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Please read through the coments for gathering updates. Trailorboat trailers gathering May 10th through 12th 2012 at the Petaluma CA KOA campground and San Rafael for a car show and visit to the old Trailorboat factory site. I have family members of the founders of Trailorboat and former factory workers ready to meet us Friday evening for a potluck dinner at the KOA. I am sure there will be lots of stories to be shared. Saturday those interested will be showing their trailers in downtown San Rafael's May Madness car show. I am sure that we will get lots of attention with the trailers at the show. Last year prior to the reunion at McNears beach several of us stayed at this KOA and enjoyed the stay. The KOA has lots of amenities and nice level shaded camp sites. I have reserved a block of tent camp sites which they are allowing us to put our trailers in. There is a "Kamp Kitchen" nearby with 3 sinks and 3 electric stove tops. The camp sites have barbecues and fire rings if you want to cook in a dutch oven with briquettes. The KOA is just a couple of miles from town and there is a small store on site. If you would like to attend the reunion and your trailer is not ready or your not into camping with your trailer, the KOA does also rent rustic "Kabins". In the Trailorboat Reunion photos section of our web site there is 1 photo of the KOA camping area. A San Francisco tour is available and leaves from the KOA. Not much info on the tour on the web site. Several of us did this tour during the reunion trip and I highly recommend it and likely will do it again on this coming trip. I have a brochure I have scanned and can email if you want more info. Itinerary: Thursday arrive and set up camp, open dinner. Friday: day is open, potluck dinner, with Trailorboat guests at camp site. Saturday: car show in downtown San Rafael and old factory site visit. Open dinner. Sunday: Say good byes to newly made Trailorboat friends. I have reserved camp sites at the Petaluma CA KOA under the group "Trailorboat". You can not book on line and get the group discount. Call the camp ground direct at 800 992 CAMP to reserve your spot and mention you are with the Trailorboat group. I have sites 113 to 122 booked and when these fill I will book another block. You can check out the web site for details of what the KOA has to offer, but please call for reservations. Registration for the May Madness car show in San Rafael will not open until after the first of the year and you must pre register to attend. There is no fee for the reunion, just the camp ground and car show costs. It would be helpful to me if you would please email me if you plan on attending and I will be doing email updates such as when the May Madness car show registration opens. Please share this info with other Trailorboat owners as there are not many of us around. Thanks and hope to see you in May. Dan Morley trailorboat@yahoo.com | OK I am thinking about doing it again. I know that some of you missed out on this years reunion and the web site has really slowed down since the reunion ended. Here's what I have so far. The Downtown San Rafael May Madness car show is Saturday May 12th. The KOA in Petaluma is available, no Boy Scout jamboree. I am proposing Thursday May 10th thru Saturday May 12th camping at the KOA. Caravaning Saturday morning to San Rafael for the car show. At least a group dinner Friday night at the KOA. I should be able to get some Trailorboat family members to attend and share stories again. I have been checking and rechecking to be sure that there will not be any interruptions such as the date change last reunion and it's all looking good. So before going "official" I am requesting feed back from you guys.to get things started, we can fine tune things as we go. Those of you that did spend time at the KOA this year I am sure would agree that it was ideal for our needs. Any thoughts or comments are welcome, show me some interest and I'll make it work again. Don't make reservations or anything yet, just let me know your feelings and if there is interest I'll get things going soon. Thanks Dan trailorboat@yahoo.com This is really a trailerboat, http://www.sealander.de/ The web site is in German, but you can look at the pictures and watch the video. I found the text below off another site.
Premiere: Amphibious Caravan at CARAVAN SALON 2011
Many have dreamt of this: with the amphibious caravan “Sealander” to be launched at CARAVAN SALON 2011, the camping tour no longer ends at the shore but can easily be continued on the water. Because the innovative “swimming” caravan, which will be presented in an outdoor pool, can be used not only as a caravan trailer on shore but also be moved off-shore thanks to an outboard motor.
Since it uses a low-emission 5 HP electric motor the Sealander is permitted to navigate on many inland waterways. The motor is powered by an accumulator, which also doubles for power supply in the vehicle interior and is conveniently charged by the tractor vehicle via recharge cable while driving. Clearly an asset: Sealander pilots need no additional driver’s licence – neither for driving the passenger vehicle nor for boating. In both cases a B class driving permit is sufficient. The innovative vehicle convinces us not only with its meticulous finish and use of high-quality materials but also with its dynamic, independent design.
