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..

Thanks Byron.

I wish more people had a greater understanding.

Thanks

Karl
88 Targa

Nope... Liberty V12's.

Packard made the Merlins too, but these aren't Merlins.

Had I known about it my last trip out, I would have gone to see it. It wasn't until high school that I learned the history of Huckins, and the PTs they built. My father also served in the Pacific, but I never heard him talk about it, other than show some spoons he some how got home, and since he has been gone since 93, I never will know..
Glad everyone is enjoying the link to our past..

The hull design of the Elco has strong British roots.

http://www.petertare.org/ptdesign/pt_design.htm

Those boats ( I believe) were the fastest most manuverable craft in their day?

Also saw a History Channel (or was it NatGeo?) special on this boat last week. Very good story and excellent footage.

Good to see these old boats being saved!

Joe A

a buddy of my dad had a WW2 PT in 1958 in Detroit
the boat was set up like a bus with about 50 seats in a post war conversion to a crew boat
and was missing one of the v12s as well as the superstructure and all the military toys
still could make about 30 mph and plenty of noise with the two remaining v12s

we got to ride in the boat from Detroit across lake ST Claire and up to the next great lake
where the guy had a summer house on a island

the PT boats of that era ALSO suffered from the dreaded CRAP early war u.s. torpedos. lots of duds and misfires and the ensuent getting their azz handed to them by much bigger ships upon discovery. the german boats if ya look had the torpedo tubes structured into the hull, not above the deck like ours.


the jap long lance torpedos were:

a) HUGE

b) fast

c) always went bang! and i mean ALWAYS!


lord only knows how many more enemy ships would have gone down, if the u.s. had had their act together as far as effective torpedos. alot of PT boaters and submariners lost their lives because of faulty torpedos.



i'd give my left and right nut up to own a german/british/u.s. PT boat!



what a FREEKING HOOT!

there's a restored torpedo boat near here (15-20 miles away). It was for sale recently for 1 mil or so I believe. I see it everytime I pass that way

From the Nethercutt

PACKARD V-12
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1302120729.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1302120746.jpg

PACKARD MERLIN
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1302120814.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1302120832.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1302120848.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1302120871.jpg

I remember reading as a kid a story in one of my PT Boat/WWII books about wax in the fuel. As I remember it in lieu of blowing up their own in the process of being captured fuel or blowing up our fuel depots on missions, the Japanese saboteurs would add wax to the gas.

This would cause our PT boats to stop running in enemy waters to be captured or sunk. The wax would accumulate in the carburetors and need to be disassembled and cleaned out.

Don't make much sense to me now, but that's what I remember reading as a kid.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1302141634.jpg
As promised

Minesweeper.

I believe we talked about a trip to the PT boat for a Cub Scout trip. Hasn't happened. I keep running into people who work on it. Cool hobby.

Larry

Lou Costello of Abott and Costello had a converted PT Boat...it was the first of the high powered cruiser type speed boats...

Anybody wanting more info or wishing to keep this boat afloat can click here:

PT Boat PT Boats PT658 - Save The PT Boat