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Thread: Tahiti info

  1. #11
    572Daytona
    I have a 1975 Tahiti Super Tiger with a 455 Olds that has been through a lot. It has been on the bottom of Lake Michigan, dropped of the trailer onto the middle of a busy 4 lane highway and has a bottom full of gelcoat blisters from being left in the water all summer in Lake Lanier. But despite all that it still ran 64.5 on the GPS
    I think that Old Rigger's story about droping the boats off of dollies into the street was just their way of stress testing the boats under real world customer conditions http://free.***boat.net/ubb/smile.gif
    http://www.alltel.net/~jthieme/Dscn0552.jpg

  2. #12
    Bubbledeck2
    Originally posted by SPECTRABRENT:
    DAve,
    I sold my Spectra 20 to Flat Broke (less motor), the 509 is going to be turned into a 540 and it will go into my v-drive Spectra 24 XS.
    I may go to watch, it should be fun.
    Is your boat going to done in time?
    Brent
    [This message has been edited by SPECTRABRENT (edited March 05, 2002).]
    funny how the trash talkers never seem to be able to produce a running boat heheh ..
    BBTAHITI I have a 1976 bubbledeck Tahiti. I'm not sure but someone said they were called "Thunder Tigers". Mine has been great for me. On smooth water it's really stable and rides great. It's still all original and you'd never guess it was older than most folks that post here. I have a BB Ford and a Berk JC pump. With the untouched original engine and full fuel it'll run 62.4 GPS which really surprises me because it is faster than a few "80 mile an hour" jet boats heheh.
    Have fun with your project, just don't put so much money in it that you're married to it :=)

  3. #13
    Cas
    572,
    the trailer looks like it's been through a whole lot more than the boat has.
    Bubbldeck,
    I thought the bubbledeck Tahiti's were called Bubble Tigers, I could be wrong though.

  4. #14
    SPECTRABRENT
    Bubbledeck,
    Whos talkin trash?
    I never said my boat was faster than Riskys.
    My Spectra 20 is just an old family boat not a race boat. My Spectra could barely break 55 mph.
    Brent

  5. #15
    572Daytona
    Cas, I guess that they didn't make the trailers as tough as the boat. Actually the boat was regelcoated at one point in its life, the coast guard did a number on the deck when they hoisted the boat up to refloat it. Here are the original colors taken at my grandparents house on Coldwater Lake, Michigan many years ago
    http://www.alltel.net/~jthieme/tahitiorig.jpg

  6. #16
    Cas
    Geez, did Tahiti have any other pattern in the 70's? Both of my 18's had the same thing. I still like the lines of those boats...

  7. #17
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    1,863
    Originally posted by Cas:
    Geez, did Tahiti have any other pattern in the 70's? Both of my 18's had the same thing. I still like the lines of those boats...
    Hey Cas,
    you just reminded me of a gel-coat story from 1976. We were at Hawaiian at that time and the Bicentinal was a real big deal then, remember?
    Anyway our taper was asked to something out of the ordanary for a few 'special edition' boats, this was on the same hull as that Tahiti pictured above. Art was the tapers name and he later was a gel-coater. They wanted him to tape in a waving American flag across the decks of this these boats, and the rest of the hull was red white and blue. In fact that year we made tons of boats in the red/white/blue combo, very popular.
    Art worked his ass off trying to figure out how to do it. Sort of unchartered territory at the time because as you pointed out, all the tape jobs were pretty basic. Had it been a straight forward American flag, it would not have been such a big deal, but this had to be waving and that sort of complacated it for Art. He finally got in nailed down and they shot, built the part and pulled it. Everyone in the shop was there to look at the thing and I can remember, even though it wouldn't have been my choice for a paint job, it was pretty cool. Everyone was oohhing and aawwing over it until my dad, an ex Marine, noted immediately that it was backwards. Art had put the stars on the right side and the proper way to have a flag displayed with them on the left. We all watched him struggle (including dad) with the tape process but it didn't occur to anyone about the thing being reversed. We still built the boat and sold it the way it came out of the mold, but I thought poor Art was gonna cry after all the time he had put in it.
    On the other 'flag' boats Art made sure to get it right.
    I wonder what ever happened to those boats. We might have even taken one to the boat show now that I think about it.
    Again it was a pretty big deal as far as gel-coating goes.
    Truth be told, it was probably not that great of a tape job compared to whats done today, and might look a little rough. Maybe I don't want to ruin the memory in my little brain by seeing it again today.
    About the trailers, most of the local boats left on A&M trailers out of Bellflower or on a Wallstrong trailer. Both were built pretty tough, but were no-frill's trailers. The boats that went back east, and there were alot of them, were shipped without a trailer. The stories about loading the boats on the big trailers and the mishaps on the road are kinda funny too. We usually had 2 tractor trailer rigs on the road at all time delevering boats to just about everywhere.
    [This message has been edited by old rigger (edited March 07, 2002).]

  8. #18
    superdave013
    Originally posted by 572Daytona:
    Cas, I guess that they didn't make the trailers as tough as the boat. Actually the boat was regelcoated at one point in its life, the coast guard did a number on the deck when they hoisted the boat up to refloat it. Here are the original colors taken at my grandparents house on Coldwater Lake, Michigan many years ago
    Hey 572, I grew up right around the corner from your grandparents. I grew up on Lake James by Angloa, IN. I have some friends that live on Coldwater and Lake Gauge in Michigan. The lakes in that area are so nice. Sometimes I wounder why I ever left.

  9. #19
    spectras only
    Superdave, you left because the lenghty wait for the boating season to come around http://free.***boat.net/ubb/biggrin.gif. I've been out boating last sunday and the one before,But today the temp dropped to -4 C WTF ?

  10. #20
    572Daytona
    Superdave, Angola is where we would get off of the Indiana Toll Road to catch I-69 (now there's a great name for an interstate) to get to their house. Is Lake James the lake that is partially in Indiana and partially in Michigan that you needed fishing licenses from both states to use? I have fond memories of going up their as a kid and watching all of the metalflake jetboats spank all of the outboards and I/O's of the day and telling myself that someday I would own one (or 2) http://free.***boat.net/ubb/smile.gif I don't recall seeing any V-drives but there were quite a few direct drive Chris Crafts that were cool in their own way.

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