outboard-man
New member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2013
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Twelve foot Aluminum runabout boat circa late 1940’s.
Embossed plate on centerdeck dash reads Mitchell Industries. Beneath is a picture of this boat coming forward through the water. Beneath is written “Dolphin Outboard Boats, patented. 638 Parker St. Manchester, Conn.” The Historical Society of Manchester never heard of such a company and the address, a large old single family dwelling with attached shed and barn near the rail yards had been torn down long ago.
The windshield and steering wheel are much later additions, the boat was last registered in New Hampshire in 2002. Minus the transom and decks, the entire hull is formed of only two pieces of aluminum including the substantial wrap around gunwales which house flotation.
The hull is totally FLUSH RIVETED, a high cost feature which would have left the boat hopelessly non-competitive in the burgeoning post war aluminum boat market. Around the perimeter of the transom the rivets are one half inch apart! Major cast fittings, lift handles fore and aft, transom knee are in-house design, foredeck dash is galvanized steel. Seats are planed cedar plank, rear is missing, but mounts are there. There is no hull damage save a few minimal dents which are accessible and easily corrected.
This is a very unique boat. Though built by highly skilled craftsmen of aluminum fabrication, they obviously lacked other qualities necessary for financial success and thus remain a mere footnote relative to the massive aluminum boat industry created following World War II. Certainly no more than a very few of these boats were ever made.
$1275.
Embossed plate on centerdeck dash reads Mitchell Industries. Beneath is a picture of this boat coming forward through the water. Beneath is written “Dolphin Outboard Boats, patented. 638 Parker St. Manchester, Conn.” The Historical Society of Manchester never heard of such a company and the address, a large old single family dwelling with attached shed and barn near the rail yards had been torn down long ago.
The windshield and steering wheel are much later additions, the boat was last registered in New Hampshire in 2002. Minus the transom and decks, the entire hull is formed of only two pieces of aluminum including the substantial wrap around gunwales which house flotation.
The hull is totally FLUSH RIVETED, a high cost feature which would have left the boat hopelessly non-competitive in the burgeoning post war aluminum boat market. Around the perimeter of the transom the rivets are one half inch apart! Major cast fittings, lift handles fore and aft, transom knee are in-house design, foredeck dash is galvanized steel. Seats are planed cedar plank, rear is missing, but mounts are there. There is no hull damage save a few minimal dents which are accessible and easily corrected.
This is a very unique boat. Though built by highly skilled craftsmen of aluminum fabrication, they obviously lacked other qualities necessary for financial success and thus remain a mere footnote relative to the massive aluminum boat industry created following World War II. Certainly no more than a very few of these boats were ever made.
$1275.
