Old School Tahiti Boats Brochure

[nowski]

I came across this thread doing some research on the old family boat. We have a 1973 Schuster Tahiti low profile 16' with Mercruiser I/O and Chevy inline 6, 165 hp. My Dad bought it new and it has been garage kept its entire life. All original, A&M trailer, never in saltwater, etc. No hour meters back then, but I would say it has less than 300 hours. Hoping to find someone who appreciates old boats in this condition and will take care of it like we did. Still located in southern CA. If anyone is interested, please let me know.

My buddies dad (Don, Retired LACFD) owned an identical boat as yours, same color and design, same interior, same trailer the only difference was his had a 4 cyl. Don taught me how to double ski at Lake Perris when it first opened and single ski up at Bass Lake. If anyone has single skied behind one of these (with the same power package lol) they know about the submarine experience first hand. Don let us (his son and I) use his Tahiti for the entire summer of 78 at Bass Lake, best summer ever.

Don: You made a positive impact on my life and I'm forever grateful, till we meet again RIP Don RIP...

 

[NorCalRiverRat]

'73 tahiti 17'10" bubble deck mercury 150hp tower of power, rootbeer brown. bubble decks just came out, tahiti splashed sanger...or splashed someone who splashed sanger...
I used to have pics, but a black hole swallowed them.

..

 

[old rigger]

'73 tahiti 17'10" bubble deck mercury 150hp tower of power, rootbeer brown. bubble decks just came out, tahiti splashed sanger...or splashed someone who splashed sanger...
I used to have pics, but a black hole swallowed them.

..

Like Roger Weiman, they just splashed the bubble portion of the deck, grafted it to a plug then popped a new mold.

The Sanger bubble was a huge influence on the entire industry.

 

[NorCalRiverRat]

Like Roger Weiman, they just splashed the bubble portion of the deck, grafted it to a plug then popped a new mold.

The Sanger bubble was a huge influence on the entire industry.

what is the process. buy a bubble deck hull, cut out the bubble portion and graft that to the flat deck mold. then trash the donnor hull ? or something else ???

..

 

[old rigger]

what is the process. buy a bubble deck hull, cut out the bubble portion and graft that to the flat deck mold. then trash the donnor hull ? or something else ???

Ya, buy a bare hull (lots of guys wouldn’t sell bare hulls because of all the splashing back then), cut the bubble from the deck and then bond it to one of your own decks, now that deck is called a plug because a mold is going to be taken from it, and of course the deck plug has to be bonded to the hull, otherwise it might not fit correctly. There’s a shit ton of work, mostly getting it to look right. roger nailed it with his 18 bubble, not a bad view from any angle. Or you can just get the bubble and build a entire new deck like the little Tahiti 16 bubble, same old hull with a different deck. The Tahiti bubble, I believe both the 18 and 16, have a little peak running length ways from the bubble and down the deck. There was more than one 18 bubble there though.
I think Roger popped a mold from an existing Sanger, pulled a part then Kenny at BK tooled everything up. I know they spent a lot of time moving shit around. Sorry, it’s been many decades so some of the facts at Rogers are sometimes a little fuzzy, lol.

It’s really a lot of fun making any kind of plug, splashed or an original.

 

[Creekrat]

Dig that Kool Schuster Tahiti Brochure! We have a 1972 Sweet 16 Lo Pro running a 1972 Mercury 1400 Tower of Power. Awesome original big gold flake glass. Would love to add your brochure to our Tahiti documentation notebook!

 

[ChrisV]

Would love to find my dads old Tahiti. At least that's what he told me what it is. Grew up boating in that thing.

 

[mobldj]

1st and funnest boat i ever had

 

[rrrr]

Rereading this thread brings back a bunch of cool memories, the photos and stories recall those carefree days in the 70s when saving a little bit of money and working a part time job could buy a jet boat.

One of the photos reminded me of a trip we took to Elephant Butte around 1976. I was towing my buddy's Olds powered 18' Tahiti with my Suburban heading south on I-25, when the trailer on a northbound 18 wheeler lost a set of duals about a quarter mile ahead of us.

One of the tire and wheel assemblies hit a guardrail on the right shoulder, and it was launched into the air what looked like a hundred feet or more, and the trajectory was heading right for us. It came down and hit the fender on one side of the trailer, bent the hell out of it but amazingly didn't hit the boat.

