Without planking seams and bungs to swell and break the varnish, the finish remains as perfect as the day it was built. The mahogany planks never cup, crack or move, maintaining perfect fairness because they are laminated to stable marine plywood sub-planking. With no caulking maintenance, they can be stored out of the water without seams opening, and they cannot leak. They have all the beauty of traditionally built wooden classics, yet without any of the traditional maintenance. Both restorations and new builds from Craven Boatbuilding have won year after year in the finest classic boat shows, such as the Lake Tahoe Concours D'Elegance, the Lake Coeur D'Alene Wooden Boat Show, and the Keels & Wheels Wooden Boat Show in Texas.    

like-new beauty

Whether it’s restoration or new construction, Craven Boatbuilding can either restore your classic antique runabout to museum-quality condition or build you a new replica using modern construction techniques to ensure it will last beyond your lifetime with virtually no maintenance. Using vacuum bag-laminated, cold-molded planking construction over traditional hull-and-deck framing, we can build a stronger, seamless, stable hull that retains its varnished beauty and hull fairness indefinitely. This hull form is as adaptable to restoring existing antique runabouts as it is to building new antique-replica or custom-design runabouts. ​

lifetime durability