TOPIC: Hello and new to me old boat help request.

Hello All!

I have so far learned a substantial amount of information from this forum and articles in the library. Thank You!

I recently acquired a new to me but old fiberglass boat.

I wasn't looking for one but it caught my eye on the side of the road and, as they say, the rest is history.

From looking through the old ads and information in the library, I believe it to be a 1959 Cutter, but am not too sure of the model. It has the original Vollrath bow light as well as at least 2 Vollrath bow cleats and Vollrath step pads. There are no name plates on the boat, however. It has been painted, in guessing in the 70's with a gold metallic paint that is in not that great of shape but I would want to get rid of it and go back to an original looking color anyway.

I'll have to post pics later, but I was able to find what I believe to be a hull/serial number stamped into one of the transom handles. It is CK0559-800. This seems to confirm the conclusion I came up with of it being a '59, but I was hoping one of you could help me to fully decipher the number and tell me the model. It is not more than 15' in length.

Looking forward to your responses and I will get some pics up as soon as I can.
Thanks in advance!
Josh

As promised, here are some pics.

jdboat,

WELCOME ABOARD but I cannot see any photos.

yours, satx

Thanks for the reply. I need to get them resized I guess. hopefully have them up tonight or tomorrow.

Trying again with the pictures.

That has some cool lines! Looks like a nice find.

Nice little runabout. I don't have any idea on the specifics but she looks like a keeper to me. Be interesting to see what color is under the flake.

There is some pretty extensive Cutter info in the library here Josh, you should be able to narrow down the model there;
www.fiberglassics.com/library/Cutter
Generally thought of as a well built boat, classic fins, congrats on the nice find! And welcome aboard.

Thanks! The fins and lines of the boat caught my eye as a fun little project to work on with my wife and kids.


I am curious as to the color as well, but havnt had time to investigate further yet.


I would really like to find some photos of original seats/interior configuration as I obviously don't have anything to work with there.

Thanks Mark.

I have read through that page as well as all the ad links and the Owens page as well. Unfortuneately, there is no reference to the hull number decoding in it. By the size of the boat, it could only be a Como, a Skier, or a Jet de Ville. I don't think its a Jet de Ville, unless somebody cut out the enclosed stern area those boats had.

I just don't know how to nail it down specifically.

Hello jdboat, welcome aboard! I also have a cutter which coincidentally was also painted gold but without the metal flake. My boat was red originally, and I will be returning it to its former glory in that same color. Good luck on your project and remember to post lots of pictures of you progress we really enjoy that here.

That would catch my eye also. A good friend of mine used to have a cutter back in the day (60's) and it was red top, white bottom. Good luck on the project. It should keep you out of trouble for awhile

yours is different than my 59 cutter jet devil,mine has a hatch in the back,i will get you pics later.your are fortunate to have all the vollrath hardware,cutters also had volrath stern lights shaped like an arrow but almost impossible to find,john.

Thanks for all the replies.

John-I have a feeling it's not a jet de ville, because of the lack of an enclosed rear but I just can't find any pictures of the inside of a como or skier to show me what those look like.

I did come across a thread on here at one point that mentioned a similar hull number to mine but can't seem to find it again. I gotta imagine the the CK0559 stands for something.

Well,

I haven't gotten any further on the restoration of the boat, but I got anxious when we had a few days above 60 degrees here last week. I figured the motor was gonna be junk, but to my amazement, it started right up and ran smoothly.

Sooooo...I had to go put the boat on the water.

She is dry as a bone and didn't leak water anywhere. We ran her around all day and, at least according to the speedo in the boat, did 30 mph without effort.

Its still gonna need lots of work, but I think we'll leave it as is until after summer and enjoy what we have while we collect information and choose what we want it to look like.

My question now is that I think the trailer is too large for the boat.

How do I tell how a boat should properly fit on the trailer?

Thanks in advance!

You should have just an inch or two of bunk board sticking out behind the transom on the aft end of the boat. Just slide your winch stand back until you get there. Then check the tonuge weight, shouldn't be over 200 pounds but should be enough that she doesn't want to tip the tongue up when unhooked.

Judging from what little we can see from your pics, you should be fine making that adjustment. More pics will help, however.

Good for you. Not too often you can buy a use boat and actually use it:)
Ditto on what Mark said. If it's too heavy on the tongue the trailer wheels can usually be moved forward several inches to change the center of gravity. If you do wind up doing this, measure carefully so your trailer won't go down the road like a lost dog.

Josh,
Sorry I'm late to this one. welcome aboard. Nice find and as Cal said, always good to find one you can use and clean up/fix as you use it. Mark and Cal are right regarding the trailer. Looking at it I think you can move it back several inches and not have any issues. Good luck, have fun with her.

Bob

This forum has proved invaluable once again.

After reading your posts regarding adjusting the trailer, I had a duh moment as it never crossed my mind that the winch could be moved aft to accommodate.

I will get more pictures when I can.

For now, I have the boat sitting better on the trailer than the previous pics show. The left side bunk board was jammed in the wrong position. So it required some effort to get it right before we reloaded the boat. Man was the water cold standing waist deep in it. Ha!

I know I will have to replace one of the boards as the rear end is rotten. It looks like it's just a 2x4 covered in outdoor carpet. Do you typically just use a pressure treated board to replace it?

Lastly, as far as moving the winch, do I want the bow resting in the roller on the stand when it's in position? I am guessing the roller will also need adjusted down so the bow hook is above the roller to allow the winch to pull it all the way to the roller.

Thanks!

I think it looks like you can just pull the winch cable out underneath the roller rather than over top of it.

