 When
it’s a hot sunny summer day with white caps on the
lake, Syd Young wants to see owners of his boats out having
fun. If they are not out, he wonders if there is something
wrong.
From The Boat Shop in Post Falls, Idaho, where Syd operates
his full service boat shop, he sees new boat purchases sitting
idle on beautiful summer days, when they should (be) in
use because they ride through white caps like a roller coaster.
 Syd
Young wants the boats he designs and builds to be different.
Not different just because they are made of wood instead
of fiberglass but because they are boats their owners can
use and will want to use.
When Syd builds a boat, he incorporates two characteristics
people will like, distinctive looks and a great ride. His
design philosophy is reflected in Hornet, his new 25’
x 7’4" Gentleman’s Speedster. Although
it has been a continued design evolution in reaching the
present peak of perfection, the second generation boat builder
says, "I learned everything from my dad."
 Syd’s
dad, Stan Young, borrowed on his own name as did Chris Smith
and coined Stan-Craft in 1933 after he graduated from college
and decided to get into boat building in Polson, Montana.
By the age of ten, Syd was working in the shop with his
dad helping turn out utilities, runabouts, and cabin cruisers.
At eleven, he built his first boat, a plywood rowboat with
three seats. This second project as a teenager was the construction
of an 18 _’ runabout.
Discharged from the Air Force in 1969, Syd ran Stan Craft
for a year when conversation arose in the family about selling
the business. Syd stepped up and said, "What about
me? I’d like to buy the place."
In step with the marine industry, Syd made the transition
to fiberglass with a 26’ flybridge cruiser called
Nor’Wester, a hull he designed in 1969.
 Over
the next ten years, Syd and his crew built 141 Nor’Westers
before the recession of 1980 ground business to a halt.
Although disheartened at abandoning a business he spent
a decade building up, Syd was glad to get out of the cyclical
industry of full-time boat building.
After moving to Post Falls, Idaho, to assume supervising
duties at Unitec, Syd left that company in 1983 to start
The Boat Shop doing fiberglass and wood repairs. "I
really wondered when I opened the doors if I had made a
mistake," Sys said of his shop. "The response
has been terrific." One of his first restorations trucked
in from Montana was the 18 _’ boat Syd built as a
teenager.
 With
a full service facility capable of turning out boats but
without a runabout of his own, Syd built replicas of three
distinct Stan Craft designs that impressed him as a teenager:
a beavertail known by the same name, a twin cockpit torpedo
called Two Points, and a triple named Arrow.
The new boats not only served as a refresher course but
helped showcase the firm’s capabilities to the community.
As interest and sales began to generate, the business on
South 101 Main Street became known as Stan Craft/The Boat
Shop. Stan Craft was back, one of the few boat companies
to be run by the second generation. Operating under the
roof of a diversified full service shop also means survival
is not solely dependent on building lots of Stan Crafts
each year, a number Syd says would no longer be fun.
 Some
of the best salesmen and demonstrators Stan Craft has are
the six captains who run the Stan Craft water taxis custom
built for the resort on Lake Coeur d’Alene. They spread
the word to inquisitive eligible buyers who are often genuinely
surprised to learn the boats are built locally.
For Syd Young, who never expected to be building new boats,
there is a sense of déjà vu that comes with
following in the footsteps of a new era. Syd perceives people
yearning for the look, feel and sound of something real.
Each time he starts on the drawing board with a new idea,
he attempts to put man and his natural elements back together
again.
 The
newest boat in a series of 25’, 28’ and 30’
runabouts is a 25’ Speedster configured in a Gentleman’s
Runabout layout with a single cockpit forward of the engine
and single cockpit with control aft and a functional windshield.
In spite of the uninitiated coming up to Syd at dockside
to compliment him on a beautiful restoration of a 1930s
classic, the Speedster is not a copy of any previous design.
Whereas the emphasis on a 1920s speedster was on lightweight
construction for speed, the 5,000 pound Stan Craft Speedster
is staunchly constructed for durability.
 The
framework is made up of 1" x 3_" solid frames
on 20" centers and _" x 1_" oak battens,
and engine stringers are 3_ x 7". The double planked
bottom begins with a _" first layer followed by rubberized
canvas and a _" layer. Side and deck planking are 9/16".
Taking exception to the contemporary construction practice
of epoxying planks together or saturating multiple veneers
with epoxy as in cold molding, Stan Crafts are largely as
natural as the traditionally manufactured boats. Gussets
are glued and keel, chine, and frame joints are sealed in
bedding, but Syd, observing the sound, original bottom in
his 1941 Chris-Craft, believes wood will preserve itself
as it always has. "Wood likes to breathe," Sid
is convinced. "Wood is just fine if you don’t
starve it for air or ventilation."
 With
their heavy construction, Stan Crafts won’t need epoxy
for additional strength. It is the boat’s heft and
deep vee bottom that gives the Speedster its user friendly
ride. "It is the softest riding boat I’ve ever
built in my life," says the 50-year-old boat builder
of the two and a half ton Honduran hull. "Planes like
a Speedster should."
Syd reports there is nothing tricky about his designs but
that each one gets better. On the Speedster, the forward
entry slices through rough water like it wasn’t even
there.
 Syd
did not put any concavity or convex into the frames going
from keel to chine. Instead they are straight frames. "People
playing around with softer rides often try a little concavity
in the frames," acknowledges Syd. "We didn’t
feel there was any big difference so we’ve gone back
to frames being essentially straight." As the lines
of the bottom change through the length of the boat, the
curvature of the frames gives the appearance of concavity.
In spite of the boat’s weight and wetted surface
of the deep vee, Hornet manages 50 mph from its 355 horsepower
Crusader 454 high output motor at 4,500 rpm and Ni-bral
14x15 Super Cup prop. The Speedster was a different kind
of boat that needed prop diameter for its weight and more
pitch than diameter for all the resistance of the increased
wetted surface.
At last summer’s Seattle boat show, Hornet was the
only boat giving rides at the end of the show and took out
about 100 people. Bracing themselves for a pounding as they
headed into the chop, the guests were unexpectedly put at
ease by the ride quality. Two weeks later, Syd and Hornet
were invited back to the Northwest Super Yacht show. Some
yacht tender!
Disillusioned boat owners won’t get stung buying
the sisterships to Hornet, the latest addition to the Stan
Craft family.
|
