PT Boat 658 - A Functional, Restored PT Boat
 

This was built right down the street from where I grew up, "The Huckin's Fairform Flyer" the hull designed by them. Huckin's is still in business today at the same location..

PT Boat 658 - A Functional, Restored PT Boat
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Very moving...

My wife's step father was a PT boat crewman...left Yale, flunked out of flight school and spent the next three years in the South Pacific.

Great Dude.

Amazing stuff

Some off PT boat info

Didn't those things have twin diesel engines in a plywood hull? If so, they should have seat belts and high-back chairs.

Very cool, some guys are trying to restore PT-305.

Link:
Pt 305 - Boat Design Forums

A bit about the company that built the PT.. The marina where my family's boat when I was a kid was right next door.

Huckins Yacht :: Yachting leadership for three generations.

Huckins Yacht Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

my dad was in a army air corp eng battalion during wwII. he was in new guinea,biak,luzon. they would literally come in off the LST(landing ship troops) while under fire and start bulldozing /blasting roads and runways or rebuild existing runways etc.

well one of things they all loved was supplementing their food supplies and that entailed fishing. and that entailed boats. and usually since everywhere they went was an island there was always a contingent of PT boats there. and since they(army dudes) knew that PT boats had refrigerators on board, they made fast friends with the navy dudes and traded with them fishing trips for booze that was shipped in re-canned fruit containers from back home sent over as care packages.


navy dudes got their booze and the army dudes got high speed fishing trips and refrigerator space!


that is a NO POO STORY!


one of my dads most upsetting experiences of wwII was they had built a number of av gas fuel storage tanks and fuel lines down to the PT boat docks. this was on new guinea. and since manpower was short, they enlisted the natives as dockworkers. all the natives used to chain smoke camel cigarettes constantly. one day this native was smoking while they were refueling a PT boat and the av gas vapors ignited causing a explosion and fire and my dad lost quite a few real close friends that day along with a number of PT boats going up in flames.



we LOVE PT BOATS!

I did chuckle though when they mentioned "the sound of a radial engine on a vintage bomber" while showing a picture of Avro Lancaster with it's 4 Rolls Royce (Water Cooled, V configuration) Merlin engines. :rolleyes:

The rest of the video is very cool!

It may be "restored", but it's not "functional" unless it has real torpedos.

Ditto, same thought; "Talking Heads" that write their own material without verifying...

The Packard engines in the PT were developed from the V-8 or V-12 'Liberty' engine used in WWI aircraft. Modular engine - used as a V-8, V-12 and straight 6. (Packard later -and concurrently- built the V-12 'Merlin' V12 that was in the P-51 Mustang.)

I was waiting for a pic of Jack Kennedy... and there it was near the end...


Thank you, thank you Byron...

It's moving to see all those veterans restoring that boat. Like they said, only 1/2 of the men are still alive today. Those boats sure did do some havic on the Japs for a long time. I would love to ride on one today, but not pay for the fuel bill.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing this!

Plywood Hull..Rolls Royce Merlins...

Ask him if he remembers John Lupa...from Detroit...John was my Daddys 1St cozin.

John passed away in 1995 at 84 years...John was in the same PT Boat squadron as JFK and knew him very well as they lived in the same Quonset Hut in the Solomons...Johns oldest son has a Machete signed by all the members of that Squadron including JFK.

After the war John was involved with the PT Boat vets org...after John passed away his wife gave me a PT Boat Patch...I believe if memory serves me well it is from a PT Boat Squadron based in the Philiphines and will get a pic as soon as my camera battery recharges..

I asked John about JFK the only thing he said was that he was quite an indivdual as he had already had a best seling book. He also mentioned that all the guys would brag about the woman they were with except for JFK.

I shall. His name is Reiff Landes. Solid gold, still rising to meet the next challenge.

LOL.

The Brits made several versions (called MTBs) - most had 3 V12 motors, made more than 4,000 HP and did about 40 knots.

I'm not really into boats, but I think that's not too frickin' shabby for a 70ft boat weighing 50 tons. I thought these things were pretty awesome when I was a kid. I'd have one restored if I won the lottery,

A lot were stripped and sold as houseboats after the war.... Kind of an ignoble end.

Very cool!

Didn't John Wayne have a PT boat?

pt
 

Great video
We need to restore more of those WWII ships
My Dad served on an LSM. Their LSM association got the last one in existance from Greece and brought home to the USA.

Things have fallen through and the USMC museum in North Carolina wants to sink it

Check out this link

USS LSM-45 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PT boats......
 

I believe that the hulls were made of laminated mahogany, quite a step up from "plywood". It (mahogany) was lighter, stronger and more durable than most any other wood when used in a "wet" environment. If I ever win one of the big lottos, I'm going to buy one of those suckers! I might even pay the transfer taxes so that I can mount some 50 cals on it and go pirate hunting!

Well, anybody wanting to see this one should sniff around Portland, Oregon..
Footage was taken on the Columbia..