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 Author  Topic: Flying Saucer PT Boat video on internet
  Jerry Gilmartin

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jerry Gilmartin   Send Email To Jerry Gilmartin Posted on: Oct 4, 2011 - 9:26pm
Hello shipmates!
I just came across a website that posted a video taken in the early 1960's about Chris' Restaurant in Ocean City, New Jersey with the "Flying Saucer" converted PT Boat. The video is at the bottom of the page, and the soundtrack is kind of cheesy but it does show some really good shots of the boat underway and some details of the engines area and the controls in the cockpit. To see the video better, move the cursor onto the video screen then right click and select "Zoom". While selecting Zoom, choose the "Full Screen" option to see the video full screen.

Here is a link to the video. The website is about the machines that make the plastic souvinir molds of the boat. They were called "Mold-a-Rama" machines it seems. Pretty neat stuff. I dont know much about Chris' restaurant but I thought all you "OLD GUYS" that live back there on the east coast may enjoy watching the video. It was just a bit before my time, Jerry

http://www.moldville.com/WEEK_1.html



Jerry Gilmartin

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Frank J Andruss Sr

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank J Andruss Sr   Send Email To Frank J Andruss Sr Posted on: Oct 5, 2011 - 1:50am
Thanks Jerry, that's pretty awesome. It helps that Dean Martin was doing the singing. Those were the days..............


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Jim Melanson

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jim Melanson   Send Email To Jim Melanson Posted on: Oct 5, 2011 - 2:53am
She was a Vosper PT-719. Years ago when I looked at the 615 when she was at John Yanks in Tuckahoe NJ Mr Yank had a ton of photos in his office of the FS II. That boat screamed over the water!
The boat was cut up the year prior to when I first seen the 615 boat. Not many photos of it so thank you for posting.
Good day all.
Jim

Jim Melanson

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Jeff D

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Jeff D   Send Email To Jeff D Posted on: Oct 5, 2011 - 12:43pm
Cool stuff Jerry, thanks for digging it up. With a full load it looks like a giant water based roller coaster.

I remember those molding machines! They were fascinating. I bet the Beach Girl would have given the Flying Saucer some stiff competition for boys quarters if sitting side by side.



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Drew Cook

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Drew Cook  Posted on: Oct 8, 2011 - 5:07pm
I remember those plastic-injection molding machines, too -- they were fascinating to us kids...

The one I remember was at the Miami Seaquarium in the early-mid 1960's, and molded a statue of a leaping dolphin ("Flipper?"). Drop two quarters in, and watch the machine make a pink plastic dolphin! Wow!


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PRJM3

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of PRJM3   Send Email To PRJM3 Posted on: Oct 8, 2011 - 8:19pm
Great video, brings back memories of the family summer vacations in Ocean City, for me starting in 1956. We lived in Pittsburgh and went almost every year through the early 70's. After that it was less frequent for me due to my moving to Denver, but the rest of the family still managed to go every other year or so along with newly acquired spouses and kids. Coincidentally I was there three weeks ago when my two sisters, my brother, all of our spouses, and three of the five nieces and nephews (all in their late 20's) managed what is likely the last "family" week at the shore. The logistics fell in place, the weather was fantastic and the only thing missing was our parents . . . and Chris' PT boat. My brother even commented about missing the PT boat, even though it's been gone for decades.

I didn't know (or didn't remember) that it was called the Flying Saucer, we just knew it as the PT boat from Chris' Restaurant. Also didn't know that it was a Vosper. It did two regular trips a day, running south along the Ocean City beaches and then coming back north a short time later. The video of the boat going by at a distance was most likely taken from the beach, that's the view we always had of it. We were always sure to be on the beach at those times because the wake from the boat created a good set of waves, usually the biggest waves of the day, and we would ride our rafts in on them.

I still remember the sound, you could hear it before you could see it. The old man probably got his love of loud engines from his time on PTs, and he passed it on to me. In 1999 I was racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats and got to see what was likely the last run ever of a four-engined streamliner. They are just too complex and single-engine cars are now faster. It "only" ran around 350 mph (the record is around 440 now) but damned if 32 cylinders of big block Chevy didn't remind me of the PT boat!

But back to the beach. We always did at least one trip to Hogate's Seafood Restaurant, which was right next to Chris' Restaurant, but for some reason we never went next door to look at the PT boat. Dad was probably too busy herding us all around. So, I never saw the molding machine either. One year around 1960 the PT boat wasn't doing it's daily runs and Dad found out that it had hit some debris and damaged the hull. So one afternoon he and I drove around, I don't remember how far away we went, until Dad found the PT out of the water for repairs. Having mostly been exposed to small craft and river boats around Pittsburgh I was impressed with how big the PT boat was. Dad tried to point out one of the engines that was out of the boat, "over there under a tarp", and again I wasn't ready for an engine so physically big. I thought the tarp was covering a car.

A few years later, maybe 1962, I finally got to ride on the PT boat. Dad and I went on the afternoon run and it was everything I imagined it would be - noisy, fast, windy and more than a little wet. Everybody sat up on the seat backs, on the deck, in effect. Dad was certain it was only running on two engines, but that didn't matter to me. That was the only time we actually went on the boat. I now suspect that Dad knew they couldn't operate it forever and he probably wanted one last ride on the plywood. Even when we watched it from the beach he frequently commented that it wasn't moving near as fast as they did when in service, never mind the advertising hype of 90 mph. He would occasionally comment that "it's only on one engine today", surely reflecting the operating costs and limited life of the engines. But as kids we didn't care about those realities, the PT boat was just a regular part of the family vacation. I have forwarded the video to the other family members, I know they will enjoy it.

In the video the middle section with the small speedboats is not New Jersey, there's no palm trees in New Jersey. And the boat with the engine hatches open at the beginning of the video is not the Saucer as it only has five rows of seats. It's probably the Flying Pony. And I believe there's shots of two different cockpits, it looked like the throttles were on the right in the PT boat and on the left in another shot.

About a week after our recent vacation the message was posted about the PT boat for sale on Ebay. I was pobably within 10 miles of it, and my brother-in-law who sails on Lake Erie and I would have spent an afternoon tracking it down had we known about it. Just like 1960!

Sorry for rambling and thanks for posting the link Jerry. It brought back a lot of memories about good times with the old man that involved something he really loved. (I mean the PT boat, not me!)


Randy McConnell (Randall J. McConnell III)

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