- Boats, they've been around for thousands of years.

Essential for transportation, for commerce, for exploration today, primarily recreation.

Join us on a journey into what it takes to keep and maintain classic wooden boats.

We'll explore the craftsmanship, the history, and the stories from those who keep these vintage vessels on the water.

- Vintage vessels is made possible in part by -Kozmiuk wooden boats.

Custom wooden boat builder of ore sail and power boats traditionally built with old world craftsmanship.

Born from knowledge passed down through generations.

Custom built and restoration service at kozmiukwoodenboats.com The Grundy Insurance Classic Boat program was born from their family sailing tradition, offering vessels full agreed value coverage, protection from uninsured boaters, marine environmental damage, and search and rescue.

online@grundy.com Pettit Paint Captain's Varnish, available in pints, courts, gallons and aerosol.

This marine grade spray on varnish is made to protect wood from ultraviolet light drying to an amber color.

More information is available online at pettitpaint.com ACBS celebrating 50 years of vintage boating in 2025.

Chapter locations across North America can be found at acbs.org Closed captioning support is provided by Peter Henkel incorporated.

online at chris-craft-parts.com In today's episode, we tour the collection at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York, and tour a 1913 houseboat.

Then we'll visit the collection of boats in the Bolt yacht house before visiting a boat builder in Gravenhurst, Ontario.

All right here on vintage vessels of the water, - My name is Rebecca Hofinger.

I'm the director of the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York.

The museum started over 50 years ago.

We've grown over the last five and a half decades into one of the most noted freshwater recreational boating museums in the world.

- My name is Karen Clements.

I'm one of the volunteers here at the Antique Boat Museum.

We're on board the La Duchesse It was the houseboat built by George Bolt for his family.

In 1903, - George Bolt immigrated to the United States.

In 1864, he began as a kitchen worker who at 25 was hired to manage the dining room of Philadelphia's most exclusive gentleman's club.

The Philadelphia Club, by the time he was 30 Bolt, had purchased his first hotel, the Bellevue in Philadelphia.

George Bolt would become the most successful hotel magnet in America and would go on to manage the renowned Waldorf Astoria in New York City in 1900, George Bolt purchased an island in the Thousand Islands where he intended to build a full-size Reinland castle in Alexandria Bay.

The grandiose structure was to be a display of his love for his wife Louise.

No expense was spared.

George Bolt employed hundreds of workers year-round to develop Heart Island, and as a result, transporting workers their tools and supplies back and forth from the mainland required the use of boats.

Transportation became a huge undertaking, and George Bolt acquired a large fleet of vessels.

Bolt added to his collection, a number of steam yachts for his family to use, and then he commissioned the construction of a houseboat.

- After he passed away, it moved through the EJ Noble family and then to the McNally's who have generously donated to the Boat Museum in 2003.

And now it resides here for tours.

It's been restored both by the McNally's and by the Boat Museum.

- Old had the architectural firm of Tames.

Lynn Moin and Crane designed the massive houseboat with a beam of 22 feet.

She displaced 247 tons.

The houseboat was built in New York City and was originally intended to be delivered to the Thousand Island via the New York Barge Canal system.

However, she was too tall to pass under the bridges over the canal.

So she was built in sections and shipped by rail to the St. Lawrence River with 10 bedrooms, five bathrooms, a galley with stainless steel counters, two working fireplaces, one of brass and the other with a marble mantle.

No expense was spared.

Large, had all of the comforts of a fine hotel.

- It was built in 1903 by George Bolt.

And then in 1922 it was purchased by EJ Noble of the Lifecycle's Candy.

And then in 1943, Andrew McNally of Ram McNally Ellis, a maps company, saved it in his sunken boat castle.

We had it, we floated.

He purchased it and his family summered on it for over the next 50 years.

And then he donated it to the Anti Boat Museum.

The main water damage was on the stern area where the cruise quarters is.

So they totally had to replace pretty much everything.

Here is a mixture of some original and some renovation work due to water damage.

As you head back to the state rooms, most of that is all the original work.

And when you head upstairs, it's pretty much all original.

'cause there was no water damage In 1943.

It had been sitting in the boatyard house for quite a few years because of the Great Depression and World War II pipes burst and it sunk below the surface, and it was submerged for about 12 weeks until Andrew McNally saved it.

He bought it for $1 from EJ Noble.

