THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 15, 1994 TAG: 9410140075
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Long : 131 lines
DREAM BOATS come no sweeter than Terry Fiest's 1955 Chris-Craft Cobra.
At 40 mph, the speedboat streaks across the water, droplets sparkling on the gleaming hull like beads of crystal-clear sugar clinging to a wedge of mahogany cake.
The Cobra is a speedster from the past with a golden shark-like fin rising in the back and on the bow glossy bands of pure white paint like stripes of confectionary icing.
Only 108 Cobras were manufactured by Chris-Craft. Only a handful are still in use, and none surpasses the appearance of Terry Fiest's beauty, which appears to be factory fresh - every inch of chromework on the wraparound windshield shining like a new dime.
You can see Fiest's Cobra and plenty of other classic boats like it this weekend at Town Point Park at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Festival and Classic Boat Show, sponsored by the Mariners' Museum and the Tidewater chapter of the Antique and Classic Boat Society.
Oddly, it was the Cobra's break with the classic design of Chris-Craft's wooden speedboats that has made it a very rare specimen. Fiest, a student of wooden inboards, spent three years renovating the boat in his garage in Yorktown and knows the vessel's history and bloodlines.
``Chris-Craft had made family speedboats until the Cobra,'' Fiest said. ``But the popularity of Chevrolet's Corvette convinced the boat builder that it needed something racier with the flair of a sports car.''
Distinguished by its speed, raised cowl and tail fin, the Cobra was a flashy model aimed at playboys instead of fathers.
``It's popular today because so many people of my generation remember it, even if they didn't own or ride in one,'' said Fiest, a retired U.S. Army officer and former chopper pilot. He has wanted to own a classic wooden inboard since he was a boy.,
``I was raised in Montana, and my dad took me fishing in an ordinary wooden boat on those huge crystal-clear lakes they have up there that are surrounded by tall pines,'' he recalled. ``I'd watch those gorgeous wooden Chris-Crafts go by. I always hoped to own one.''
Before his retirement, he had paid $650 for a 19-foot Century Resorter, a motorboat collapsing from rot. ``It was in terrible shape,'' he said. ``My family thought I was nuts to buy it.'' He proved to be handier with saws, planes and drills than his family imagined. A few years later, he sold the restored boat for more than $9,000.
``I had wanted a Cobra after reading up on the history of Chris-Craft boats,'' Fiest explained. ``I knew how rare it was. And that's the boat I wanted.''
Luck led him to the Cobra.
Before selling the Resorter, he had taken his family for a spin in it on the Chickahominy River. A man who saw him trailering the handsomely restored craft asked if he'd like to see an interesting old boat.
``You bet,'' Fiest said.
That encounter led him to a boat shed on a creek feeding the Chickahominy. There he found a 1955 Cobra with a rotting bottom and no windshield. The vessel looked as out of character as a Long Island debutante at a Tupperware party. It had been fiberglassed and painted white.
``The seats had been removed, and it had the wrong engine,'' Fiest remembered. ``But it was a Cobra.'' He asked to buy it, but the owner refused. However, Fiest acquired the vessel in 1986, after striking up a friendship with the owner.
The purchase price was $9,500.
``Today I'd have to pay $25,000 because of the boat's popularity,'' Fiest said.
For two years before beginning restoration, Fiest researched the specifications and history of his Cobra. ``Mine is an 18-foot model, and there were only 52 of them,'' he said. ``There were 56 21-footers produced, a more expensive and faster boat.''
Gathering information about the Cobra became an obsession. A friend in Hyde Park, N.Y., who owned one photographed every square inch of the vessel and sent Fiest rolls of film. Then he learned that after Chris-Craft stopped producing wooden boats, the owning family had turned over all the wooden-boat records to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News.
There he was able to find a copy of the architectural renderings and specifications for all Cobras and the numbered hull card for his boat.
``From the hull card I was able to determine that the color of the upholstery was gold,'' he said.
Finding parts was a challenge, too. Fiest is a vice president of the Tidewater chapter of the Antique and Classic Boat Society. He says he got a lot of help locating parts by networking with other society members across the country. He found a Cobra engine - a 131-horsepower Hercules - in Jacksonville, Fla., along with a steering wheel from another Chris-Craft identical to the one originally installed on his boat. He learned that the horn button was the same as that used on a 1955 Plymouth, which he located in a junkyard in Anaconda, Mich.
``I worked on the Cobra at nights,'' he said. ``I missed a lot of television because of it. The toughest part was cutting and fitting the 60 planks in the bottom. That was demanding work. And overhauling the engine . .
His effort has been rewarded. The Cobra has been awarded first place honors at nearly a dozen boat shows and proudly displayed at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News. Fiest's boat appeared on the cover of Classic Boat Magazine in June 1993, and this August it won the best in class award at the Chris-Craft Jamboree in Clayton, N.Y.
He trailers the Cobra to boat shows behind a classic 1956 Ford panel truck, which sparkles as though it had rolled off the assembly line minutes earlier.
He's been offered $65,000 for his classic Chris-Craft.
``This Cobra's not for sale,'' he said in a convincing voice, admiring his proud reflection in the mirror-like surface produced by 18 coats of varnish. MEMO: FESTIVAL FACTS
What: Chesapeake Bay Maritime Festival and Classic Boat Show, held in
conjunction with the Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, which will bring
about 30 schooners across the finish line at Willoughby Bay before
docking on the Norfolk waterfront.
The featured attractions are classic and antique wooden boats.
Thirty-one boats, ranging from a 14-foot Chris-Craft runabout to a
36-foot deadrise Chesapeake workboat, can be seen either in the
Waterside Marina or Town Point Park. The display is sponsored by the
Mariners' Museum in Newport News and the Tidewater Chapter of the
Antique and Classic Boat Society.
When: Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
Other attractions:
Ten electric boats. Presented by the Electric Boat Association of the
Americas.
Model ships and model-ship making. Given by the Hampton Roads Ship
Model Society and Dan's Model Boatyard.
A collection of Moth boats.
Skiff building exhibit from the North Carolina Maritime Museum in
Beaufort, N.C.
An ecology exhibit by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
A collection of antique outboard engines.
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Art Show.
Also: scrimshaw and decoy carving demonstrations and nautical music
by Bay Traditions of St. Michaels, Md., and Hampton Roads' Bob Zentz. by CNB