Squall King

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Squall King Boats

Continental Boat Corp.

1815 N.E. 144th Street

North Miami, Florida

The Continental Boat Corp. found success in its first year of operation by receiving about 50 orders at the 1958 Miami boat show. The next year this increased to more than 200 orders (Feb. 14, 1960 Ocala Star-Banner). One dealer included the Jefferson Super Store, a supermarket in Fort Lauderdale, which began displaying and selling Squall King boats from their locations in 1960 (Nov. 23, 1960 New York Times).

Expanding by selling shares, Continental Boat Corp. purchased the Electric and Nuclear Research and Development Laboratory of Invex Inc., with the goal to develop inexpensive electronic boating safety equipment (Oct. 19, 1960 New York Times). Another acquisition was Scientific Electronics, a subsidiary to market frozen meals for boaters (Feb. 19, 1961 Washington Post) and SKS Corp., operator of the "85 Yacht Works" marina in Fort Lauderdale. Finally, Continental Boat Corp.'s president, William H. Naigles, bought 51% of outstanding stock of Amphibious Boats, Inc. of Denton, Texas (Jan. 29, 1961 New York Times). May 1961 MotorBoating reported Continental Boat Corp. opened its second boat-building plant, located in Denton to build Squall King Boats.

In 1961, Howard Weiler and Jim Thornton placed fourth overall and first among outboards in the Miami-Nassau power boat race. Especially calm conditions enabled the previous record for an outboard boat to be broken by more than 10 hours. He drove a 19' Squall King specially designed with Mike Navalany, productioon manager for Squall King Boats. Power was two 75-HP Johnson outboard motors (May 29, 1961 Washington Reporter). Howard Weiler was president of Fibre Glass Evercoat Corp. of Florida which he started in September 1956, supplying fiberglass supplies to boat manufacturers including Squall King, Thunderbird, Scottie Craft, and American Marc (August 22, 1960, The Miami News).

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