Awesome find there! I'm finishing up a restoration on my '58 Cutter. Let me know if you haven't figured out the model yet, I have some hull numbers and pictures saved on my home computer for when I was trying to decipher what they were. I can't remember what the CK0 meant though, I'll have to look it up.

The resources on here should help you get a close color to original, once you can find that. The Vollrath hardware was originally screwed/bolted on with stainless hardware, so I get the feeling it was all removed to make it easier to paint. You could try to sand down though, the gel coat is thick enough that you should be able to get an idea of the color before getting to bare fiberglass.

Thanks! I havn't been able to find any further data regarding the hull number. My best guess is:
CK0559
C- Cutter Boats, Inc
K - Skier model
05 - May
59 - 1959

From the information I have found here and elseware, I'm 99% certain the boat is a 1959 so what my guess as to the hull number matches up.

Hi Josh,

Just getting on my computer here tonight. I don't have any Skier models recorded, and only a couple Comos. However, Cutter changed the hull number format for 1960, so all I have for 1959 and prior are a bunch of Jet DeVilles and my own. Jet Deville was CJD, and mine is CAO for Avon.

Are you sure you aren't missing a digit in the number somewhere? It just seems like they would use three letters to designate, not just two.

Agreed on the rest of your breakdown, regarding the date. I do believe this would have been the 800th example of whatever model it is to have come off the line.

I'm having a hard time making it out in your pic- is the gas tank sitting on fiberglass that rises above the floor? Is the plywood box behind it built around an elevated fiberglass part? It doesn't look like you have the side benches that the Skier model would. The seats in these boats were pretty basic cushions that went on the fiberglass boxes, so while the cushions are easily lost, the fiberglass boxes would be hard to get rid of without major reconstruction of the boat.

Here is a shot of the stamped number in the handle on the transom. I assumed the 3rd digit was a zero but it could be the letter O like you mention.

The gas tank is sitting on a piece of plywood that makes up the base of the rear seat. Under that plywood is fiberglass but it does not make a complete box shape. It is open from the rear side. Next time I uncover the boat I'll try to get some better shots of that. There doesn't seem to be any floor to speak of, just the hull itself.

jdboat wrote:

Here is a shot of the stamped number in the handle on the transom. I assumed the 3rd digit was a zero but it could be the letter O like you mention.

The gas tank is sitting on a piece of plywood that makes up the base of the rear seat. Under that plywood is fiberglass but it does not make a complete box shape. It is open from the rear side. Next time I uncover the boat I'll try to get some better shots of that. There doesn't seem to be any floor to speak of, just the hull itself.

Hmm, that's interesting. I agree, there really isn't a floor to speak of, just the inside of the hull. I do have seat boxes fiberglassed in though, and spatter painted like the rest of the boat.

I'm really curious to see how your rear seat area is, because that should help reveal what model it is. Hopefully whoever painted/did the work on it didn't cut out fiberglass.

Well, nearly a year has past and up until recently I've done absolutely nothing to the boat other than park it and put a cover on it. I did pull it back out a couple days ago and clean it and run the motor again and make sure everything is still good to go. It still makes me smile, but the motor fired right back up again. So, its supposed to be 80 here on Friday and I plan on heading out on the water with the family. The 4th of my daughters (yes 4 daughters) is about 21 months old so it will make it easier this year to go out than it has been. I was able to track down some Cutter name plates and have them in a box for when the time comes. Over the winter, I got in touch with some folks from Tell City, IN, where the Cutter Boat company was in business and got some info from them. Neat stuff, with photos from the year books of the era and some newspaper articles. Unfortunately, still no interior shots. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will just have to go "period correct" rather than actually correct on what we do with it.

Sunline Fan - I neglected to take photos of the seat boxes, but you are right that the bases are glassed in benches. I am not sure why the previous owner did what the did but they ran the vertical cross boards into the hull glass and bolted it through the hull. So that will probably come out. I have gotten undertake fins and under the front deck and inspected the steering cable and it is in very good condition. The pulleys are what I'm guessing are the original as the are Vollrath as well. The bow light build did not function before, so I did throw an LED bulb in there and it lit up nicely. My oldest Shop-Vac-ed out the hull and a few pieces of the ugly peach/tan paint flaked off to reveal the spatter pattern of the interior that you had previously mentioned. I just now need to find a spot to flake off for the exterior color.

For now, this is going to be our boat we use. It is solid, dry, and fun. I just picked up a 1959 Parson's Lak 'n Sea (it's in the background of the light photo) that is also with nearly all the original hardware and has a 1959 Super Sea Horse hanging on it that also runs like a champ. Gonna start a new thread on that one soon.....

This old boat thing is worse than a drug addiction.......probably more expensive too!!

Cool looking boats!!!

IMHO,...If the boat (transom & floor) are somewhat solid - run the boat around and see if it warrants further repairs - restores, etc.

It really sucks to discover it just doesn't ring your bell (or the family's) after spending weeks or years restoring what you thought was the perfect boat for the family.
I am in no way criticizing you specific hull, and have no history or clue in respects to its specific quality or performance - just wanting your experience to be positive.
doc

Really looking forward to the 80 on Friday also. Where in WI are you located??

We are right on the Illinois border. I am hoping to get to the Koshkonong show but I unfortunately have to work that weekend so it may not work out.

Thanks Doc. We did get her out twice last year and absolutely loved the boat. It is solid and fits our style perfectly. It's fine now while the kids are small for all 6 of us, but down the road it will get a little tight. That's ok though because it and the Lake N Sea will more be cruising toys just for fun I think. I got them both so cheap and they both run and float that we will just work on them when we feel like it and have fun with them otherwise.