6/17/2008This is our boat Skippy V. She was built in 1969 by Tucker Marine in Cinncinnati. Skippy is 50 feet long, has a beam of 16ft, draws 3.5 feet, and is powered by twin 130 Perkins Diesel engines.
We live on Skippy and have traveled for over 5000 miles on her.
Vessel Name: SKIPPY V
USCG Doc. No.: 518564
Vessel Service: RECREATIONAL
IMO Number: *
Trade Indicator: Recreational
Call Sign: WY6851
Hull Material: ALUMINUM
Hull Number: 69216
Shipyardand Address: TUCKER MARINE INC*
Year Built: 1969
Hullyardand Address: *CINCINNATI OH
Length (ft.): 50
Hailing Port: WILMINGTON
Hull Depth (ft.): 6
Owner: CHUCK HOUSE 194 RAINBOW DR; LIVINGSTON, TX 77399-1094
Hull Breadth (ft.): 14.7
Gross Tonnage: 47
Net Tonnage: 38
Documentation Issuance Date: August 05, 2004
Documentation Expiration Date: July 31, 2005
Previous Vessel Names:
No Vessel Name Changes
Previous Vessel Owners:
CARSE G MANNING
My Tucker
Sometimes you just get lucky. I consider the day we found our Tucker Houseboat to be one of those lucky occasions. My husband and I were on the verge of retirement, living temporarily in Michigan where we had been transferred from our home in Alaska. We had been looking forward to and planning this retirement for many years, but as the day approached, we realized that we still didn’t know what we were going to do. The thought of moving back to Alaska was becoming less appealing, and the idea of a life without snow and cold was becoming more and more attractive.
One day, out of the blue, the idea of moving aboard a boat and traveling around the South for a few years occurred to me. I think I might have heard about someone else doing this, or read some article somewhere. I don’t really know. I mentioned it to my husband, Chuck, and he, though startled by this extreme change of plans, didn’t take long to say that he thought it a very interesting idea.
We developed a dream: We’d buy a boat, cruise the Mississippi and it’s tributaries, spend the winter near New Orleans and the summer in the North. The boat we’d buy would be big enough to live on full time; have all the amenities, including a home theater and computer room; enough deck space for a small garden and exercise equipment. We’d have a place for all our relatives to sleep aboard. It would have a gourmet kitchen, twin diesel engines, thrusters, and walk around decks. It would be beautiful, nearly new, in perfect condition, and seaworthy from day one. Oh, and yes, we would buy it next week with our spare change.
We became boat hunters. “Lady, there ain’t such a boat”. We read, prowled docks, visited showrooms, researched on the Internet, bought boat magazines; and generally set about informing ourselves about boats. To say that we were novice boaters is an understatement. We’d had a canoe and Jon boat we used occasionally in Alaska. Chuck in his single years had lived briefly onboard a houseboat that never moved. That was the total sum of our boat knowledge. We had a lot to learn.
As part of our self-education process we attended Trawler Fest in Muskegon, Michigan. There we completely dropped the idea of going to New Orleans by boat; after we learned that the lower Mississippi lacks facilities, is uncontrolled below Alton, and is congested with commercial traffic. However, our eyes were opened to a new and even more exciting possibility: The Great Loop. Why stop at New Orleans when you can circumnavigate the entire eastern part of the United States? Why winter in Louisiana when you can winter in Florida? We had no idea that one could boat from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi via the Illinois River; we had no knowledge of Tenn-Tom waterway from the Ohio River to Mobile Bay. We had never heard of the ICW, The Intracoastal Waterway. With this information we were able to firm up our boating goals and better establish priorities for our boat: We needed a boat that could do The Great Loop.
I asked around, “What kind of boat do we need?” One universal answer I received was, “Don’t get a houseboat for that trip. No, houseboat can do that.” There were exceptions, but they were few and far between. No one mentioned Tucker.
