Rotting Atom Skier

Refering to Riley's pix of his '59 Glastron in Off Topic forum under "outboard boat info," seeing those pix of an old rotting classic with shrubs growing out of the hull made me think of an Atom Skier I stumbled upon. It was back in the mid-nineties when I was driving down one of the main streets of Center Ossipee, NH. I was driving by an old auto garage repair shop and spotted a CC next to the building. It was a 1968 Freeport, candy-apple red. That boat was on Ossipee Lake for years and it was one of my faves. It was powered by a 165hp Mercruiser I/O and seemed to quietly float down the lake at full speed usually towing a slalom skier. It was a beauty of a boat. Well, there it was, stagnant and neglected on its trailer. The next day I went back and snapped some photos of it...just cuz... and I stepped back into the woods adjacent and spyed a darkened hull of some sort. As I got closer I recognized it immediately as another boat used on the lake years earlier. It too had trees and bushes etc in it. I think it was an early sixties AS, made out of wood and had a V-drive or an I/O outdrive or something. What a shame! It used to be a real cool boat too and it is still probably there or whatever is left of it. As for the Freeport, the guy who stores/works-on my '70 Barracuda took it and planned on eventually fixing it up, however it is now in pretty bad shape. Another shame because those big I/O's were great boats and are very rare now.   

Please keep all stories regarding rotting Atom Skiers to a minimum please, Pete's heart simply can't take it!!!

adamt wrote: Pete's heart simply can't take it!!!

Yes...please have a little consideration for the hearts of us older guys...

Adam; nice time last night.

john

Robert, The picture of the panther is from our 61 brochure ref. section. If you saw the Atom Skier dash emblem then I'd say it was a very rare I/O Atom! The Atom would have been shorter than the Panther and the deck would be plain without the deck striping.

Yes it's a shame that someone left it out to rot. Probably had nothing but problems with the Eaton outdrive. If I had one, I'd be carrying a extra piece of equipment on board - Eric Levine to fix it!!! The clutch dogs/gears were worse than a 50's Evinrude!!