" holy grail " boat finds

[Terry England]

Whistler, that was a really nice boat up on Island Estates in Clearwater. I'm 4 miles south and watched it for a while, but just finished one project Bertram Moppie and am still digging cabosil out from under my fingernails.

You will hear or read a story on this or the Moesly Seacraft site about when the CIA was putting together what would become the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion they were looking for some Fiberglass boats for the Cuban Counter-Revolutionaries to use. The specifiaction was that the boat needed to be approximately 20', carry 6 men, arms and ammunition and be able to run in the open ocean with standard available outboard power (75-100 hp). Carl Mosley showed up with one of his 20' Seacrafts and competed against "another" boat. When the "other" boat would not plane off with the load, Carl took two men from them (for a total of 8) and still out ran the "other" boat with his Seacraft. The Moesly Seacraft would hold plane slower and still out run the "other" boat so he won the contract to furnish the boats to the CIA. What very few people know is that the "other" boat was a V-20 Alim which along with the V-16, was later bought by Wellcraft and they produced that boat until about 2001. The Alim V-16, I believe still holds the record for the Miami to New York run for a boat that size. There are still a lot of V-20's around and you are correct, they are pretty good boats. They run pretty well in the chop as long as you keep them vertical. I had a very rare Wellcraft V-16 open fisherman. I the 1X12 pine stringers that were glassed half way up the sides didn't hold up to my aquatic adventures, so I pulled the cap, console, liner and encapsultaed 2 x 12's set in cabosil and glassed in. My "cool" friends were running Seacrafts and said "Bud, will you get rid of the Well-crack junk and get into a real boat!". We went for a dive trip in his 18 and I was sold on 'em. Bought a Seafari the next year and then Conner went with me and he got messed up with 'em. Your 23 in 30 knot winds will be much dryer than the V-20 on 15 knot winds.

[boataddict]

can any one share how to post a new post? I'm new.

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by boataddict

can any one share how to post a new post? I'm new.

Just pick the sub-forum you want to post on, scroll to the bottom of it and click on the New Thread button. FYI, posting a new question on an existing thread is called "Highjacking a thread" and not considered good etiquette on most forums, but I'm sure you only did it because you didn't see the new thread button, so all is forgiven! Welcome aboard!

Terry, your story about the government competition is generally correct, except the boat in question was a Moesly SeaCraft 21. The Bay of Pigs fiasco was in 1961, and Moesly didn't build the 19' Bowrider till '65 and the 20 CC till '67. All the boats were I/O's, I believe Carl said the govt. specified the same big block Ford engines for all the competitors to insure it was a fair test. I thought the other boats (I understood there at least a couple other competitors) were something like Bertram/Donzi/Formula types with successful ocean racing history; probably deeper V hulls that obviously did not have the SeaCraft's load carrying and low speed planing ability! I think the boats were used to run agents in and out of Cuba in the mid-late 60's.

They definitely used the SeaCraft 21. A colleague of mine (who owned a 21 himself and who's dad was the original owner of my Seafari!), once saw a 21 in the shop at local SeaCraft dealer Brown & Hauptner marine that had a bunch of strange looking steel reinforcement up under the front deck. Turned out to be a mount for a 50 cal. machine gun! My other friend Bob that owned the Moesly 21 "Unohu" pictured below says he saw another one of the government boats that had been run up on a reef down in the Keys somewhere. Bob ordered his boat at the '65 Miami show but later got a call from Carl, apologizing because he couldn't deliver the one Bob ordered for some time due to a large backlog of orders from that 'special contract'! So he offered Bob a good deal on the display model from the boat show, which had a lot more "goodies" on it than the one he'd ordered, so he jumped on that offer!

[Bigshrimpin]

In Grayson Lynch's book "Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs" the image shows a powercat and V20 heading to Cuba. The V20 was the boat that carried the first frogmen to shore during the invasion in 1961. The v20 and 21 seacraft share this interesting connection . . . It's too bad the professional boat builder story is so clearly detailing the v20 getting spanked by the 21 seacraft ; )








I am also the former owner of a v20 (and started and ran the wellcraftv20.com site 2003 - 2007) . . . I now own a 23 seacraft.

[Terry England]

Denny, The boat on the left may be the MFG Lapstrake version of the V-20 hull. Both look to have outboards and not sterndrives. I don't think Don Aronow or Jim Winn we producing Formulas, Donzis or Magnums in '61. I think they were drivers along with Bob Hewes. Dick Bertram was in the fray though, but never heard anything about him in the Bay of Pigs sourcing deal though.

LBJ's Gulf of Tonkin Resolution spured on Uniflight and T-Craft for riverine patrol boats. I think Boston Whaler is now built in the old T-Craft factory.

It was all a long time ago. I don't know why I remember stuff like this and can't find my truck keys!!!!

[Bushwacker]

Hey Terry,

I agree, the boats involved in the invasion were definitely outboards. I don't think the SeaCraft 21's for the government were built till about 1965 or so. As for the competition boats in the trials, don't really know what they might have been. However, I believe Carl started racing the 21 almost right away in the early 60's, and I think Don Aronow and Dick Bertram were some of his competitors. And yes, I have trouble keeping track of my truck keys too!

[Bigshrimpin]

In the book they have a few pages where they talk about the v20.

[Islandtrader]

Originally Posted by Bushwacker

Hey Terry,

And yes, I have trouble keeping track of my truck keys too!

The Memory is the Second T H I N G to GO!

[Fr. Frank]

...and then Carl built the 27' Seavette for "The Company" in the late 60's, about the time Bill Potter came on board, with twin sterndrive power.

I love the story he told of the govt. weinies mounting an M67 recoiless rifle inside the cabin of the boat with the tube exiting the bow. He said the pressure from the gas expansion from firing inside the cabin literally separated the cap from the hull!

I think the C.I.A. then abandoned the recoiless rifle interior mount idea.

[jtharmo]

This thread is a few years old so I don’t think this is high jacking anymore. With the customer base my company has occasionally I meet some people with shadowy pasts. You never get anything directly and sometimes are even told not to ask. I always wonder if any of them had knowledge of or experience with CIA SeaCrafts. Had a little time to see what I can find. Congress past a resolution to show more transparency regarding US covert operations more then 25 years in the past. It took a few decades to agree on the right level of transparency. The links below mention specifically the use of CIA SeaCrafts in the Congo and Indonesia. If anyone is really bored or interested, the official reports are 800-900 pages long. The first link is a pdf summarizing from resolution to final report of operations in the Congo (pg 6 for SeaCraft mention). The 2nd are search results on the US Office of the Historian site, responsible for creating the reports. Thought you guys would find this interesting.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...-12Sep2014.pdf

https://history.state.gov/search?q=Seacraft