My 1967 Belmont Flatbottom story

[JusTrouble]

Pg 2
Dad loved his boat, but he had a wandering eye for a newer style. He and Mom had been going to the boat drags all over California and he wanted to race. He brought home lots of photos of cool flatbottoms and hydros. He decided he wanted a fiberglass flatbottom hot boat. I had only seen a couple flatbottoms at Millerton Lake. Out on the water, they looked like Dad’s boat would if it was sinking but they were loud and fast. I remember the first one I got to see up close on the launch. It was bad ass!

Dad and I began spending even more time out at the boat shop. I knew something was gong on because he kept having quiet conversations with Smitty. Then he would have quiet conversations at home with Mom. I remember how excited he was when he finally explained to me that he was going to get one of Smitty’s new 19-foot fiberglass flatbottom hulls. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t remember that we had ever owned anything that was new.

In late 1966, Smitty took Dad’s hull out of the new mold. It was pitch black with silver metal flake and looked wicked and fast just sitting upside down on the wood frame out back. Dad remembers that Smitty kept the 1st hull, he got the 3rd and Bud Johnson got the 4th. He can’t remember who got the second or any others.

Dad wanted to build the new boat himself and is still very proud that he did so today. He has always been a hands on, do it yourselfer and very conscious of his responsibilities. I suspect it was a challenge that excited him but was also a way to justify to himself the expenses for a new toy while having four kids at home to raise.

While the hull was upside down out back at the shop, Dad began working on it with Smitty’s supervision and tools. Dad drilled all of the holes and mounted the underwater hardware: a 10-degree strut, two skags and the cavitation plate. Meanwhile, another friend, Ed Wills, built Dad his Mr. Ed trailer. They flipped the boat over onto the trailer and Dad brought it home to his 1-1/2 car garage. I helped him scoot the trailer around trying to figure out how to fit it into the garage. It just barely fit in there sideways which took some effort with the tandem axles.

I know Dad was a frustrated racer and wanted to build a boat like Smitty’s with numbers on the side, zoomies or big headers hanging out over the transom coming off of a blown hemi, but this was a compromise. The only “hot rod” he could afford, justify and use with the whole family, was going to be a dutiful, dependable ski boat. That was his focus as he chose the parts to use and chose his interior design.

I believe that Dad got or ordered most of the other parts he needed from Smitty. As they began to arrive Dad and our neighbor Wayne, began assembling the boat. They would get home from work and go out to the garage every night and all weekend. Wayne was very industrious and talented. He was known in the neighborhood for all of the amazing things he built in his garage. This is a guy who wanted a cab-over camper for his pickup so he made one from scratch in his garage and it was better than anything you could buy. He had every tool imaginable and he had cans and cans full of assorted nuts, bolts, washers and pieces of metal he brought home from where ever he found them. A look inside the boat will show evidence of this. Keep in mind – neither of these guys had ever built a boat before.

Again, based on photos, they began by drilling a lot more holes in the nearly-virgin hull. They mounted the steering, deck tachometer and the ignition switch. Dad likes the clean simple look so there are no other holes in the dash. Then they plumbed the dual fiberglass fuel tanks. As a family ski boat with a stock motor, he decided he didn’t need an adjustable cavitation plate so he saved some money with a fixed set up and drilled all of the holes to mount the turnbuckles to the transom. On the trailer, they installed all of the lighting and electrical and Dad built padded vinyl trailer steps and fender pads that looked pretty rich. He loved the clean look of the trailer and didn’t want to put the license plate on it so he mounted it on a fold up hide-away frame that we often forgot to pull down.