The books said, “Get a Trawler”. We dutifully looked at Trawlers. Sure they are handsome boats, yes they are seaworthy, and they are pretty roomy. I supposed they’re economical to operate. Call me contrary, but I didn’t like Trawlers all that well. At that time the price seemed very high, they seemed dark and lacked windows to look at the passing scenery, the side decks seemed narrow and difficult to negotiate in a hurry, they didn’t seem all that roomy to me, and there was all that teak to take care of. It seemed that there was a lot of being exposed to the elements while traveling on a Trawler. I thought we could do better, if we just looked a little harder.
So look a little harder was what we did. First we limited our boat wish list to the essentials: wide walk around decks that would make locking and docking easy for me, fairly shallow draft, a height that would make it under certain non-opening bridges, and twin diesels. Fifty feet was the approximate length we’d settled on. We didn’t want a boat too old or too pricey, but above all we wanted a safe boat. We traveled to Maryland, and Minnesota. We took a whirlwind weeklong trip to nine midwestern states to look at the boats I’d found that we thought might suit us. On the last day of this trip, travel weary and mind boggled from talking to boat brokers about the virtues of each Chris Craft, Jefferson, Three Buoys, or whatever, we just about passed up the final selection. It was a bit out of our way, it was an ill-advised houseboat, I hadn’t been able to contact the person who was selling it, and built in 1979, it was a little too old. Beside that, it was a Tucker, and who ever heard of a Tucker.
Chuck convinced me to look at one more. After we arrived in Paris, Tennessee, I again attempted to contact the estate attorney handling the disposition of Skippy V for his client. Oh yes, he’d call us right back. We waited, we had lunch, and we waited some more. The day was being wasted waiting for the attorney to call us back, so we took matters into our own hands and half-heartedly went looking for the boat. One thing I’d learned about boats by that time is that they usually are on the water. So we headed for the nearest water – Kentucky Lake, Paris Landing. We walked into the marina and showed a copy of the Internet ad to the lady at the desk. “Do you know this boat?” It’s over on A dock, came her immediate reply. What Luck! We actually found it! Her participation did not end there. She contacted the heir and got permission for us to look at the boat, gave us his name and number, and talked on and on about what a wonderful old boat it is. In fact, person after person we talked to that day unsolicitedly repeated the theme: Skippy is a great boat. “It is cute” I had to admit.
We took pictures, did some measurements, did our walk-through, and headed back to Michigan. We weighed the pros and cons of each boat and made our “top three list”. Skippy barely made number two. She was just too old. A week later the offer we made on our first choice was turned down. So, we had to take another harder look at the old Tucker. We called the heir and told him we were interested, by this time he was pretty fed up with the attorney’s inability to sell the boat, so he offered the boat at a much-reduced price. This made the old Tucker much more feasible, so we accepted the offer pending engine and general surveys.
We were pleasantly surprised at the results of these surveys and the quality of boat we had found. The surveyor compared her to the Pluckebaum, a boat we knew was of very good quality. We learned that we were purchasing a massive all aluminum boat, with protected shafts, a modified V hull, large water and fuel reserves, a generator that would practically light a town, and economical Perkins 130 Diesel engines. Skippy V was a houseboat, but she was a Tucker built houseboat!
There were some minor repairs that needed to be made before our insurance company would cover the boat, but these were quickly and easily done. While she was out of the water we did a lot of modernizing cosmetic work and added state-of-the-art electronics to bring her into the 21st Century. We took Safe Boating Courses and learned all we could about handling her. We renewed her documentation. This proved interesting because during the process we learned that Skippy was built in 1969, not 1979. Had we known her actual age, we would never have considered buying this boat. Have I mentioned that sometimes luck is just plain dumb luck?
While Skippy was in the boatyard for upgrades a tornado went directly through the yard, Boat after boat toppled from their jack-stands, much as dominos fall from one to another. They continued falling until the reaction reached Skippy, because of her size and quality construction she stopped the domino effect and prevented boats down the line from becoming piles of rubbish. Our Tucker boat, Skippy V is a heroine. She sustained only a dented rail from the boat that fell on her.
June 1st was the second anniversary of our move aboard Skippy. We put 5000 miles on her in a year and a half; have been docked on the St. John's River since December. We are experiencing summer in Florida.
