Sea Craft article

S

shaneburris74

Member
I was checking out the classic Sea Craft site today (I know...flirting with another hull...lol) and found an interesting article. Its about the history of Sea Craft, specifically the start and growth of the company under Carl Moesly.
When I have read about Sea Craft prior to this you always hear "Potter hulls, Potter hulls, Potter hulls." To me that implies that they were'nt much when Bill Potter didn't build them. This article mentions nothing about Potter. It talkes about a "new owner" who they say ran the company in the ground after 1968 timeframe. My understand that the "good" Potter hulls were from 1969 to 1980. Confusing..need more info.
Nonetheless its a great read. The article talks about him being credited with inventing the bowrider and the stringer "grid" system, and somewhat the center console. Heres the link. In order to read the pages I had to save them and open them as pictures and then zoom in. Still tough to read though.

http://www.classicseacraft.com/brochures/mrmoesly/index.html
 
I believe the MOESLEY hulls were built before the POTTER hulls came about. SEACRAFT didn't start off with the POTTER design, but that is the one that catupulted em to where they are.
 
The confusing thing is that the Moesly hulls look just like the Potter hulls...atleast to my amatuer eye. I've read some stuff that says Potter bought the molds with the company. They talk about the unique alternating sized steps and thats what the Potter hull is based on.
Apparently Johnny Morris of Bass Pro and Tracker boats owns Sea Craft now from what I've read. The purists are not happy about that either.
Big Shrimpin is a member over there too. I saw one of his posts. Maybe he can enlighten us.
 
The MOSELY hulls are different. They were built more so off of the deep vee hull design like that of BERTRAM fame. The POTTER hulls are built on a variable dead rise hull where the V of the hull is constantly changing as you go from the keel up. This was designed so that you could use lower HP on the same size hull to plane out and get good performance, but still have many of the deep vee hull pros without the high HP and bad rocking cons. The last of the POTTER hulls I believe were in 83 or 84, and from what I have read the early TRACKERS seem to be the problematic ones in many of em.
 
The old mosley 21 and variations of that hull were the race boats that dominated the early offshore racing circuit. The 23 seacraft is basically a 21 with some modification to the hull and deck. I believe that the 23 seacraft designs were done by firm hired by Potter in the early 70's . . . similar recessed rail gunnel cap design was used on the 1970's 20 Master Angler beginning in 1975. The 20 seacraft is the same recreational inshore hull using the original mosley 19 bowrider hull.

SC_Racing_Results0001.jpg

43_c.jpg

Horba_21_3.jpg

Horba_21_2.jpg

cap043.jpg

40_G.jpg


Mosley's 25 (last design) incorporated a unique patented ballast system (that potter scrapped) has the sharpest V hull . . . and is being used for research by Steven Loui

http://www.navatekltd.com/index.html

Check out the V on the 25 Seacraft Seafari.
abandoned2.jpg
 
Last edited:
I wish tehy had kept the shear line of the early models, they just look so goooood!

Hey BS, I think I may have found a 25 Safari, couldn't get close enough to it to make the 100% ID, but right now its just aging, waiting for me to finish the McKee, then the V. Have you ever ridden in a 25? Wonder how tippy they are at rest(bottom fishing)
 
Spares - My Good friend chuck strickland "strick" is in the process of restoring one. I've climb all over it, but it's parked in his yard. I only have second hand information about them including an email from Bill Potter. There was an owner that used his during a hurricane to cross b/w St. Thomas and St. John VI . . . told Bill about dropping off the face of 15ft seas and just kept on motoring. Strick has an email from Steven Loui who has made some mods to the hull for his project that runs a 480 hp Yanmar and Weismann drive. With the mods he says that they can't stuff the bow no matter how hard they try . . . and that's in Hawaii in some nasty nasty conditions. I'm not sure about the rocking, but I'm sure it's not too bad with the variable deadrise.
 
its got the wheels turning, just need the time, money, and to keep every one in my family out of the hospital for a while
 
BS- Would you agree with my assessement that the popular/uneducated opinion is that the Potter years were great and everything else sucks?
But, as you read into it that really isn't totally true. Some of the stuff I've read, and some of the stuff you've said says different. Or is that just my undeducated opinion?
Example: "The 20 seacraft is the same recreational inshore hull using the original mosley 19 bowrider hull." So, your saying the super popular 20ft CC is a Moesly hull actually?
 
I pretty much gathered that the POTTER name is mostly just that, a name. And the reason behind the TRACKER problems wasn't the design, but more so was due to upper management trying to cut costs and maximize profits which resulted in poor build quality in many hulls. The POTTER hulls were built with good construction techniques and that is probably the #1 reason they are so popular I believe.
 
