a great - Covey Island Boatworks

Covey Island
Boatworks
Custom Yachts
for the World since 1979
S-17 RUNABOUT
SPECS & HISTORY
LOA: 17’
BEAM: 6’
Draft: 0.5’
YEAR: 1963
ORIGINAL BUILDER:
Industrial Shipping
COMPANY OF MAHONE BAY
A GREAT
Over the past several months, the Covey
Island Boatworks’ team has painstakingly restored A Great Story to how she first appeared
when she was first built in 1963.
STORY
The 17-foot RUNABOUT with
The boat builder responsible for originally
a remarkable history
building A Great Story traces its roots to before World War II, when it was known as the Industrial Shipping Co. of Mahone Bay.
In the post-war years, the outfit changed its monicker to Mahone Bay Plycraft Company,
and it became known for building small, moulded boats in the 1950s and ’60s.
Mahone Bay Plycraft Company would, eventually, change its business model again,
going on to specialize in fiberglass boats by the mid-1960s. However, in the early days,
the builders crafted their boats by using strips of resin-soaked wood wrapped around a
hardwood solid-plug mould. Workers would then let it sit for a while in a retort and, after
a period of time, out popped a boat.
Originally, the boats that the mould produced were outboard-powered. However, the
runabout style seen in A Great Story employs an inboard engine with jet drive, indicating that in the early 1960s the mould was probably modified to accommodate the revised
inboard design.
The owner of A Great Story was originally told that she was used as a launch for Blue-
DRIVE: Hamilton Marine nose II when that schooner was built for the Oland’s family in 1963. He also later found
Jet Drive
information that led him to believe it was used as launch for HMS Bounty in the years
ORIGINAL ENGINE:
VOLVO PENTA
23 Burma Road,
PO Box 1539
Lunenburg NS
B0J 2C0
(902) 640-3064
www.coveyisland.com
[email protected]
following the shooting of the film Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando, in 1961
and ’62.
THEN
Covey Island
Boatworks
Custom Yachts
for the World since 1979
23 Burma Road,
PO Box 1539
Lunenburg NS
B0J 2C0
(902) 640-3064
www.coveyisland.com
[email protected]
NOW