Hot Houseboat

Time was when owning a houseboat was considered downright lubberly. Proper yachtsmen snickered whenever one tied up at the dock, and out on the water skippers of fast-moving cruisers delighted in leaving the lumbering arks pitching and wallowing in their wake. Not any longer. There is a new kind of hot houseboat that comes with a deep V hull and powerful twin in-board-outdrive engines, and can plane at speeds of 30 m.p.h. or more, as fast as conventional cruisers costing twice as much. With prices beginning as low as $9,000, houseboats are gaining converts faster than any other type of boat. At the current ten-day National Boat Show in Manhattan's Coliseum, they are rivaling glamour yachts such as the $80,250 Hatteras triple-cabin cruiser, the most expensive boat in the show, for attention.

To dramatize the way the new houseboats perform, Miami's Thunderbird Products Corp. entered one of its 40-ft. Drift-R-Cruz houseboats in the last Bahamas 500, one of the world's toughest ocean races. Despite 8-ft. seas and 25-knot winds, the Drift-R-Cruz finished the race at Freeport, one of only 16 boats in a starting field of 63 to do so. Another Drift-R-Cruz traveled along the inland waterways all the way from St. Petersburg, Fla., to Montreal's Expo 67 and then across the Great Lakes to Oshkosh, Wis., a 6,600-mile trip, occasionally towing as many as five water skiers at a time.

Fore & Aft Patios. Nashville's Nauta-Line, largest manufacturer in the field, has quadrupled production of its 33-ft. and 43-ft. houseboats in the past 18 months, is now making 2,000 houseboats a year. At the River Queen Boat Works in Gary, Ind., sales have increased 100% in the past two years. Now Chris-Craft, the nation's largest cruiser manufacturer, has just swallowed its pride after three years of intensive market research and gone into houseboats with a 33-footer that costs $9,500, sleeps six, does up to 40 m.p.h.

Aside from souped-up performance, the new houseboats continue to offer boating enthusiasts the maximum amount of space for the least money, with roomy galleys, "patios" fore and aft, and large sundecks on top. "It's almost like living in a Florida home," says Chris-Craft Sales Promotion Manager C. G. Houser. It's also great for parties. Brigadier General William Shedd, deputy director of operations of the Pentagon's National Military Command Center, uses his 34-ft. houseboat (appropriately christened the Outhouse) for entertaining afloat on the Potomac, with the number of guests limited only by the number of life preservers aboard--16.

His & Her Moorings. Pittsburgh Businessman Carl Volkwein, who for 20 years owned cruisers ranging from 24 ft. to 30 ft. in length, switched to a 40-ft. houseboat two years ago so that he could treat clients and their families to weekend jaunts up the Allegheny; he has already ordered a 43-ft. replacement with even more room. Mystery Writer Erie Stanley Gardner likes houseboats so much that he operates two of them on California's Sacramento River. "They're my floating offices, the only place in the world where I can really get away from it all in comfort," says Gardner. But why two? "At night we moor them about 50 ft. apart, and the women take over one and the men the other," he explains. "That way the women can gab all they want, and we can play penny ante in peace."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.