The contracts Allstate $100, but it was actually $1.

And then he renovated it.

The water damage changed the footprint around a little bit because his plan was to use it for his family's summer home.

And they did that again for over 50 years.

Yeah, so it's, it's an amazing, beautiful boat.

- George Bowl built a yacht house for his collection of boats and added a slip specifically for his house boat designed by the Philadelphia architect firm of Gene w and WD Hewitt.

The yacht house was built in 1903.

The massive shingle style building consists of a circular tower with reception rooms, a caretaker's residence, three yacht bays, and a larger bay.

For bolt's house boat.

Today, a number of vintage vessels are on display, including the steam Yacht Kestel - I am Paul Brackley and this is our company, Brackley Boats.

And this particular boat here is a 1935 Chris Craft, and we've been working on it for a year and, which isn't uncommon, but it's nearing completion and it's going in the water soon for a water test.

And hopefully everything's runs like it's supposed to.

We had it out for a test last year, but needed a transmission adjustment, and that's been done.

So we just, we just recently had the crash pad installed, which is the last bit of upholstery.

So we're done and ready to go to the water.

As soon as I put the rest of the cushions back in the boat.

This is Henry Ford's, Angeline, I think it's 1924.

It's a, a race boat he had, has a V 12 Liberty engine for it, which is way over there in a rack.

It's, it's about to get restored.

A mechanic coming up in California to reassemble it and test it and put it back in the boat.

But before that can happen, we have to get the bottom on her because the bottom had just finally given up the ghost.

But apparently he was named after his secretary, Angeline.

And that's about all the history i, I know on the boat.

But we're, we're working hard to get her ready for the season.

This year we, we have quite a bit of work left to do, but it's coming together.

We have have good staff now and lots of people.

So it's all coming together now.

- Yeah, it's coming along fairly well.

It's, it's nice to have, it's, the frames had deteriorated quite a bit in the, in the years, over the years.

And so it's, now it's, we got healthy new wood in there and should last a number more decades more.

We rough it in by eye.

'cause if you cite down it, you can see like when things are outta shape, one will be sticking up a little higher, one might be a little low.

And then when we get close, we take, we take bats out and then clamp 'em to the frames and then you, it'll show you in finer detail what's high and what's low.

And they have, if you cite down the keel, you can see that this one is high.

This one's really high and this one's close, but it's still, it's a little rough and it needs to be brought into shape.

- It's, - Well, the, the bottom that was on there was, was mostly original.

It had been patched quite a bit and it just was leaking too much.

It, it, you know, we put it in each year and we've running it for a few years now, but it, it just would not swell.

And there was just too many, It was just too many leaks to keep track of.

So we, we decided we had to bite the bullet and, and put a complete new bottom on it.

And that's what we're in the middle of.

So the first thing you do is you have to take the whole thing apart.

It was a very complex boat, very so many floors and cockpits and the engine and, and a lot of details.

So we had to remove all that, roll it upside down, stage it level, and true and plumb everything.

The stem had a slight twist in it, so we corrected that and, and now we're reframing the boat.

And then the next thing will be the inner skin that we'll be applying a diagonal inner skin, a mahogany, and then, and then a, well, actually, I've gone, I've skipped a few things.

We, we've gotta put the keel and the, the stem and the chimes on putting it all back together, which is a huge job, especially with the engine.

There's a lot of for mechanical details on this boat, - We are standing in front of my ship, Peerless two, also Historic Peerless two built in 1946 as a supply boat.

It's the last supply boat to operate on the Muskoka Lakes.

- Vintage vessels is made possible in part by -Kozmiuk wooden boats.

Custom wooden boat builder of ore sail and power boats traditionally built with old world craftsmanship.

Born from knowledge passed down through generations.

Custom built and restoration service at kozmiukwoodenboats.com The Grundy Insurance Classic Boat program was born from their family sailing tradition, offering vessels full agreed value coverage, protection from uninsured boaters, marine environmental damage, and search and rescue.

online@grundy.com Pettit Paint Captain's Varnish, available in pints, courts, gallons and aerosol.

This marine grade spray on varnish is made to protect wood from ultraviolet light drying to an amber color.

More information is available online at pettitpaint.com ACBS celebrating 50 years of vintage boating in 2025.

Chapter locations across North America can be found at acbs.org Closed captioning support is provided by Peter Henkel incorporated.

online at chris-craft-parts.com