All gone! Dan & Cyndy Imming | Due to unforeseen circumstances the dates and details of the Trailorboat trailer 50th anniversary and reunion have changed. The new dates are Friday May 6th and Saturday May 7th 2011 and we will be camping by permit at McNears Beach Park in San Rafael, CA. This is a beautiful day use only county park with a long fishing pier. I have obtained a special use permit for the 2 nights of overnight camping. The swimming pool will not be open, but we will have use of the pool showers and bathrooms. Friday evening we will have a group dinner at the camp site. There will be several members of Trailorboat founders family present at the dinner to share stories with us. Also there may be former factory workers present. Saturday May 7th we will be showing our trailers in the downtown San Rafael car show. You must register your trailer in advance to be in the show. See car show registration link below. If you wish to attend the reunion you must email me at trailorboat@yahoo.com to reserve a spot at McNears Beach park. The cost will be $100 for the 2 nights camping at McNears Beach and the Friday night dinner. Payment is requested in advance. San Rafael May Maddness car show link, we will not be doing the parade, but will have front row seats to watch Please register your trailer and if you will have a classic tow rig provide details on back of the form. You only have to pay one registration fee. . Several of us will be staying at the Petaluma KOA and taking a San Francisco tour prior to the McNears beach camping. I urge all of you to consider this as part of your trip. We will caravan Friday morning to McNears Beach. I have changed the group reservation there to Wednesday May 4th and Thursday May 5th. Those of you that have made reservations for the original dates at the KOA need to call and change the dates. Here is the KOA booking info: I have reserved camp sites at the Petaluma CA KOA under the group "Trailorboat". You can not book on line and get the group discount. Call the camp ground direct at 800 992 CAMP to reserve your spot and mention you are with the Trailorboat group. I have sites 113 to 122 reserved and if these fill I will book another block. You can check out the web site for details of what the KOA has to offer, but please call for reservations. Since many are coming from out of state and do not get to the bay area often I am recommending the San Francisco tour offered by the KOA. The tour is in an airport shuttle type bus and run by the KOA. I am looking forward to the San Francisco tour and hope some of you will be interested as well. If you are interested in the San Francisco tour on Thursday May 5th please call the KOA at 8reserveCAMP and reserve your spots. Here is the KOA tour info: We do have an all-day guided tour of San Francisco that leaves from our campground at 9am and returns around 5:30pm. It includes most of the main sights of San Francisco, such as Haight Ashbury, The Presidio, Golden Gate Park, Lombard Street, and opportunities to walk on the Golden Gate Bridge, shop in China Town, see the Japanese Tea Garden and have lunch at Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. It is a great way to see the sights without getting lost or worrying about parking! The cost for the tour is $69.95 for adults and $39.95 for kids. I believe the only thing that may have changed from the brochure you have is that we may not be able to the Cable Car rides this year due to construction/maintenance work on them. Unfortunately, right now they are scheduled to be shut down during that time. We have two tour buses that hold 23 and 27 people comfortably. This will be a unique opportunity to meet other Trailorboat trailer owners and see other trailers. Please help spread the word to other Trailorboat owners. Thanks | | Decided to forego producing these vinyl decals in favor of waiting for someone else to reproduce the plastic badges. Where do I send my deposit to hold a pair of repop badges? There are scattered blog entries from members in a number of different places about their plans to attend the 50th Anniversary Reunion in San Rafael CA in May, 2011. As a way to organize this information, I've started a blog entry on my personal site: Points To Ponder - 8.0 - 50th Reunion that will gather all this input and hopefully distill it into a useful format. If you're even thinking about attending the Reunion, please enter as much information about your plans as you feel comfortable sharing BELOW - in THIS blog. I'll update my personal site as comments are posted here. Some information that might be included in your comment could include where you're leaving from, your planned route, dates of travel, overnight stops, attending the car show, departure plans after the Reunion, do you want to "hook up" with other attendees and caravan to and/or from San Rafael, etc. Absolutely NO obligations if plans change; this is supposed to be FUN! Dan Imming By Rob "the ToonMan" Butler When I grew up, I was surrounded by old cars. My parents had nothing newer than me. Chevy Trucks, Nova’s, a Ford Galaxie, all made before I was born. As I grew up and became interested in cars, the old car bug was already set in me. My parents still had older cars, which I thought was cool. I knew I would join the party. It was the early 80’s when I bought my first truck, a 50 Ford with a Flathead V8. I was the only kid at my High school running a flathead! After a while I sold it and bought the 56 Chevy Cameo that I still have today. As I got older I had added a few other old Chevys to the mix including a 58 Cameo and a 56 Chevy Panel truck. With them, it began to seem like I needed to have more of a driver and didn’t want