' efforts.
"They really contributed and werepartofour success,"
Julie confirms. "Sydney A. worked for us full time
in the frontoffice for four years after graduation, and
it was really difficult replacingher and the way she connected
with customers."
By 1980, the market for Stan-Craft fiberglass boats had
also dried up. So, Syd closed the business and moved the
family to Post Falls, Idaho, and spent three years working
for a firm unrelated to boatbuilding. But his experience
and family heritage finally caught up with him, and in 1983
heopened a place called "The Boat Shop" in nearby
Coeur d'Alene and beganspecializing in wood and fiberglass
boat repair and restoration. Although initiallyapprehensive
about the wisdom of such a move, he found a ready market
for hisskills, especially amng a surprising number of wooden
boat owners on northernIdaho’s large lakes. As his
reputation grew, requests came from owners asfar away as
Boston looking for someone to whom they could entrust their
cherishedvintage Stan-Crafts, Centuries, and Chris-Crafts.
"We’ve restored hundreds of classic wooden boats
sincethen," says Young. In fact, we have the unique
distinction of having rebuiltmore Century runabouts than
anyone in the world. "We reached a total of 191 ofthem
in 1999 — every model you can think of."
Although the bulk of his business volume in the last 17
years came from repair and restoration jobs, Young continued
to receive orders for new construction of classic wood runabouts.
Since coming to the Coeurd’Alene area,” he says,
we’ve built over 30 of the mahogany-plankedboats,anywhere
from two to four a year.” Most go to individual owners
for personaluse, and most are runabouts from 25’ to
30’ in different configurations.
 After
building an assortment of double- and triple-cockpit boats,
including some of the design his father had built after
the war, Young built his first speedster design in 1975.
"The doubles, triples, torpedoes, and all the earlier
boats were driven from a forward helm station," he
explains. "A speedster is a boat driven from a stern
station with an engine and lots of boat in front of you.
The first was a split-cockpit speedster — a cockpit
with the helm aft and another cockpit forward of the engine
compartment. It was successful, but harder to sell because
of the seating arrangements—most people prefer to
have closer, more sociable seating.”
Then he designed and built a few 30’ x 8’ triple-cockpit
boats with the traditional forward helm stations and later
adapted the same8’-wide hull to a 30’ triple-cockpit
speedster—two aft of theengine and one in front. But
these were all large, pricey boats. Young decidedto try
to reach and additional market with something a little smaller,
buildinga verysuccessful 21’ speedster with two cockpits.
Next he built a 25-footer withtwoseats aft and a rumble
seat in a small forward cockpit.
It was great,” says Young, but the back seat was
a little cramped. So the next year I added a foot to the
stern and made the back seatroomier. The 26’ length
turned out to be perfect for that boat, and we builtapile
of them. It also became the basis for the hull of the 29’6”
Torpedoeswebuilt last year.
I’m open to building any of those models,”
he adds, but my personal favorite has been the speedster
configuration—I just like the feel of being back.
In fact, the latest Torpedo design is really a speedster
with a boat-tailed stern, two cockpits aft, and a rumble
seat forward.”
Although most Stan-Crafts built after the war have gone
to recreational users, Young and his father built wood boats
for commercial use by the U.S. Park Service at Yellowstone
and Glacier National Parks, the U.S. Forest Service, and
the Montana Fish and Game Department. In 1987, Syd also
built a boat for the Idaho Fish and Game Department. But
perhaps his most innovative design for commercial use has
been a pair of 30’ x 10’ mahogany-planked water
taxis for the Coeur d’Alene Resort.
The boats were commissioned by Duane B. Hagadone, owner
of the resort, who wanted a unique and classy method of
transporting his guests from the resort itself to its lakeside
golf course a few miles away. In 1990, using the same methods
and materials he uses in his classic runabouts, Youngproduced
two Coast Guard—approved, twin-engined passenger boats
that notonly turn heads wherever they go, but still look
like new 10 years, 11,000 operatinghours and 300,000 passengers
later.
Syd moved his shop in 1991 from Coeur d’Alene to
Post Falls, about a half mile from his home on the Spokane
River. In addition to about 10,000 sq ft of dry storage
for boats, including 80 to 100 classic wooden boats routinely
hauled out of area lakes at the end of the summer.
His repair and restoration work increased at the new location,
but he still found time to fill orders for new boats. His
most recent construction was an identical pair of 29’6”
x 7’4” Torpedo models, one of which was the
boat I had the opportunity to ride in and photograph last
May. Both were completed in early 1999—one went to
an individual buyer with a price tag of around $150,000.
The other was operated last summer by Young’s son-in-law,
who gave paying passengers the thrill of a speedboat ride
on Lake Coeur d’Alene, and was scheduled for delivery
to a buyer in June.
Although Young has built many successful models, the Stan-Craft
Torpedo best illustrates the present state of his achievement
in wooden boat design and craftsmanship. In addition to
an exceptionally smooth ride, our trip on the lake confirmed
another of his claims that Stan-Craft boats are very solidly
built. In fact, with nothing but socks on my size 15s firmly
planted against the hull planking. I felt absolutely no
vibration in theboat’s structure, either from wave
action or from the roaring engine directlybehind where I
was sitting.
