Images courtesy Art Paine/Glen-L
Nothing says “Lake Cruiser” like a long slender inboard-powered mahogany speedboat.
I love Great Pond in Belgrade, Maine. It’s the real “On Golden Pond” celebrated by Hollywood, though New Hampshire, frankly, sweetened the deal for film makers, so the movie was shot on Squam Lake instead. The whole Fonda-Hepburn element about fading parents and feisty daughters is independent of locale. But the loons, starry nights, and the geezer driving mail around to cottages—that was really real—and all ours here in Maine.
Great Pond isn’t always golden, except near sunset. Other times, it’s just pristine clear swimmable fresh water and lots of loons singing loony tunes. My draw to the pond was crewing and racing on sailboats with an old friend. This under the auspices of Great Pond Yacht Club, whose members mostly live in what Mainers call “camps,” though I think of them as enviable waterfront homes. Most have docks, or perhaps lifts; one or two even have float-in boathouses. And of course, boats.
The Glen-L Zip model is the company’s most popular little runabout.
The best thing the movie “On Golden Pond” had that lured me like a trout to a dry fly was mahogany inboard runabouts. I can’t afford a Jaguar E-type car, and maybe my fast-driving days are behind me. But I can still build a boat. In fact, at age 80, I go to work and do that nearly every day, so I have this dream about a camp and a runabout, and rumbling counterclockwise around Golden Pond. (My steering wheel, like the Jaguar’s, would be on the starboard side so the continuous left turn puts me adjacent to friends ashore, with whom I could gam.) The dream even has me in a strapped-down bucket hat delivering mock mail.
The design factor, appropriate to this column, is easy, there being just a single option that’s remotely possible. I can’t afford a vintage Chris-Craft or Hacker or Italian-built Riva. Nor can I commission Mark Peters or Bob Stephens or any of several other great designers for a custom design. That would be too time and cost prohibitive. And I wouldn’t undertake a design myself since I lack familiarity with the mathematics involved in “developable” twisted surfaces. (More on that later.)
In completing a Glen-L from plans, it's much about the details.
As to the aesthetics, that is a non-issue. Only a fool would fail to mimic the winners of various marine concours d’elegance. So, there remains just the single option that was always part of the dream anyway—and half the fun: building that runabout myself using Glen-L plans and patterns.
Even in my early childhood, when I loved boats above all else, I knew about Glen-L kit boats. This company’s alluring designs were featured on the cover of Popular Mechanics all the time, and in that era, dads were building them at their modest homes, in garages alongside their kids. For the record, I was a kid and lived in such a place, and we had a one-car garage. In my early teens, with only grudging parental buy-in, I built my first boat (a Blue Jay sailboat) in our garage.
But back to those Glen-L beauties. It turns out that the company, after all these many years, is still in business. And in this era when labor costs are unthinkable, you can easily afford their plans, patterns, and helpful parts. And if you have above average amateur skills (and a shop), there is no reason you can’t go out there and construct a vessel that will have you waterskiing or racing about in a showstopper of your own.
Glen L. Witt was the genesis of all this, selling boat plans from California starting in 1956. He was a visionary in that baby-boom marketplace, and was able to design good rowboats, sailboats, runabouts, and cabin cruisers. The man was adept at understanding the concept of “developing” curves out of flat surfaces, even in sexy speedboats that twist a flared bow back into extreme stern tumblehome. At its most extreme, they call this a “barrelback.”
Plywood had been a spinoff of World War II gunboat and floatplane construction for the military, and its marine grade had become available in quality comparable to today’s. Most Glen-L kits of that era were designed for this material. But in some cases where a flat skin couldn’t be twisted or bent without bumps, (developable describes this attribute) to shape the sorts of speedboats I’m lusting after, Witt specified single or double planking.
In those days, the typical amateur builders were—dare I say—more capable of fixing their own cars, or plumbing, or whacking things together out of wood. Extra good news today is twofold: Glen-L and its kits are still available and attainable. Secondly, epoxy and cold-molding techniques are now employed to keep Glen-L kits simple enough for an average builder to tackle, while at the same time, the end product is more durable and affordable.
Thus, my dream not only endures but improves.