 

[Creekrat]

Came across this brochure today as I'm kinda, maybe close to picking up another old, and hopefully last, Tahiti project. Brought back a ton of memories seeing these pages. Found it on a Hydro Stream owners site of all places.

This had to be '72 as there are no bubble decks yet, they would come in late '73 and in '71 Tahiti moved into this giant brand new shop that butted right up to the 605 freeway.

Looks like who ever owned this brochure got a quote for $1495.00 for a new boat.

Yes, I'm well aware how Tahiti is looked upon now but that's the shop I grew up in. Certainly not as cool as if I had grown up in the Schiada shop, my uncle worked there in the 60s, but I loved almost every minute of it. I've said it before but when I was a kid and the first shop was a block away from our house, going there was better than going to Disneyland to me. I couldn't believe my dad worked in this fucking amazing atmosphere with the sounds and smells (god I love the smell of resin) and I never in a million years thought I'd ever be able to do what he and the other riggers did. It seemed a monumental job to rig a boat to my 10 year old mind.

Anyway, I've worked in shops that built worse boats and quite a few that built better but this was fun fun fun.

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This is the original 16 that started the Tahiti name for Schuster boats in late '64 early '65. He also built Performer and Tropicana boats under the Schuster Custom Boats name before selling the biz. He stayed on as president.


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The infamous 'Toad'

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The larger 'Toad' in the Marine Stadium with the tower in the background that displayed MPH and ET for the boat drags.

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A Winter's worth of boat building in preparation for sales starting in April. All outboards, of course, and the boats on the left are Torinos waiting for their windshields to be installed.

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One of my first jobs at the new building was to unload engines, Chevys, Fords and Oldsmobiles. The Olds out sold the other 2 combined. Cheaper.
That engines in the pic are about a weeks worth.
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This rack was visible, the 16's standing on their transoms were too, as the North side of the shop was wide open. This is how Schuster kept some but not all of his riggers and laminators busy so they wouldn't go to another shop come busy season, he'd stockpile fully rigged and upholstered boats. Dad was lucky to be one of those guys.

Also one of my jobs back then when I was 15 was to unload these boats off the rack with the forklift and set them on trailers or dollys. The forks were probably 12-15 feet long. I was scared shitless that first time. I worked mostly weekends here, some afternoons after school, so there were others that did the same job durning the work day. I was the only kid to do that stuff though.

One lone tri-hull on the top shelf.

Lots of other shops did the same stock piling of ready to sell bare hulls or complete boats, Sangar, Kindsvater, Spectra to name a few.

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Very Kool!!!

 

[Tahitijetboat68]

Your photo is the model that Schuster let me borrow for 1968 Catalina Ski Race. It had a healthy BBC and a top speed at just over 70 mph. Not sure why it wasn't a big seller....maybe too much freeboard for the ski boat market at that time. It was a deep vee (probably 20 to 24 degree deadrise). In '68 the Ski Race was still dominated by conventional flatbottoms. And that particular '68 race day was rough water and I was cruising compared to the flattys. Like I said, I was pretty confident that we'd be the first (and only jet) to win it overall. And no I didn't do the photography for that brochure. Not sure the year it was p;inted.

By chance was the boat a gel coat gold metal flake? Here's my boat

 

[twocents]

By chance was the boat a gel coat gold metal flake? Here's my boat

My persoanl boat was a 16' Tahiti jet (Berkeley) purchased in late 1964 -- it was a black hull and bottom with gold metalflake deck. I ran that boat in the 1966 Catalina Ski Race -- 2nd place in the Women's Open class.

 

[stephenkatsea]

This is basically our first boat. Except ours was an in line 4 cylinder, 140hp with all gold metal flake, complete with that brutal black tuck and roll interior. 12 gal fuel tank in the bow. Not sure of the year built, but the tag did say Schuster Boats - Bellflower. Bought it in 1990 complete with skis, vests, tube etc. from a friend for $1,200. That boat treated our family, friends and relatives very well on Piru, Naci, Mead and Mohave without skipping a beat. It even towed a few boats including a houseboat on Mohave. Sold that great old boat years ago, but we actually used that tube, an O’Brien with the canvas cover, this summer for one of our young grand kids. If I had to guess, not one damn thing on that boat or the any of the accessories and toys that came with it was Made in China!! . . . Let that sink in a bit.

We used that O'Brien tube again last week. There's a manufactured date on the tube that says 01/87.

 

[Wheeler]

Would love to find my dads old Tahiti. At least that's what he told me what it is. Grew up boating in that thing.
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Couple of really great photos!