TOPIC: Barn find Odd ball Feather Craft & engines.

I stumbled across this old row boat by chance way up in the rafters of a old pole barn. I asked what it was and was told I really don't know it was there when I bought the place in 1956. It was to far up, almost 20ft to really see what it was but I was interested because I could just make out the shape of the logo on the front. He asked if I wanted it? sure I said and he called a guy who showed up on a old tractor with a bucket. Up I went as high as it could, stood on the edge and got it nosed into the bucket and down it came.
He said if you take that then you have to take these and lead me to a shed and showed me 2 old Clinton air cooled 3hp engines. Darn I HAVE to take them? Yup!
Got it home power washed the years of bee's nest's and dirt off and put it in the water. Don't leak a drop.
Can't find much info on here or the Feather Craft site, anybody ever seen one before? Not sure of the year or model. Car topper I think, maybe called a Pelican? Hope one of the engines run.

Awesome barn find!!!! That little gal has style and sits nice in the water!!!!

Wow, great find....
You truly are a boat stalker !

Awesome little boat! Great style on that one.
Rodney

Nice find! That cast bow piece and strength lines down the sides give it a very nice upswept look! Also would seem to cut through water a little less wet than those blunt vertical front bow stemmed boat from way back when you were doing more idling than planning. I stumbled across 2 boat finds in my life and I really felt lucky (yet those were advertised for sale...never "really" found one myself). Has to be a cool feeling!
Look out fish - this boat could be "back in the game" soon

I was there to see a car next door and just happened to walk by the pole barn and made a comment on how tall it was and when I looked up I saw it. Its a neat little thing and it has to be very early 50s late 40s not sure, still looking for info.
The engines are cool old things also and I have no idea what year they are.

What a find and a great story ! That's a Feather Craft Penguin, model. They were made from 1950 thru 1955. Yours links to be a 1952 or so model - it looks similar to the one on the magazine cover. I have a 1855 model and know of around 9 or 10 others.
Try a "penguin" search on the feathercraft.net forum section. There are a bunch of penguin posts there.

Thank you, alumaglass that helps a lot. I am not a member on the Feather site "yet" LOL.

Now if I could stumble across an old Rocket I would be very happy.
Maybe just a Run about. I would settle for a Flyer.

Your penguin will follow the serial# decoding found here
feathercraft.net/index.php/serial-numbers

That will provide a month and year of manufacture

Great site, good group AND they have a wet 'meet' week of cruises planmed next week. Sat theres an AOMCI meet followed by a great cruise and winds up in a most of an afternoon cruise down the Clinch river. 20+ attendees and 15+ Feathercrafts and at least 1 Crestliner JetStreak.

I haven't been able to find a number on it yet, atleast not where I found them on 2 others I had. Doesn't mean its not there but it has about 50years of dirt and crap built up on it and I have only started the clean up so I will keep looking. Beside's the logo on the bow I have found stampings on the transom corners that just say Feather Craft, Alabama.

Now ya got me hunting for one of those sail kits.

Really neat stuff. I'd be interested to know how the little boat performed as a sailboat. The sail configuration looks like what would be found with a Sunfish, and other small sailboats. I've sailed Sunfish boats before, lots of fun. I currently have a Hobie Cat H16 catamaran. Pretty cool to see a classic boat as this that had a sail kit!!!!

I cannot find any numbers on this anywhere. Ideas where I should be looking? Don't want to just start randomly sanding/cleaning spots at this point but would really like to know what year it is.

The motors look mid to late 1960's, any numbers on the transom brackets?

cosmic12 wrote:

I cannot find any numbers on this anywhere. Ideas where I should be looking? Don't want to just start randomly sanding/cleaning spots at this point but would really like to know what year it is.

Exactly where its shown at thr Ser# link I posted earlier
jbcurt00 wrote:

Your penguin will follow the serial# decoding found here
feathercraft.net/index.php/serial-numbers

That will provide a month and year of manufacture

NOT where else except possibly on a foil 'sticker' that was likely under the small bow cover, but may be long gone.

Kerry wrote:

The motors look mid to late 1960's, any numbers on the transom brackets?

Nope. On Alumacrafts yes, but not on Feathercrafts.

Transom brackets on the Motors. Or, clamp brackets if you prefer...

Thought he was asking about the year of the boat, not the motors, since he asked

What year IT is

not

What year they are...

For motors, you might be right, but for those motors, as old as they appear and as small, model or serial#s could be anywhere.

Look like they might be air cooled, Montgomery Wards

The ebay item id given is invalid, no result has been sentjbcurt00 wrote:

For motors, you might be right, but for those motors, as old as they appear and as small, model or serial#s could be anywhere.

Look like they might be air cooled, Montgomery Wards

Yeah, they could be Monkey Wards, or Sears, or Ted Williams, etc etc etc. The outlet-stores sold 'em under many names but the major mfr's of the old 2-stroke air-cooled "throw-away" outboards were Eska and Clinton.

Lots of parts & manuals on eBay, this is just a query for Clinton stuff:



You can pop the flywheel, clean/gap points and if you get spark, give 'er a shot.

Carb might be dirty, but the bowl comes right off for cleaning.

The "pumper" models had an odd little rubber fuel pump that used to be dirt cheap but now, not so much. Dunno if those are even available anymore, you'd have to search.

Some of those old air-cooled engines even had an impeller that pumped water up into the center leg to spray and cool the exhaust. The impellers for these are getting rare, too, but did see a couple of 'em on eBay for around $30.

If you get one with good internals, they make a very light kicker motor, but they do tend to be a bit rougher and noisier than a water-cooled outboard.

Have Fun!.......ed

Speaking of "Eska", I found this little guy under some things in our boathouse.

Speaking of "jet", believe it or not they made a jet model of one of these.

Can't remember if it was a Clinton, Eska, or what, but you can imagine the snarling hp out of that one!!! Pretty rare, I expect!

There were a couple small outboard "Jet" motors in the 60s and 70s. The Starling Jet-Troller was based on a Clinton motor and handle. The "Sports-Jet" used a Tecumseh motor.

Neat stuff. The Troller Sport Jet looks exactly like the Clintons I have except for the jet part. Vey cool.