Was driving around the southern coast of Western Australia last weekend and quite surprisingly, came across this older Chris Craft. Now, I know of lot of you guys are CC fans, so I thought I'd take a few pics and post them. I think it's a Commander, but I'm not the expert here. No idea what vintage, but seems to be well loved and certainly upgraded (note the very new BEP battery switch panel). The really odd thing, is that she was at the mouth of the Denmark river, which empties into a bay that has been completely silted over to the ocean. Maybe in the winter the opening becomes navigable, but otherwise... Also, the port shown on the transom (Port Mandurah) is a long way (by boat) from there.
38' Commander She is a 38' commander with extensive restorarion. Check out commanderclub. They have talked about her alot there.
That is the boat Warren Pateman restored, which is chronicled in the book I published last year called "The Legacy of the Fiberglass Chris Craft Commander", ISBN 978-0-615-33459-2, presently sold out and being reprinted now. It was also featured in Classic Yacht magazine. Warren spent the better part of a half million dollars on the resurection of this boat, including new IVECO diesels and all new electronics, interior woodwork, everything. He sadly passed away due to cancer, and the boat has since been purchased by a person I think is a contractor or developer in Australia. BAMBI is very well known internationally. Paul
American built cabin cruisers from the 1960's, and the Chris-Crafts in particular, are some of the best looking production boats ever built in my opinion. Perhaps it's because they remind me of my childhood. I used to dream about boats. I can remember when the 38' Commander came out, I was 11 or 12 years old and I thought it was just about the most beautiful boat I had ever seen. I wonder what kids today dream about?
One of these showed up in my living room a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea what it does or how to use it, but apparently it was a "must-have" since I haven't seen it turned on or in use a single time yet.