Young’s primary construction material is mahogany,
which he obtains from Hardwoods Inc. in Seattle, the same
supplier Stan-Craft has used for 67 years. However, good
mahogany planking is getting harder to find,especially in
lengths up to 20’. As a result, with the drop in exports
fromHonduras, he switched three years ago to African mahogany,
but even that is becomingmore difficult to buy.
“All the frames are 3” x 1” sawn African
mahogany on 20” centers and assembled with double
gussets at the chine,” Young says. “We use a
marine plywood gusset on one side, plus a full 1”
mahogany gusset bolted through the chine on the other, and
everything is bedded in epoxy. The chines are 3” x
1”, and the 3 1/8” x 7” engine stringers,
which run nearly full-lenth, are bolted through the frames
with silicon bronze. We could drop 1,000 hp in these hulls,
and there wouldn’t be any threat to the structure.
In addition, we put 1” x 5/8” white oak battens
on the sides and in the decks to hold the planks in line
on seams between frames.”
Stan-Craft wooden boats have always had double-planked
bottoms, laid diagonally. The first layer is 1/4”-thick
mahogany plywood, and the outer layer is 9/16” or
5/8”, depending on the boat’s size, with a sheet
of vinyl-based material between, bedded in 3M 5200, and
fastened with stainless-steel screws.
In the old days,” Young says, we used canvas saturated
with a double-planking compound as a barrier between the
layers of wood. Today,it’s an impregnated space-age
kind of fabric that we get from BornemannFabrics, Inc. in
Bremen, Indiana, that won’t rot or tear so the bottomsaremuch
less apt to leak.”
 Another
break from tradition has been the recent use ofmahogany
plywood on the aft 16’ of the bottom to simplify and
speed constructionof that relatively flat area of the boat.
A butt-block system is used o switchto individual planks
on the forward sections, where the extreme compound curvaturerequires
a varying plank width of only 4” to 6”.
Over the years we have developed our bottoms using avariety
of subtle line changes,” explains Young, to the point
where it nowdoes everything you could ever expect a boat
to do. It has all the characteristicsthat are most appreciated
by boaters—a soft entry, fabulousturning ability—and
has no bad habits of any kind. It gets up and lays flatwithout
rearing up in the bow when you take off. It has more of
a tendency tolevitate horizontally and ride on the lines.”
That wasn’t always the case in earlier versions of
the Stan-Craft Torpedo, where the aft part of the bottom
followed the tapered shape above the waterline to a relatively
narrow stern. The subsequent loss of planning surface made
getting up on a plane a little more difficult. A modification
developed by Stanley Young in the mid-1950s solved the problem
by bringing the bottom back full-width to the stern while
tapering the upper part of the hull in toward the centerline
as usual. Then the sides were run up from the chine to 1”
or so above the waterline and plywood was used to deck-over
the space in between. The resulting steps on either side
of the stern significantly extended the planning surface,
but they are barely visible down at the surface of the water
and don’t detract from the traditional Torpedo lines
above.
The decking topside is also 1/4”-thick mahogany,
mostly 6”-wide planks. We also have full-sized sheer
clamps on our boat,” Young says. A lot of builders
in the old days had what they called a sheer chine and a
fairly anemic frame system underneath the covering boards.
But on this boat there is a full 7/8”-thick mahogany
sheer clamp below the covering boards. That adds a lot of
support and rigidity to the boat and a tremendous base to
attach your lumber to.”
Although the built for stout” structure of Young’s
boats isimpressive, it’s often the finish that gets
the most “oohs” and “aahs”,both
from its high-gloss appearance and the super-smooth feel.
One of his finishoptions is to start with a stain to establish
the color he wants in the mahogany,plus a buildup of thin
coats of black paint as an accent trim around the coveringboards
and center planks of the deck. Then he applies five layers
of epoxy. Afterthe final sanding of the epoxy surface, he
sprays on six coats of clear urethaneenamel.
That ultimately gets sanded and buffed to an unbelievable
finish,” Young says. We block-sand with 1,200-grit
wet-and-dry paper and thenbuff until it feels like glass.
It’s quick, too, because you can literallyput all
the epoxy on in two long days, and in a total of only four
to five daysyouhave this incredible finish. We’ve
had finishes like that out in the hotsunfor three years,
and they still look great.”
However, Young has used the epoxy finish only on deck surfaces,
and has mixed feelings about whether he will continue to
use it inthe future. It’s a good format,” he
says, but it isn’t the onlyoption. Ialso still like
the more traditional, 15 coats of Epifanes—a world-classvarnish
from Holland. On the bottoms we use bottom paints, although
I have usedsome colored epoxy when we were after a particular
color that wasn’t availablein bottom paint.”
After the wooden portions of seating sections are built,
they are picked up by local upholsterers and finished with
a classic pattern of 3”- 3”-wide rolls and pleats
characteristic of boat upholstery in the 1920s and '30s.
The stainless-steel instrument panels also come, literally,
from the past.
I was fortunate to find a whole cache of genuine 5-voltStewart
Warner instrument panels from the 1940s,” Young explains.
