Comment

Comment by Tom Martin on April 7, 2009 at 9:22am

Hi Greg, thanks for your note. The FLAVELL was "lost" on the '58 Grand Canyon trip flipping in Doris Rapid on roughly 75,000cfs. It was "found" by a trip a day ahead of the folks we are researching, a trip led by Georgie White. Georgie recovered the FLAVELL near Pearce Ferry. She was towing it out to Temple Bar when Reilly, Mortenson, Szep and Fulmer, in thier small rented motor boat, interecepted her in Iceberg Canyon. The next year, as the fiberglass boats on thier fifth year running the Grand were starting to fall apart, the FLAVELL and SUSIE R were loaded with rocks, holled with a rock pick, and set adrift at Pipe Creek Rapid never to be seen again.

Could you tell me more about the "Rapid Robert'? Fulmer may have seen one if Hindman was building one at his shop in 1945 when they visited in Corvallis. Fulmer took the 15" rocker concept he saw at Hindman's, decked it, and added touches from the Nevill's Cataract boat, like the oak slats on the bottom of the boat. The GEM is a decked drift boat with side hatches in the footwell, made specifically for the big water of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon.

The original GEM will now be stabalized and curated by NPS experts, and we are just tickled the GEM is still with us! Keep in mind the photo i posted of the GEM in the NPS Warehouse does not show the boat's original rocker. The GEM was stored on a sheet of plywood for many years, and the sides pulled apart abidship. As we built a temporary cradle, we could not get correct allignment of the plywood sides, and we stopped the rocker recreation at about 11". The boat had esentially lain flat for 30 years, and originally had a 15" rocker.

Yes, there's a book here we are working on, and a river trip of the three replica's, and a lot of historic photo rematching.

I'll post another photo of the GEM from the spring of 1954, on its maden float on a lake in Indiana.

Wooden boat history is fun! All the best, yours, tom

Comment by Greg Hatten on April 7, 2009 at 7:40am

Tom, most of the wooden boats in this area are McKenzie style drift boats - built for running class 2 and 3 water and providing a stable platform for fishing. When I look at these boats, I see a design that probably evolved with much trial and error over the years. I love the lines - particularly of the Flavell... what happened to it?? One of your captions indicates the boat was "lost" - wondering if it was ever recovered or if it was smashed to pieces.
On the GEM, I notice a bow that looks a lot like a well-known and historic style of drift boat called the "Rapid Robert". I bet it provided a lot of stability crashing through the big water that it must've run. I am very interested in learning more about the history of these boats - is there a book you would recommend? Wondering if anyone is working on the restoration of the GEM or is that a "future project"?? That would be a fun one to track on this site with photo updates on the progress...
Very cool. Thanks for posting history for us. Greg

Comment by Tom Martin on April 6, 2009 at 9:09pm

Thanks Greg. While Special Collections at Northern Arizona University has a lot of great photos of these trips, we have been very lucks in tracking down historic never before seen images of the 55 through 59 Grand Canyon River trips too. So let me ask you, what kind of boats do you see here when you look at this photo? Thanks for your thoughts, yours, tom

Comment by Greg Hatten on April 6, 2009 at 10:07am

Wow... great pictures Tom. Welcome to the site and all the boat "chatter".
GH