The hard-chine runabout that would be my preference no longer must be based on a “developable” wood hull panel. Nor would the wood used for constructing it require any “torturing”—an old boatbuilder’s term for bending wood in unnatural ways, though there’s no pain involved. In other words, there would be no need for tapered, lapped, or caulked planking.
Modern Glen-L kits have eliminated steam-bending, so every patterned part can be hand-bent into shape. The company keeps in touch with most builders and provides manuals and advice so it’s quick to get the project going—and virtually impossible to get the all-important hull shape wrong. This is in keeping with Witt’s original vision. He designed and tested methods easy enough for a home-builder to master. Modern Glen-L kits’ epoxy and double, triple, or quadruple skins of cold-molded planking are far easier and stronger, and unlike the spiled or splined planking on a Riva or a Chris-Craft, they’re permanently leakproof.
If I were to play out my runabout dream, inasmuch as a long, sleek inboard with two or three cockpits would be the ideal, I only have so much time and money. Therefore, I would opt for Glen-L’s fairly modest Key Largo model, with a few personal modifications.
The line sketch of the Key Largo shows seating for a big gang of loon-lookers.
The 22-foot Key Largo, like many of Glen-L’s plans, is designed to allow a builder to build a lengthened version. This is partly intended to deal with variations in shop or garage size. I would build the longest version they allow for, based just on looks.
This particular model has only a single cockpit, and although I’d love to show off long-drawn-out teak or mahogany deck planks with faux-holly splines, as Glen-L’s website points out, most lake activities, such as fishing, tubing, and partying, recommend a single cockpit of maximum size.
Glen-L has never recommended diesel inboards, and their engineering, especially of bed logs, is geared to the lighter weight and greater thrust of fairly simple gas inboard engines. The Key Largo has a nice shallow shaft angle that I like, but a yacht designer is always tempted to throw a little ego into matters. I’d opt for a modern four-stroke outboard, located farther aft towards the back of the cockpit, flanked by two seats—my own take on an inboard outboard. Plus, placing an outboard there guarantees it is remote from swimmers’ or skiers’ legs and feet.
On a mahogany lake runabout like Keelin’ Time, it’s all about the deck.
I spoke with Joshua Colvin, owner of Glen-L boats, in Idaho, of all places. When I told him of these outboard musings and asked his permission to make changes, he said, “It’s a terrific idea. I’ve had it myself.”
Mark Fitzgerald is my powerboat guru, and he likes engine weight aft. And as an aside, the term “reliable outboard” was for a long time an oxymoron, but we are finally there. These modern four-stroke engines are safe, reliable, and always start.
I’d fix the motor straight ahead and steer with a pair of good-sized rudders outside the prop wash. The motor would hide beneath a table-box with planking that matched the fore and aft show-off decks. In the end, my Key Largo would have a glass-like varnish job—that goes without saying.
The Key Largo is a moderate barrelback design and, to my eye, extremely snazzy looking. Who would know this is an amateur kit boat? It looks like a prize-accumulating classic that is appropriate to come out and play with the six or seven such runabouts on Great Pond.
In my dream, I would still have the outsized chrome-plated exhaust pipes and occasionally blast the bass notes of a hot V-eight from Bose speakers, just inside their nozzles. Most of the time I would demur, though, and show off the moderation of my four-stroke that runs silent as a landlocked salmon, so as not to perturb man, bird, nor beast.
The sweeping sheer and tumblehome transom make Glen-L’s Key Largo model an absolute dream.
I’ve done a brief spreadsheet of costs, assuming zero for my labor. Without the engine I could build this boat for $30,000. Most of the exquisite tropical hardwood required is just eighth-inch veneer, applied by a method I’ve used involving foam rubber blankets and clamps, that I call “poor man’s vacuum bagging.”
If I’m right, then the only part of the dream that is unworkable is the pond-side camp. But I’ve chosen a boat of sufficiently small weight that I can tow it behind the Subaru. And did I tell you? Great Pond in Belgrade, two hours from my home, has a big parking lot and public launching ramp. Dream-Ho!
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Contributing editor Art Paine is a boat designer, artist, and writer who lives in Bernard, Maine, and is still dreaming.
For More Information
Find a variety of Glen-L boat plans at www.glen-l.com or call 562-630-6258.
