1960's Speedliner

[A/B Speedliner]

In 1965 my brother and I bought the plans and patterns from General Marine, the maker of Speedliner boats. We sold them as Aeroliners. Well we have finally started building them again. The first boat we are making is the 510 A/B runabout. attached are a couple of pictures of the framing going together.

[sax]

Speedliners

Hey guy.....can't wait to see the finished product. My first two race
boats were "Speed-Liners" and have some not-so-fond memories of them
but am anxious to see what yours look like nonetheless. I went swimming the
first time in both of them....a "J" and an "A" boat. Keep up the good work
and am anxiously awaiting more pics.

Thanx,
Ron

[Richard K.C. Mo.]

Dean Chenowith?

I don't know how many young racers would pay much attention to this , but i've seen that A/B speedliner wup a lota' a!! , roll up almost like a Rinker. Believe this they actually used to roll up. ???
RichardF

[crankbearing]

Nice!

The boat looks great so far. I love the lines. but what I think is really cool are those 4x4's cemented in to the floor?

Regards,

[A/B Speedliner]

Speedliners

I hope to have the first boat completed in November. We will finish the boat in the same red color with the white pin striping as the factroy did in St. Joe Missouri. I found the receipt for the one of the last boats built at General Marine. It is dated Aug 1965. Full price including throtle was $ 305.

The hard part of building the boats now is obtaining good Mahonahy and 12' lengths of plywood.

[PopPop]

Speedliner

Wow ! That is 41 years ago. Are the canoes on the left your work also?

[A/B Speedliner]

Canoe

I wish it were my work, the canoe is an American Trader made in Vermont. It is 14 feet long made of red and white cedar and only weights 49 pounds. Epoxy hold the whole thing together. I bought it at the Mt Dora antique boat show last spring.

I should be able to get the rest of the stringers installed this week end so there will more pictures later next week. I will try to post an old picture I found of one of the early boats we built taken at the 1969 SO Nationals in Hinton WV, youall remember that one when the huricane blew through and raised the lake level 70 feet.

[A/B Speedliner]

Old Boat

Here is the old boat on top of my wife's 396 SS Chevelle in 1969 and the invoice for the last Speedliner.

[oldracer]

Speedliner

Hi David,

So far, the boat looks good. Will look forward to the pictures of the
finished product. The old Speedliner on top of the car brings back
memories of the EORC. Do you keep in touch with any of the old
crowd?

Ye Olde Desert Geezer Al Lang

[sax]

Wood

I hope to have the first boat completed in November. We will finish the boat in the same red color with the white pin striping as the factroy did in St. Joe Missouri. I found the receipt for the one of the last boats built at General Marine. It is dated Aug 1965. Full price including throtle was $ 305.

The hard part of building the boats now is obtaining good Mahonahy and 12' lengths of plywood.

Have you tried Harbor Sales or M.L.Condon Co.? They used to sell marine
ply (okume) in 5 x 12 sheets if I remember correctly.

[A/B Speedliner]

Wood

I have only been able to get 12' lengths of Ply in 6mm from Condon, I have to scarf the 4mm Ply. I found a good source of 12' lenghts of 1" rough Mahoganhy that I mill down to a full 3/4" which is the exact size used in the orginal boats. The finished boat will be nearly the same as the original except we will nail the bottom. I someone would like one screwed,(pardon the expression) we can do that.

[A/B Speedliner]

Eorc

Al

I have taked with Anker Peterson 69N, Bob Rusnak, Dave Young and few others. I hope to have the boat ready for the winter races in Florida where I run into Chis and Curt Helsten.

I hope to get back out to Scotsdale for the next Barrett Jackson Auction. I was to busy with my car at this years event that I did not have time to contact you. If you remember I used to tow the boats behind the Z06 Corvette that I sold at this years event.

I remember returning once from Alexantria Bay, Thousand Island Marathon, with a friend driving the Corvette with the boat behind. It was a very rough race but I findished fifth in AU after nearly 5 hours on and in the water. I was sleeping in the passenger seat with my friend driving. Some where along the NY Thruway I woke up and looked over at the speedometer and saw 125 MPH. I thought to my self if this is the way I am going to die what a way to go.

Dave Van Weele

[bh/]

New Shop?

David; -looks like the same jig u were using 40 yrs ago, just a brighter shop. Will this make the new boats faster.

[Roy Conklin]

My first race boat was a DU Speedliner with Mark 40H. I raced with the EORC on Long Island.Once we had a 50 mile marathon at Aquabog. My friend Howie Minami also ran DU. We had no idea of how much fuel we needed for 50 miles. So we went to a auto junk yard and bought 20 gallon auto fuel tanks. We had open forward cockpits, we mounted the tanks in there. As it turned out we could have run a 200 mile marathon with the fuel we had. The big tank was a good thing. It was extremely rough and the extra weight really helped. I took first and Howie took second. By the way, the throphies were presented by Pete Helsten.

Roy Conklin

Hi David,

So far, the boat looks good. Will look forward to the pictures of the
finished product. The old Speedliner on top of the car brings back
memories of the EORC. Do you keep in touch with any of the old
crowd?

Ye Olde Desert Geezer Al Lang

[Kristi Ellison]

Any of you old geezers gonna make it to Raleigh for the "Pete Hellsten Memorial" race??

Kristi
(the oldest Hellsten)