--- On Mon, 10/22/07, bpotter wrote:

> From: bpotter
> Subject: Re:25 ft SeaCraft
> To: "William BARBER" <wtbarber@yahoo.com>
> Date: Monday, October 22, 2007, 9:28 PM
> Hi Tim,
> Please tell Strick he has the best riding SeaCraft we ever
> built. It is not a boat for someone who doesn't know
> how or doesn't want to use trim tabs and the power trim of
> the IOs or outboards to get the most out of the hull
> design. The boat has the deepest V (25degrees) of any
> SeaCraft and, due to having no lifting strakes, it is more
> sensitive to "leaning" in cross winds and from weight shifts
> while on plane than other SeaCrafts and other deep
> Vs. BUT, it is like flying an aerobatic
> plane, if you know how to use the trim you can set that boat
> up to run through anything you have the nerve to be out in
> with remarkable comfort and safety. AND, because of
> the Variable Deadrise Hull design it is a very stable
> platform at rest or at trolling speeds. I wish we had
> a recording of the story a guy told us about his run from St
> Croix to St Thomas during a major hurricane flying through
> and off 25 ft and larger seas in the dark! Pigs don't
> fly!
> Best regards,
> Bill Potter
> ps A SeaMark twin Fiberglass Bracket and properly
> positioned and operating trim tabs would be my
> recommendation unless he is going to go with a big single
> diesel duoprop stern drive or smaller twin duoprop
> sterndrives. ( Duoprops minimize torque roll)
 
BS- Would you agree with my assessement that the popular/uneducated opinion is that the Potter years were great and everything else sucks?
**********************************************************

I have seen lots of tracker booboo's. I have two seafari's with solid transoms from 1972 and 1973. I even helped rip out a good transom from a 1969 boat. As long as the previous owners didn't do stupid things like drill lots of holes in the floor or transom . . . the boats seems to have held up very well for being close to 40 years old. I would say that Potter years has some good quality control. Mosley certainly took a huge amount of pride delivering a high end product . . . this was his baby. Mosley built the empire and was deeply involved with Mercury racing.

The 20CC was built in the mid 60's . . . that's not a potter design. The 20 MA in 1975 was a potter creation with the same 20 CC hull. I know potter changed the stringer configuration in 1972 . . . but I believe that was due to adding required flotation. Even the seacraft 20CC today uses the same hull. As far as the 19 bowrider is concerned . . . I am almost positive it's the same hull as the 20CC if not exactly the same it's very close.

Again I don't know everything and I might get some things mixed up . . . I was just as interested as you . . . and started asking about the racing on Screamandfly.com. Some very interesting posts . . . if you look over there.
 
Last edited:
Ok, that clear some things up. I was thinking the MA was just a fancier version of the CC. Yeah its definetly interesting stuff. Is anyone making boats like that anymore? What I mean is, is there any company out there that is just one guy putting out a hull? I bet not. Seems now there isn't even one company that makes one name. Seems all the boat companies are a huge conglomerate/corportation that put out numerous hulls with numerous names. Therefore, like you said with Tracker..quality starts to overcome quality. And there isn't anyone who is a true expert on a hull or a type of use. As Moesly was with offshore use.
You know what, Grady White just popped in my head. I think they are still a single operation. They make great boats too.
 
There's a big yella scepter with a hard top parked in front of worst marine in savannah for sale too. No price listed.
 
http://moeslyseacraft.com/BeginningPg2.aspx

Moesly teamed with Carl Kiekhaefer of Mercury Motors. Moesly raced Mercury's on the back of his SeaCrafts and Kiekhaefer used SeaCraft boats to test-run his engines at Lake X and at his salt-water test station on Florida's west coast, while his team raced SeaCraft boats in many of the offshore ocean races. One such race, the SeaCraft boats came in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in the outboard division. A reporter asked Carl, "How are you going to beat that?" Carl just shrugged his shoulders. The next ocean race, SeaCrafts took 1st thru 7th positions.

Carl and the Director of the Test Basin, "guesstimated" in the 1990's, one of the ex-raceboats built in 1967 and then used for test work, had between 2.5 to 3 million miles on it. That's a lot of miles on one boat!

Moesly kept designing, building, racing and selling his boats. Wearing many hats, kept him busy on the drawing board, out in the production plant or on the road convincing dealers to sell his boats. His wife, Jeanne, also worked many areas, handling personnel, payroll, inventory, promotions, and racing herself.

Often enough, Carl would walk into the production plant with a drill in his hand. His production manager would run and get the chalk marker following Carl around as he drilled small holes in the hull of some of the boats on the assembly line to insure their quality and thickness. The core samples would be weighed, the resin burned out and the fiberglass material carefully weighed to get the fiber-to-resin ratio, which is very important. The holes would be marked and then repaired. This was Moesly's way of insuring quality control.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top