to drive a Cameo daily, I stepped up to what I considered a ‘new’ rig, a 77 GMC Blazer. This was the early 90’s and with the perspective I have had in my head, it was new. I never really thought of it as an old truck. Skipping ahead almost 20 years, my daily driver is now a 91 GMC Jimmy. With comfort, power everything, fuel injection, and the fact that it is in great shape, I really thought I was driving a new truck. Again to my mindset, it is a new truck. However that thought changed when my daughter, now 18, made a comment about “The old truck I drive.” That is when it hit me. It was made before she was born, like the cars my parents had that were old cars to me, this was an old car to her. That fact really made me think. Where I had looked at a 62 Chevy II with its classic lines, and thought that is a cool old car, how could my daughter feel that way about my Jimmy? I don’t think she can. To her it may be old, but classic? I just can’t see that. I know it has to be my age, and the direction that cars and trucks have gone in, but it feels strange. When it comes down to it, if the Jimmy looks old to her, how does she see my 56 Chevy wagon? The valiant effort to collect and archive the remaining Trailorboat Rolling Cottage Vehicle Identification Number(s) (or serial numbers if you prefer) has become a bit disjointed in the Blog entry titled, "Trailorboat Weight". In an effort to organize all of the information gleaned to date, I have assembled a chronological display of all existing Rolling Cottages I am aware of. The photos and known data can be viewed on my site at: http://1963tboat.multiply.com/photos Click on the first collection of photos there. I hope you'll take a few moments and review what we've collected to date and help "fill in the blanks" where applicable. If anyone DOES NOT want the information I've found in the public domain to be associated with their Rolling Cottage photo, please advise me. Thanks and enjoy! Dan Imming Finally took the Trailorboat to get weighed last week. Was full of my camping gear from a bus show. Weighed on United Van Lines certified scale. Fully loaded weight 1000 pounds ( and this is with no boat on top). Took home and empted out and reweighed. Left spare and afew tools in (about 25 pounds) total weight 625 pounds, (375 pounds of camping gear) again this is without a boat. So I'm thinking the boat must weigh at least 125 pounds so this puts the total at around 725 at least (less the 25 pounds for my spare and my tools), alot more than the 600 pounds I have read about. Has anyone else weighed their Trailorboat?? Also anyone come up with a Vin# besides me??? Since it seems no one cares about Vin#'s, maybe some will be interested in the new boats coming off the molds in Portland. 1st boat done (have seen the pics and it looks great), and my boat is 2nd out. It's in the mold now and should be done in a week. Paul has done a GREAT job on the boats. Think it would be real interesting if we could all list the year and vin numbers for our Trailorboats. Here's mine: year 1964, vin 105 verified by stamping on trailor frame and 1970 Calif. title. I left June 23rd and returned June 31st on a 2,000 mile road trip with my 1951 Chevy 2 ton flatbed truck and my 1961 Trailorboat on back of the truck. The main purpose of the trip was to attend a large 3 day national antique truck show at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton CA. Since Pleasanton is only 50 miles from San Rafael it gave me an opportunity to visit the old Trailorboat factory site and meet with a family member of one of the company founders. The 3rd part of the trip was a stop on my return trip home on Sunday afternoon to spend the last night at the local teardrop trailer club's annual Memorial Day weekend camp-out. Rough roads on the way down shook the trailer quit a bit and was a concern, but it held up OK. I was worried about the same on the return trip, but the different route home yielded smoother roads. I was on the road for 8 nights and camped in the trailer 6 nights. While in the San Rafael area I checked out 4 campgrounds as possible sites for the 50th reunion in 2011. I will post a reunion update in the next several weeks. The Trailorboat trailer got lots of attention at the truck show and I met another Trailorboat owner at the show. He did not have his Trailorboat at the show, but there are pictures of his turquoise and white Chevy pick up and trailer previously posted to this site. I have posted pictures of my trip to this site including pictures of the old Trailorboat factory buildings as they are today. The show room and office building is vacant. The buildings where the boats and trailers were made appear to be used for light manufacturing and storage,
Dan Morley Can someone send me the measurements and hole location for the 4 wooden blocks that help center the boat on the trailor top. I have the 4 og screws and washers and need to make the blocks as it looks like Paul will have my boat done by the end of June. Hello Trailerboat owners I sent the below message out to many of my vintage trailer clubs and wanted to include the Trailerboat owners because this event will be held on Lake Seminole in Florida.....Would love to see at least one or two Trailerboat owners attend at this all makes,all models,all size vintage trailer camp-out.....If you think you might be interested please read below. ......thanks Gator Ron December Vintage Trailer Florida Camp-out @ Three River State Park The number of campsites booked just jumped to eight leaving just 18 left and a good number of them will be booked this weekend making this camp-out one of the fastest selling events for the USAVTN's vintage trailer state clubs.