We boughtabout 30 of them and only have three of them left.
We hand-built panels before,and I’ll probably come
up with something like that again.”
The big-block Chevrolet engine in the Torpedo is directdrive
and turns a 14” x 14” Michigan nibral super
cup propeller. Atsea level, it reaches top speeds in excess
of 50 mph at a maximum of 4,8000 rpms,butslows to about
48 mph at higher elevations such as Lake Coeur d’Alene.
When we got into these higher speeds and the deep-V hulls,”
Young adds, we discovered that the boats needed a little
more rudder. A rudder that has its trailing edge too close
to the bottom of the hull can suck air going into turns
and lose some steering, especially at high speeds. So we
worked with Marine Associates in Wisconsin and came up with
a high-speed rudder that eliminates that problem. The trailing
edge of the rudder sweeps down fromthe bottom of the boat
about 6” before extending to its full width, whichputs
the surface area of the rudder down in solid water and away
from potentialairsuction near the surface. It’s made
a big difference in how these boatshandle at high speed
and provided the additional benefit of enabling them toback
ineither direction in reverse.”
It’s a little adjustments like that over many years
that have made Stan-Craft boats the top performers and beautiful
pieces of workmanship they are today. If you want speed,
performance, and no bad habits,it takes some developing,”
Young confirms. There’s been a little errorwith some
of the trials over the years, but all the boats were basically
successful.No tank-testing—just a matter of thinking
about what might happen if youdid something, then making
decisions based on an awful lot of background experience,common
sense, and knowing something about how boats work.”
 That
doesn’t mean, however, that Syd Young has reached
a level of perfection upon which he cannot improve further.
In fact, he recently made another major transition in his
life that offers him a chance to return to his boatbuilding
roots and maybe even design and build more exciting boats
than ever.
Last year he sold what he calls the hard part of thebusiness—phone
calls, customer demand, employee problems, facilities management,etc.
—all the distractions from his central interest in
building boats.I sold the place in Post Falls—everything
but the Stan-Craft name and theright to build boats,”
he says. The buyer renamed is The Resort Boat Shopand doesn’t
want me competing in any restoration, refinishing, or repairwork,which
is fine by me.”
So, this winter he built an all-new shop behind his home,
something he was anxious to show me with justified pride
before we headed for the lake. His nearly 3,000 sq ft of
what most boatbuilders can only dream abouthas a 52’
x 44’ work bay accessed through a 14’ x 14’
maindoorway and is capable of holding three 30-footers side-by-side
at the same time,plus toolsand wood storage.
If I’m going to drop dead someplace,” he quips,
it might as well be in a nice boatshop. I was building boats
on the run before, and it was very disruptive. Now, for
the first time in my life I’ll be able to concentrate
on building these boats in a sane environment where I can
thinkabout what I’m doing and no running to the phone
every five minutes or takingcare of business.”
The back part of the main floor includes a garage, restroom,
and a utility space with a washer and dryer. Directly above,
a second-story loft with a large window overlooking the
shop interior has a photographicdarkroom and a 16’
x 30’ workspace. The latter is dedicated to boatdesign,drafting,
and Syd’s second love—building models of his
full-sized boatsand of airplanes. He is currently working
on a one-quarter scale model of theTorpedo.
The models are extremely detailed and built exactly likethe
real boats—double mahogany planked, and every little
piece in the realboatis in the model,” Young says.
The only difference is that it’s puttogether with
epoxy rather than fastening. Building a model really helps
withconstruction of the real boat—if something doesn’t
work on the one,I can checkit on the other.”
Most important, Young is looking forward to using this
facility to design and build some very different boats.
One of the new designs he drew up last winter was his version
of a Long Island commuter, and he has some clients who are
already interested. It’s 36’ x 10’, powered
by a pair of big engines, and intended not as a typical
cruiser but as a high-speed boat forday excursions or getting
to work.
 An
even more interesting project for a much larger potentialmarket
is Young’s effort to develop an affordable classic
wooden runabout.Alot of the boats we’ve built are
$100,000 and up,” he says, and noteveryone has that
kind of money to spend. So I’m trying to come up witha
little boatthat I can build relatively quickly—a cute
little speedster, simple butpretty,and for just two passengers.
I’m going to build one on spec as an 18-footerandin
a 21’ model. If we can get a boat like that knocked
out for about $50,000,that would be fun.”
Young admits that this new phase in his life is a form
of semi-retirement and that he expects to spend some of
his time playing a bit. He could no doubt drive one of his
boats downriver and across the lake to the golf course every
day, if he were so inclined, but he says he’s going
to keep building wooden boats—several each year.
I haven’t lost interest at all in boatbuilding,”
he says.In fact, I’m intensely interested. I built
my first boat when I was 12 yearsold, and I’ve been
at it for about 44 years. Now, I’m looking forwardto
thenext 10 years and doing what I think will be some of
my best work.”
Charles Summers is a full-time free-lance writer and
photographer for marine industry publications, with work
appearing regularly in National Fisher-man, Workboat, and
Professional BoatBuilder. His home is the small Willapa
Harbor community of South Bend, near the coast of WashingtonState. |
