Oldest Boats Still Running?
 

I know there are a lot of old boats on the board that are still out busting waves. How many are original? I would like to know how old the hulls are that have had no structural reinforcement or repair after damage.

My '82 is under the knife right now fixing some structural issues. It was poorly repaired after the boat "dissappeared" in the late 80's so I can't judge its original build. Thanks!

This is the oldest that HORBA knows of right now.

1963 era ......raced in Miami to Key West with Don Aronow driving.

That is an original 409 cu in engine.

This boat will be at the June race in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla.

I made some of the retro decals on that thing for Innovation and Boat Haus.

That boat has been restored... was there any structural restoration? Neat boat!

I think it has less to do with age and more with how the boat was rigged and maintained.....

I ran my original, unrestored 1982 Excalibur Hawk in some pretty rough seas from 2005-2007. Few stress cracks around the windshield, but it was a tank. Never had any issues with rigging or interior pieces coming loose. Well built. Now I have a original unrestored 1983 Formula 402 thats going to get some run time this summer. The Excalibur had 650 hours on the hull when I sold it.

reminded me how much i enjoyed my old 233

my early 70's Magnum has been out mixing it up on the race coarse for the past three years. It's amazing that a hull around 30 years old can still take the abuse from racing! The deck however is a 2003 model that I bought from Magnum during the restoration. It was always fun when people would be amazed to see a Magnum at the races. Some people would say, "I haven't seen one of those in years! That's cool." And you could tell it was something special to them to see which made all the work restoring it worth it.

1981 24 Pantera

If you notice, there's alot of old boats from the period up to the late 70's and the early part of the 80's. Then they dry up. Lots of "disposable" lightweight hulls were built after that and into the 90's.