Runabout Reflections
After years of service as a kind of make-shift tugboat in San Francisco Bay, CA, this 28-foot, 1929 Chris-Craft "Sedan Limousine" was at the end of her line. She had deteriorated into such a derelict that the owner of the yard where she was being stored had decided to sell her hardware (almost all of which remained stored in the hull) and engine (a rare model A-70, 1500 pounds of engine, with a 1000 cubic inch displacement) for scrap, in order to reimburse unpaid storage charges, and to burn the rest of her for firewood.
However, her unusual cabin top caught the eye of the photographer, who sent the photos to a friend in a Tahoe City boat shop, "Western Runabouts." The shop owner knew the boat must be something rare, and negotiated to buy the derelict, her hardware and engine, as well as a spare A-70 engine which was also stored with her.
This began, in 1990, the restoration of this rare and beautiful piece of history. Her name, origianally "Maryan," was changed to "Ragged Company" by the Tahoe City shop, and finally to "Tuxedo Taxi," as she is known today. This final name-change occured when Roy Domke took over her restoration in his shop Runabout Reflections in 1992.
When she arrived at "Western Runabouts," she certainly didn't look like much. In addition to the age of her wood, she had endured a slathering of tar over her hull sometime in the 1960's, which had kept her floating after her hull wood had begun to seriously deteriorate.
By the time she was rescued from dry-dock, in 1990, her planking was unsalvageable. However, her inner skeleton was still sound, and, after cleaning and refinishing, the rest of the ship was rebuilt around the frames.
As you can see, not much of her cabin remained, but the hard top was reconstructed from the splinters which had survived. Runabout Reflections used original architect's drawings from the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, VA, to reconstruct the body of the ship to original specifications, but they had to use archival photographs of the original boat and a bit of imagination to re-create the limousine's cabin top.
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