Thursday, March 28

New King Hell 17: A Retro Runabout with an Attitude

Google+ Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr +

If you’re thinking about something new and different for this summer, take a look at the King Hell Attitude 17 sport runabout, a retro-looking wooden vessel with a Harley-Davidson engine and motorcycle seats and handlebars. There’s only one is existence so far, but Chris Ashley, the King Hell’s builder and designer, is more than ready to make some more.

Ashely (pictured at top) grew up messing around with boats in his grandparents’ home in Nantucket; he bought his first restoration project, a 1952 Chris-Craft, when he graduated from Cornell. Over the years, working from his home in Harvard, Massachusetts, Ashley rebuilt an Adirondack guide boat, two 1890s St. Lawrence River skiffs, and other craft.

But his dream was a retro-styled runabout, something that would recall the long, lean, elegant boats of the ‘20s and ‘30s. He worked with a CAD program and took a year to build the hull from wood. It has a low deadrise, a hard chine, a reverse sheer line and an exaggerated tumblehome.

The topsides are three epoxy-bonded layers of marine plywood laid over a subframe. The construction of the torpedo stern involved inch-wide strips of plywood laid diagonally. Ashley wrote on his website that he modeled it on the torpedo stern of the classic commuter yacht Aphrodite, and that “I distinctly remember the ‘Oh Sh-t’ that accompanied that sketch because I knew how hard that transom would be to build.”

For power, he used a 88-cubic-inch, twin V Harley. The boat handles like a motorcycle, with its motorcycle handlebars and two police-motorcycle seats. For a contrasting modern touch, the dash is made with carbon fiber. The boat tops out in the upper 30-mph range.

The King Hell name, he explains, comes from a Hunter S. Thompson quote: “In a scene where nobody with any ambition is really what he appears to be, there’s not much risk in acting like a king-hell freak.”

Now, Ashley will take orders for more models of Attitude, but he’s also thinking of making the next one in composites. Read more.

http://kinghellboats.com

 

 

 

 

Share.

About Author

Comments are closed.