(Everett MacFarlane, honorary club member, sold the Otonabee III at the 2004 show, but it's still a beautiful vessel to share with our surfers)

The hull of this boat was built of aluminum in 1987 by a man in Kingston, Ontario. The design is of a 1900’s fantail launch popular in those early days. The project was to be a retirement one, but I never really retired so I decided to go at it and do it up! I bought an engine and boiler from a friend, and started the project. The engine is a Shipman Marine single cylinder double action (power on both up and down strokes of the piston), which develops about 3 HP. It needed a major rebuild (new valve and crankshaft). I had to make the parts, as the engine was made around 1900! The boiler was scraped and a new vertical fire tube unit was made. Both units were installed, the prop shaft and rudder was also added. The major woodwork was done by Dwight Boyd of Clarion Boats in Campbellford and finished by myself. The final day of launching arrived - four years ago, and to our amazement, everything worked!
Since then a canopy has been installed, and a water condenser was built and installed. Now the steam is condensed in a pipe running along the keel and returned to a ‘hot well’, then added to the boiler as needed.
It has been a fun project, a lot of work and head scratching to figure things out to make it work. In these days of high gasoline prices the burning of wood, and wood scraps for fuel looks pretty good!
She is named “Otonabee III”.
The first “Otonabee” was built in Keene, Ontario by Thomas Short in 1854 and offered daily trips between Keene and Harwood. The second “Otonabee” was formerly the “City of Peterborough”, rebuilt in 1907 and burned on Lake Simcoe around 1916. It seemed fitting to have an “Otonabee III”.