# A link to a great video, I thought you all might enjoy



## Jim Lenfest (Jul 20, 2016)

Here is an old school boat launching. Granted, it is not a microskiff as she is 37' long, hand made cedar over oak timbers a spruce floor. Fortunate that someone had an old 8mm camera handy to film this event. I am guessing this was about 1964 -1965 as the granddaughter Wanita in the name is a few years younger than myself, born in 62. She was powered with a 472 cu in Cadillac engine. I worked on her Lobster fishing and Herring Seining, tending a weir, with the owner Raymond, one season. Today as far as I know, she is still going. 
Those Cadillac engines had an inherent engine design problem that he discovered from running her 3/4 throttle 8-14 hours a day. After destroying one every 1/ 1/2 to 2 years for several years, he asked a mechanic to tear down some of the old blocks to see what had failed. It turned out that the oil pump drive shaft was hexagonal in shape and after many hours, it would round the corners off the drive shaft and she would loose oil pressure when it spun freely, thus destroying the engine. After that, he had the mechanic change the oil pump drive shaft every year and he would then get 5 or 6 years from those Cadillac engines. 
I checked the RPM's that he usually ran, and as I recalled he would run then at 3500 rpm any time he was cruising. While hauling traps she was simply idling or slightly revved when the fishing was good. But between strings of traps we were cruising 3500 rpm. At the time, I owned a 1975 Formula 400 Firebird and one day out of curiosity I got her out on a stretch and took her to 3500 rpm in fourth gear to find we were going an equivalent of 75-80 mph. To think those Caddy's would survive that treatment for 5-6 years was amazing, with the only extra maintenance besides oil changes, being changing that oil pump drive shaft. I was there the day he changed it and all he had to do was pull the distributor swap em out, reinstall the distributor and re time the engine. 
On another note, He would burn up a reduction gear every year or so and getting tired of that, he decided to try hydraulic oil in the gear instead of the regular transmission fluid the manufacturer recommended. Oilzum Super Hydraulic was what he switched to. That day the reduction gear builders at Borg Warner, had a shiver run down their spines. It worked! He then could get similar hours out of his reduction gears. All the other fishermen in the community quickly switched over to the Oilzum to find their reverse and reduction gears would last longer too. Even the mechanic was telling all of his customers. Too bad that back in those days, he had not heard of the Mobil one oil reputation! Those Cadillac engines would have gone even longer I am sure on Mobil one, than they did on the old Havoline oil. As for the Microskiff part of the story, well, we had to use one every morning and every night to row out and from the mooring of the larger boat. About 12' long and could hold 3 grown men easily on calm waters, painted to match, she was a beauty as well. 

http://share.imemories.com/pubshare/710b9c2f-578d-46d9-83b0-db465f6a1e09/2692790


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