Sport: Boat Fever

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Young Harsen, already being groomed to take over from his father, soon hit upon his idea for bridging the gap between sporty runabouts and luxury yachts with a fast family cruiser. The decision required some redesigning. Hydroplanes were obviously too skittish for family cruising; and so the Smiths designed a modified displacement hull with V-shape entry that combined planing speed with seaworthiness. With father Jay, Harsen helped develop new and cheaper engines. In 1939—the year grandfather Chris died —Harsen launched Chris-Craft's first major expansion by building a new plant in Holland, Mich, to boost production of the new, low-cost cruisers.

Family Affairs. The family cruiser was an instant success, and Chris-Craft advertising began to feature pictures of breezeswept families afloat. But five days after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy took over Chris-Craft production, set the Smiths to building steel-plated LCVs at $8,000 apiece. Having already engineered new mass-production techniques, Chris-Craft soon pulled construction costs down to $4,000. turned back to the Government between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 a year for the duration.

By war's end, father Jay was moving aside to give Harsen plenty of elbowroom, and Harsen's ideas were to expand. Lapstrake Sea Skiffs, once chronically leaky, were put into production tightly sealed with war-developed Thiokol. The company started up the Roamer Steel Boat division to meet a demand for cheaper and leakproof hulls, but Harsen admits that Chris-Craft's heart still remains with wood. "I don't think you could sell a metal violin, and some people don't like a metal boat." This year Harsen's old college friend Harry Coll, 49, an aggressive, rumpled executive who helped build up the steel-boat division, was made president. But as board chairman, Harsen remains undisputed boss. The company, on its way to an alltime sales record, has a backlog four times bigger than last year's, is providing its new boats with low-cost power plants by converting Corvette and Lincoln engines for marine use. Result: a 1959 40-ft. Conqueror sells for $2,690 less ($29,990) than a 1958 38-ft. Corsair.

The biggest thing in Harsen Smith's life is the conviction that the Smith family—and not any single Smith—is responsible for Chris-Craft's success. When the company moved its headquarters from Algonac to Pompano Beach last year, the family followed as a matter of course. Today, most of the Smiths live within miles of the Pompano Beach factory (19 of them recently attended a Smith bridal shower). Harsen calls "family meetings." not board meetings, still listens to the advice of his semiretired father and his uncles, Owen, 61, and Bernard. 70.