Hello!

[Garry Painter]

Good morning everyone,

I stopped by to mention that I maintain the Burchcraft website, and since around 1990, have picked up, and still own, 4 of the boats.

1945 & 1947 Standard Fisherman
1956 Big Fisherman
1949 16 ft Deep Water Cabin Cruiser

My website has no advertising. I put it together, as there appeared to be no information regarding the boats anywhere on the web. It got started after one of the Burch family members contacted me when I mentioned on my "Me and my dog" type website, that I owned a 1945 Burchcraft. Since then, I've gathered a lot of information. I even made a trip to Aberdeen to visit the original site, and the library. The Burch family was so impressed with the information I gathered that they invited me to Hiram Burch's 90th birthday party, where I doubled the amount of information.

Unfortunately, I'd rather be in my boat and at the beach and hang out with my friends than work on my website, so it hasn't been updated in about 7 years. (time flies when you're having too much fun)

ps. Hiram's first name was actually Henry. I think. I'm getting kind of senile.
pps. I could go on all day, but I know how we are.

ppps. OMG! You folks have a lot of smilies. One can never have enough smilies. I think I like this place.

[Bflaherty]

Welcome to our forum!! This is our little peace of online heaven.

Would love to see some pictures of your boats here on the forums. It always helps to attract more folks looking for info on rarer boat types.

[Garry Painter]

Welcome to our forum!! This is our little peace of online heaven.

Would love to see some pictures of your boats here on the forums. It always helps to attract more folks looking for info on rarer boat types.

Since I'm new here, and have not a clue what I'm doing, is there a best place to post pictures?

[Bflaherty]

You can just post them to this introduction forum or wait until after the weekend when the new server comes online and perhaps we will have our full photo gallery back.

[Garry Painter]

You can just post them to this introduction forum or wait until after the weekend when the new server comes online and perhaps we will have our full photo gallery back.

Ok.

This was my first one.
A 1945 14' Standard Fisherman.
It was painted battleship grey when I got her, so I kept with that theme.
This picture was taken in 1990.

Over the years, I kind of ruined it, and had to completely restore her.
She ended up all wood.
2003:

On April 23, 2006, a little after noon, a big ship(60,000 tons) sailed by another big ship, on the Columbia river, and the wave kind of wrecked her:

You had to be there. It was incredible. My boat was carried 1/4 mile UPRIVER!
It took me months to find all of the wreckage. I found her battery 1/2 mile upriver 3 months later.
I was working full time, so I drove to Spokane, and got her twin:

Two years newer. 1947.
Yay!

1956 14' Big Fisherman.
The motor is a 1960 Mercury 350.


1949 16' Cabin Cruiser.
This photo was taken in 1985 by the previous owner.
I purchased her in 2005.

She does not look like this anymore.

[Helmar]

Welcome Garry.
We have a post that we are about to upgrade our website again.
Lots of things will be changing and one, make sure you used the correct email as once the new system goes on line, you will have to ask the system for a new, temporary password. Then just reset it back to whatever you want.
Even the Admin is not allowed to find then for security reasons.

What is that last boat, the cabin one ?

I almost lost two different boats (go fasters) on the Columbia not watching the barge and tug going up stream so I know what you mean.

[Garry Painter]

...

What is that last boat, the cabin one ?

All the boats I've listed are Burchcrafts.

I almost lost two different boats (go fasters) on the Columbia not watching the barge and tug going up stream so I know what you mean.

These were not barges. This was the Hanjin Paris.
I think it may have been because Katrina had just destroyed New Orleans that the big ships were running up our river.
Kind of caught me off guard.
I'd been boating for 16 years, and had never seen such a vessel.

The wave was 10 feet tall, from washout to tip.

As I said, you had to be there.

[Helmar]

All the boats I've listed are Burchcrafts.

These were not barges. This was the Hanjin Paris.
I think it may have been because Katrina had just destroyed New Orleans that the big ships were running up our river.
Kind of caught me off guard.
I'd been boating for 16 years, and had never seen such a vessel.

The wave was 10 feet tall, from washout to tip.

As I said, you had to be there.

Wow, how far up river ? Not much past Portland that I can think of that could moor a big ship like that.
I remember Sundial had some pretty good size ones they would work on as they had a dry dock.

[Garry Painter]

Wow, how far up river ? Not much past Portland that I can think of that could moor a big ship like that.
I remember Sundial had some pretty good size ones they would work on as they had a dry dock.

