In the spring of 1945, a small Florida pleasure-craft company named Correct Craft built 406 wooden Storm Boats for the U.S. War Department in just 19 days—working around the clock, but never on Sundays. Those 17-foot plywood assault craft, powered by purpose-built 50-horsepower Evinrude outboards, carried American soldiers across the Rhine River and helped bring World War II to a close.
Eighty-one years later, the New Hampshire Boat Museum (NHBM) is rebuilding one of those boats from Correct Craft’s original 1945 plans that have never before been shared outside its own archives. The project will make its public debut at the Wolfeboro Fourth of July parade, towed behind a restored WWII Jeep.
“Correct Craft told us, ‘We haven’t given these plans to anyone—we’d like to partner with you and have you build the boat,'” said NHBM Executive Director Devon Kurtz. “In light of the 250th anniversary of the United States, it just felt right.”
The Storm Boat itself was a marvel of wartime engineering—17 feet long with a six-foot beam and a four-inch draft, double-bottomed for survivability, and able to carry eight fully equipped soldiers at 23 knots. Its Evinrude motor, adapted from the company’s pre-war Elto 460 racing platform, featured a reinforced lower unit with horizontal fins to prevent fouling on underwater barbed wire and a bi-pod quick-mount bracket, allowing the motor to be installed or removed in seconds. This bracket also kept it from being torn off during beach landings.
NHBM’s reconstructed boat will be powered by an original 1944 Evinrude engine donated by a collector in Texas, which is now being stripped down and rebuilt to full operational condition by members of the Antique Outboard Motor Club.
Although Correct Craft is headquartered in Florida today, the company’s roots run through New Hampshire. The Meloon family, who founded the company, first arrived in Portsmouth before moving to Ossipee. They continued to return to Ossipee every summer, even after settling in Florida.
The connection to NHBM came through board chair Jamie Laurent, who met a retired Correct Craft employee through a mutual friend. That introduction led to conversations with the company, which embraced the project as part of its own heritage and the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration.
What followed was an ad hoc committee with representatives from Correct Craft, the Antique Outboard Motor Club, NHBM’s boat-building program, and the Wright Museum of World War II, which is painting and applying period-correct markings to a donated trailer and providing the WWII Jeep that will tow the boat in parades. NHBM’s boat-building volunteers, joined by outside volunteers and members of local veterans’ groups, are handling construction.
“These boats were built really fast to do one specific job, one time,” Kurtz said. “They weren’t made to last forever—it was almost a disposable concept. We’re not talking about the mahogany boats of the 1920s. These boats won a war.”
The original 1945 production effort, which Correct Craft called its “Miracle Production,” was itself a community story. Carpenters, mechanics, teenagers, mothers, church volunteers, and veterans worked three nonstop shifts at the Pine Castle factory, exceeding the Army’s contract of 300 boats by 106 units. Correct Craft received the Army-Navy “E” Award for excellence.
“It’s those little stories of how communities came together during the war—Victory Gardens, scrap metal drives, a pleasure-boat company turning out 406 combat boats in 19 days,” Kurtz said. “That’s exactly what’s happening with this project today. People from across the country, across generations, and across organizations are coming together to honor that legacy.”
Once complete, the Storm Boat will become a portable exhibit, traveling to boat shows, the Wright Museum, and other regional venues, accompanied by a school curriculum currently in development.
About NHBM
Founded in 1992 by antique and classic boating enthusiasts, NHBM offers dynamic exhibits and engaging events and programs tailored to the diverse boating lifestyles and values of people of all ages. NHBM exhibits, events and programming covers everything from boat charters, boat trips and race boats to canoes, wooden boats, outboard motors, sculling, sailing sunfish, and Lyman and Johnson motors. Some of our hands-on programs take place on Lake Winnipesaukee. NHBM is sponsored in part by Goodhue Boat Company, North Water Marine, Eastern Propane and Oil, Kingswood Press and Design Studios, Avery Insurance, KW Lakes and Mountains, Lanes End Marine, Watermark Marine, Amoskeag Beverages, Mi Box, Fay’s Boat Yard, and BootLeggers.