Well, I’ll start walking that back already. It crystallized everything, that’s for sure.
I was doing research on my grandfather’s boats – he had four that I’m aware of, plus some small tenders, and was trying to find information about older wood Chris-Craft boats.
I had also, in the past, posted some mahogany runabout (mostly Chris-Craft) photos to Tumblr back in 2016/2017.
And at one point I had added a “do-it-yourself” scale model to my Wish List on Amazon.
I was poking around Google Images, and had come across Glen-L. It was an interesting idea of building my own boat. I dug a bit deeper, and stumbled upon the Facebook Group “Glen-L Boat Builders“. That’s where I saw a post from Ted Souhrada, who added 192 photos to the album “Photos of ACBS Show, Geneva Lake, Fontana Wisconsin from The Abbey Resort“
That’s where I saw (mostly) vintage Streblows, Shepherds, Chris-Crafts, Correct Crafts, Centuries, Gar-Woods, Lymans, Hackers and more:
It was at this point that I saw the prices of some of these beauties, and they were approaching six figures. Plus, they needed lots of care and maintenance, pre-soaking before the season to swell the planks, something that the desert climate and my lack of lakeside property were going to prohibit. Having already been aware of Glen-L, I believe this post was the initial spark in this journey.