✪ Builder Vic Frank ❖

Californian Gets Another Boat

The Seattle Times, 21 October 1968

L-R: Vic Franck, Ted Tate, George Carlson,
Bill Grandy, and Lynn Senour.
Dated 21 October 1968
Original from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

Ted Tate, president of Marlineer Marine, Pomona, CA, likes Seattle-built boats. So much so that he wouldn't stop getting them even when the boatyard burned down. 

       He merely changed boatyards.

      Over the years Tate had around 25 or 30 boats built by the Grandy Boat Co. They ranged from 32-ft to 60-ft. Tate has sold them in many parts of the world.

      Then, in August 1967, the Grandy plant was destroyed in a spectacular fire. Earl and Bill Grandy, the brothers in the company, decided not to rebuild.

      But Tate still wanted boats, and he wanted them from Seattle.

      So today another 60-ft is nearing completion for him, this one at Vic Franck's Boat Co, another yard specializing in fine pleasure craft. A 52-ft also is under construction for Tate.

      Three members of the team that used to build boats for Tate at the Grandy yard are still working on them.

      Lynn Senour, who designed the Grandy-built boats for Tate, designed those under construction at Vic Franck's. George Carlson, who worked for the Grandys, now works for Franck and is superintendent in charge of the present boats.

      And Bill Grandy is Tate's supervisor on the job, working, as he explains it, about an hour a day.

      The new 60-footer has four staterooms, three heads, and three showers.

      It carries 1,400 gallons of fuel and 400 gallons of water.

      There is a refrigerator in the galley and another in the bar. Together they provide 40-cubic space of refrigeration.

      The boat is triple screw.

      "This will make her very fast––maybe 26 or 28 knots,"  Tate said.

      And what will a boat like this sell for?

      "We don't know yet what it's going to cost. It will be upwards of a couple of hundred thousand dollars."