We finally left Paris Landing in mid-October 2003, headed down the Tenn-Tom. We crossed Mobile Bay, then followed the ICW across the panhandle of Florida, crossed the Gulf of Mexico in short hops, continued down the West coast to Tampa Bay and laid-over in Bradenton that Winter. In the Spring we migrated north to Annapolis for the Summer, then back to Florida for the second Winter.
We've had many wonderful and beautiful experiences, a few scary moments, and a couple of horrible dockings to tell tales about. All in all it's been great and we both still enjoy living aboard Skippy.
What a learning experience for new boaters. We've been on rivers, creeks, the Gulf of Mexico, Tampa Bay, the Atlantic (for a little bit), crossed inlets, and Chesapeake Bay. We've been in fresh water, salt water, brackish water, clear water, and black water. We've done dozens of locks and docked in every conceivable fashion in so many different marinas that I've lost count. We now know about tides, winds, waves, currents, and weather patterns. I can tie a bowline and handle lines. Shoot I can even spring the boat off. My captain is very good docking this big boat, and I hardly get nervous when he's doing it anymore.
While doing all this traveling we had many occasions to travel with and observe other boats. We watched mates dash up, down, and through their boats to tie up at locks and docks, while we worked lines and fenders easily from Skippy’s wide walk-around side decks with study rails. In somewhat rough water we watched other boats roll and pitch, while our 16ft beamed Tucker rode flat and smooth. When traversing shallow water, such as the Dismal Canal, we sympathized with Hatteras captains who were touching bottom, not so on Skippy. With a draft of only 3.5 ft, she never had that problem. When other boaters needed fuel, we traveled right on past the pump; our range and efficient engines never demanded an emergency fuel up. We suffered with other boaters as they put on foul weather gear and winter coats to pilot from their fly bridge in adverse weather, while we could chose to be warm and comfortable in our enclosed pilothouse with 360-degree visibility. We agonized with one couple being attacked by hoards of biting flies, while we were safely screened in. Our Portuguese windows at the helm provide enough protection from glare and rain that we’ve been able to spot crab pots others strained to see. We’ve manned lines of other boaters. that awkwardly at times, must back their boats into docks because there was no other way off the boat. We always dock Skippy in bow first – we can get off from the side, either fore or aft. We fish, while others sand and re-varnish their teak. We’ve seen houseboats blown sidewise in the wind, while Skippy tracks perfectly in both wind and current. They say that no boat is perfect, but I believe that this old Tucker houseboat is as close at it gets.
Others seem to think so too. We get so many compliments on the appearance and substantial presence of this Tucker that it sometimes gets embarrassing. Some people think she is new, most people know she’s unusual. One called her “an ocean-going houseboat”. Another offered to buy her from under us, while at a lock. Many think she is a Trawler. One captain was hesitant to travel with a houseboat, that is until he looked into our engine room and saw the quality construction and material she has incorporated into her. We’ve actually been called the best boat on the St. John’s River. While that may be going a bit far, we agreed. Many times we’ve taken to calling Skippy a “coastal cruiser”, because houseboat doesn’t begin to define her.
A word of caution must be offered here. While we have gone with Skippy to many places and under many conditions, we have always paid the strictest of attention to boating factors and decided to not go on many occasions. This is true with most of the boaters we’ve cruised with, too. But it must be said that if there is too much wind, predicted storms, terribly strong currents or waves, we stay at the dock. Not that Skippy wouldn’t take it necessarily, but I know I wouldn’t like it – and why take a chance.
Recently I’ve become interested in researching Tucker boats, especially mine. Now I want to know who else has owned her. I’d like to prove or disprove some of the dock rumors I heard while at Kentucky Landing. Was she really built for a Steel Company President? Was she named for the wife of a St. Louis doctor? Was she built as the result of a poker bet? Has she been to the Bahamas? Who knows? I dream of a Tucker boat reunion and would make every effort to attend, if only to find the answers to my questions.
Obviously I’m proud of my boat and that’s why I consider the day we found her, one of the luckiest days of my life. Anyone who has the chance to own a Tucker, would no doubt find themselves just as lucky.
