Chris-craft

Chris-Craft is the most famous name in American boating, and for most of a century the name and the boats have not always traveled together. The legend was built in Algonac, Michigan, out of varnished mahogany; the trademark then went on a corporate voyage of its own. Chris-Craft Industries sold the boat division to a group led by George D. Murray in 1981 and kept the name, renting it back to the people actually building the hulls. Murray's company went bankrupt in December 1988; Outboard Marine Corporation picked up the plants and the license in 1989, then collapsed itself in 2000; Stellican, a British private-equity firm, bought the pieces in 2001, reunited the trademark with the factory for the first time in twenty years, and set up in Sarasota, Florida; Winnebago — the motorhome company — has owned it since 2018. Before a buyer asks whether a Chris-Craft is well built, they should ask which Chris-Craft built it.

The boats on our shelf come mostly from two of those eras. The 1980s motoryachts — the Catalina 426 and its Commander sisters — are Murray-era boats, and the 426 is a better hull than the era's paperwork: its molds began life in 1971 as the Uniflite 42 Double Cabin, a design with a reputation for sturdy construction and one of the smoother rides of its size. The against-case is on the build sheet: wood-cored decks and wood-in-glass stringers, sealed casually at the penetrations, so owners report wet coring around stanchions and stringers gone soft where water found a way in. The modern boats — the Launches, Calypsos and Catalinas built in Sarasota since the Stellican revival — are a different proposition entirely: retro tumblehome and teak, heavily optioned, priced like jewelry and reviewed kindly, with depreciation doing its plainest work in the first owner's hands. A few wooden-era classics round out the shelf for the brave.

Scout watches 172 live Chris-Craft askings, averaging $247,149, and publishes 1 across 1 of the name's models, 1988, asking $66,500.

The Murray-era file reads best from a freshwater berth:

Buy the badge with its era attached: an eighties boat on a survey that has met the deck core, a modern one on a price that respects the first owner's depreciation. Walk away from any Chris-Craft bought on the name alone — the name has changed hands too often to warranty anything. The rest of the aft-cabin field is on the motoryacht shelf, and the whole fleet on the powerboat shelf.

Sources: Wikipedia, Chris-Craft Corporation and Chris-Craft Boats; Trade Only Today on the 2018 Winnebago acquisition; The Powerboat Guide (Chris-Craft 425/426/427 Catalina, 1985–90); owner threads on Boatered and the trawler forums.