Join your camp hosts Donna & Jim Frederick of Florida as they enjoy the Christmas light show and camp-out December 9th 10th and 11th @ Three Rivers.
This camp-out will be vigorously promoted this weekend on many social networking sites in hopes to secure as many if not all the campsites for vintage trailers, so if your interested in attending, then please do book early. Also have been told that although Tree Rivers State park puts on a great display of Christmas lighting around the park our camp hosts encourages camp-out attendees to decorate their trailers and campsites...... What a great way to find that perfect photograph to enter in the USAVTN's second annual 2010 'Trim The Tin' contest also coming up in December, hopefully this year with some cool prizes and trophies..... More on this years 'Trim The Tin' contest coming to the 'U.S.A. Vintage Trailer Network' groups message board real soon.....Anyway, if your one of the ones that have booked a campsite for our Northwest Florida camp-out for December 9th, 10th and 11th @ 'Tree Rivers State Park' do give your camp hosts a shout out about your campsite numbers. Have a fun, and safe Memorial day weekend! .......Gator Ron USAVTN's rally promotions Florida Rally information web-page I have been contacted by Elaine, the daughter of one of the 3 founders of Trailorboat Engineering Company. She has provided a bit of the company history and a couple of photos and will be helping to provide more history and I hope more photos in the future. "Vic Lenci, who is my Dad, and my Uncle Ray Lenci and Ralph Cain started Trailorboat in 1947. The factory started out in a Quonset hut in the 600 block of Francisco Blvd. They moved after a few years. The location of the factory where your Trailorboat was manufactured is 923 Francisco Blvd in San Rafael. That was where the office and showroom were located. Behind that, fronting on Market Street, were the fiberglass and aluminum shops. When the company started they only manufactured aluminum boats. Sometime in the 50's they started making fiberglass runabouts, sail boats, racing boats, jet boats, fire boats and teardrops with the boats on top. I even remember the prototype for a jet ski many years ago. What a creative and innovative place. In the mid 60's the fiberglass company was sold to Dorsett boat company. When Dorsett when bankrupt they bought back the aluminum boat part of the company. They sold the aluminum company in 1977 to Eric Mathison, who changed the name of the company to Klamath after the best selling model. It looks like the company is still alive in Northern California and their boats now have open bows." I have contact a Dorsett boat club and one of the founders of that company is still alive and he will be asked about the Trailorboat purchase, this may take a few weeks for a reply. Also Elaine plans on being present at the Trailorboat 50th anniversary/reunion that I am planing for May of 2011. There will be other family members available as well, to share stories with us. This blog will be update as the history is unraveled, stay tuned............ I was contacted by John Howard of Arizona regarding the Trailorboat reunion I am planning. His Trailorboat has emblems on the sides that have Ephrata, Wash below the Trailorboat name. This is in place of the San Rafael, Calif normally seen. He has stated that the letters are raised like the San Rafael letters are. My first thought was that the trailer was sold by a dealer in Ephrata and that they had simply added their location, but the raised letters to me rules out that theory. Does anyone have any info regarding Trailorboats being built in Ephrata, Washington? Could production have moved in 1964 to Ephrata? Has anyone seen another Ephrata Trailorboat? It seems to be common knowledge that Trailorboats were made 1961 to 1963 in San Rafael. If anyone has any history on Trailorboats or may know a former employee please email me at trailorboat@yahoo.com I have posted a picture to this site. I am putting together a Trailorboat trailer 50th anniversary reunion for May 2011. It will be held in San Rafael, CA with us camping in a local campground starting on a Thursday and showing our trailers in San Rafael on Saturday in the May Madness car show. I am starting the planning a year and a half out to give time to get the word out and work out details. I will post the exact dates of the reunion as soon as I get confirmation of the date of the May Madness car show from the shows promoter who is excited to hear about us attending the show. I am in contact with family members of the founders of Trailorboat Engineering Company and they are looking forward to visiting with us and sharing family scrapbooks and stories. There also likely will be a former Trailorboat worker or 2 in attendance. I live in Washington state, but will be visiting San Rafael during May of 2010. I will be able to scout out campgrounds for the camp-out. I have created an email account for the event trailorboat@yahoo.com Email me to be added to my list for updates. This blog will be updated as details are finalized. Please help spread the word to other Trailorboat owners. |