We were anchored about 10 miles down river from where the Columbia and Willamette meet.
A similar incident happened about a year later a bit further downriver.
A Longview paper wrote an article about it:

Huge wave hits Willow Grove
By Tony Lystra
Feb 19, 2007 - 11:34:25 pm PST

Everything was in its place when Bertha Huntington went to bed Sunday night.

But on Monday morning she found that her fishing shack had been tossed at least 60 feet up the shoreline. An outhouse had been moved and toppled. Her powerboat, also hauled up the beach, was tipped over.

Huntington, 85, and her Willow Grove neighbors believe a shipping vessel cruised up the Columbia River far too fast early Monday morning. The speed, they suspect, coupled with a high tide, launched a freak wave that sacked the bank.

"It's definitely a unique situation," said Troy Brightbill, a Cowlitz County Sheriff's Deputy who checked out the damage Monday morning. "This is the first of anything like this I've heard of." Brightbill said he planned to contact the Coast Guard later in the day. Coast Guard officials could not be reached by the newspaper Monday morning.

Huntington-Kearns walked along the ramshackle beachfront Monday afternoon, searching for any clue as to what had happened. She announced to her mother that she had spotted freshly uprooted grass dangling 3 feet above the ground in the branches of a poplar tree.

Sharon McKee, who lives a few houses away from Huntington, said she heard "kind of a roar" around 4:30 a.m. and spotted a ship's light through the window.

"It had to have been traveling very fast," she said. "It sounded like a tsunami."

When McKee spotted the debris-strewn shoreline from her living room after sunrise, she said, "I couldn't even believe it. It was unreal."

The wave carved swirling paths along the silty beach. It crushed and twisted Huntington's metal fire pit. It pitched giant logs, shoes, plastic chairs, a jet ski. It even picked up a foam-filled concrete buoy --- about the size of pickup --- and launched it ashore.

"Can you imagine what force brought that in?" Huntington said.

I can.

Until you've witnessed this first hand, you will not believe it is possible.

[GregJ]

Garry, Welcome, Thanks for the cool post. One of the biggest problems boaters have are other boaters that don't pay any attention to there wake. I think the scariest for me was a 30 foot boat going through the Montlake way over the 8mph limit. Huge wake and very little room to maneuver. I don't know how but I managed to stay in the cut and not up on the sidewalk. I did notice the boat at the Seattle Police impound dock on Lake Union sometime later.

[Helmar]

On the Columbia river, you need a Bar Pilot to bring you over the Bar.
Then you have the Columbia River Pilots that bring the ships up the river.
No ship pilots are allowed to pilot there own ships up due to the river changing all the time.
That would have been caused by one of the Columbia River Pilots.
I knew one of them as he was a customer of mine. I went with him one time and One time only from Portland down to Astoria were the Bar pilot came aboard a rope ladder. We had to climb Down that rope ladder and it was not a nice day either. Wind and rain and it was all I could do to crawl over the side and down too !!
That boat zig zag'ed all over going down the river.
I heard stories were they would be coming up the river and having to crank hard to port or starboard and the rudder hanging up.
I was blown away as much changing course and speed, (slow to slower).

[Karl]

I know a neat old guy here in town (Aberdeen) who worked at Burchcraft for several years. He told me a story how he and his girlfriend took a trip up to Bellingham and he toured the bellboy plant. After touring the bellboy plant, he realized that he wasn't going to have a job for much longer working at Burchcraft. He told the owner of Burchcraft about it and the owner said no, that fiberglass was just a fad. Famous last words!

If you would like, I can try and see if he would like to talk with you?

[Garry Painter]

I know a neat old guy here in town (Aberdeen) who worked at Burchcraft for several years. He told me a story how he and his girlfriend took a trip up to Bellingham and he toured the bellboy plant. After touring the bellboy plant, he realized that he wasn't going to have a job for much longer working at Burchcraft. He told the owner of Burchcraft about it and the owner said no, that fiberglass was just a fad. Famous last words!

If you would like, I can try and see if he would like to talk with you?

He must be really old, as the company closed down around 1960, about the time I was born.
The story I got from Henry Burch, on his 90th birthday, was that he was allergic to the epoxies involved with making fiberglass boats. So, although they made a couple of glass boats, the fumes ixnayed the idea of continuing the business.

ps. Now that I'm retired, I think I might go into the boat manufacturing business.

A little plaque on my cabin cruiser.

I've only ever owned 5 boats. They are all wood. Fiberglass is just too easy.