If you grew up boating in the 1950s, you probably found yourself afloat in one of the affordable wooden runabouts that were suddenly available everywhere. One of the iconic builders of this era was the Thompson Brothers Boat Manufacturing Company of Peshtigo, Wisconsin.
In 1955 Thompson had a full line of outboard-powered runabouts ranging from 12 to 16 feet in length. In 1957, Thompson introduced model names that would become familiar: Sea Skiff, Sea Coaster and Sea Lancer. By the early 1960s, larger models called Off-Shores also joined the list. The Off-Shores, as well as some Sea Lancers, were offered with inboard power and outboard drives. These drive trains were made by Volvo Penta, which brought the first sterndrives to market.
Thompson’s distinctive hulls were prized for their strength and rigidity, quick planing, dry ride and traditional appeal. Graceful lines were just part of that appeal, as were highly varnished hull and deck surfaces that pleased the eye. Foredeck and covering board surfaces were constructed with highly varnished Philippine mahogany plywood, but it was Thompson’s overall construction method that was a distinct trademark.
Virtually all of Thompson’s runabouts were of lapstrake design, with keels made of multiple white oak planks. Hull laps were made of five-ply, 13/32-inch-thick fir plywood faced on both sides with Philippine mahogany. The laps were fastened every two inches with small saltwater-resistant nuts and bolts. Hulls were fully ribbed inside, stem to stern, with 3/4-inch steam-bent white oak ribs mechanically fastened to the hull on 6-inch centers. Transoms were two or more layers of solid Philippine mahogany, cross laminated for strength.
In the 1950s the use of fiberglass by boat builders took off. It was used to sheath wooden boats and to create plastic replicas of well-known hulls. When consumers started looking for reduced maintenance—varnishing, in particular—some wooden boat builders were too slow to incorporate fiberglass models in their lineup. Not Thompson.
By 1966, Thompson had three fiberglass models, expanding to six models by 1971, but the line mostly featured mahogany decks. Thompson Boats, as the company was called in its latter years, never completed the transition to a full fiberglass lineup. The company suffered bankruptcy and closed its Peshtigo facility in 1980. A sister company, Cruisers, Inc. of Oconto, Wisconsin, which was started by another family member in 1951 as a division of Thompson, successfully made the jump from wood to fiberglass in its line of cabin cruisers. It survives to this day. —John Wooldridge
This article was originally published in the May 2023 issue.
