Omega Boats - quality? Problems? Rumors?

[JB in so cal]

Early 2000 build. 23'

 

[colenighthawk]

Is dat even a boat, Omega? Is that homemade?

 

[JB in so cal]

Thus the thread.

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

My buddy has a 70s Omega jet boat, same hull as the Hawaiian of that era!

They where a good hull back then except they used Panther Pumps!

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

Omega

Hawaiian

I know that doesnt answer your question but, yes they are real boats, not home made!

 

[D19]

Early 2000 build. 23'

I have seen a few of those early 2000 builds close up. They are pretty cool, rigging was ok. Far from terrible. I knew someone who had a 23 and loved it. He bought it new.

I grew up boating in a mid 70s Omega jet boat. I don’t think it was the same people. Totally different boats, but the same name

 

[boatpi]

Made in Anaheim I believe.

 

[Taboma]

Depending on the HIN number MIC code, here's the two most likely Omega candidates.

 

[Water Romper]

I don't know much about Omega's, have seen a few over the years, but on another note, you guys eat well, is that a pizza buffet on the bow??

 

[RodnJen]

They were a two-stringer boat at one time, like the Dana’s of the same era. Not sure if it was the case during their entire production but worth inquiring about.

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

View attachment 981445

I don't know much about Omega's, have seen a few over the years, but on another note, you guys eat well, is that a pizza buffet on the bow??

Sure is! They deliver to the boat launch! We were camping and hungover, nobody felt like cooking. Jumping in a boat a cruising down to the boat launch for pizza was much easier

 

[guest hs]

Forest Pittard owned Omega boats. One of my old salesman worked at Omega. I will just tell you this. You get what you pay for.

 

[FlyByWire]

Forest Pittard owned Omega boats. One of my old salesman worked at Omega. I will just tell you this. You get what you pay for.

True piece of shit, that one. Shady as they come.

My Mom bought a new build from him when I was in high school for the 2 of us (was just her and I). Ended up having him sell it for us and he bailed with the cash. Did it to a LOT of other people.

Changed his name to The Boat Works and moved to Riverside.

Boat was cool though.

 

[2Driver]

Omega
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Hawaiian
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I know that doesnt answer your question but, yes they are real boats, not home made!

I may have asked a while back but what lake is this, where. Looks great.

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

I may have asked a while back but what lake is this, where. Looks great.

It's a river..

Willamette River in Oregon

 

[dribble]

I was at Omega in 1999 while hitting a number of builders. Their price was good and I got to see how they were laid up and rigged. I bought something else.

 

[old rigger]

Back in the day Omega came out with the first production open bow hull, a low profile 21. It shared the bottom with the mini cruiser posted above with the pizza on the deck. Omega was an average builder back then comparable to the bulk of boats being pumped out the 70s. Anyway I was at Hawaiian at the time and the owners sent someone to purchase the then brand new open bow. Before then the only open bows were tri hulls or conversions from a hard deck. The new Omega arrives at the shop ( I think we were in the old Tahiti building in Bellflower when this happened, not the building in Huntington Beach) and everyone is checking it out and then the interior shop guys took all the interior out, copied the frames for patterns and then installed new interior. Someone else switched the Omega emblems for Hawaiians and a short time later we have it in the L.A. boat show and its selling like hot cakes. We debuted it at the exact moment in time that Omega did but we didnt even have a set of molds yet. lol
My dad and I went partners on one, had it until he passed in '99. Nice little hull that doesn't really like rough water.

I didn't know Omega survived the crash in '80. In fact I'm almost 100% they closed their doors then. Forrest must have kept the name and fired back up in the 90s?

 

[Music to my Ears]

Forrest/Omega built me a 21 in the later 90's. If memory serves me correct, Ultra was laying up his hulls at the time. The hull was very nice, the rigging was fair.

 

[riverroyal]

Consider resale. Skip

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

Back in the day Omega came out with the first production open bow hull, a low profile 21. It shared the bottom with the mini cruiser posted above with the pizza on the deck. Omega was an average builder back then comparable to the bulk of boats being pumped out the 70s. Anyway I was at Hawaiian at the time and the owners sent someone to purchase the then brand new open bow. Before then the only open bows were tri hulls or conversions from a hard deck. The new Omega arrives at the shop ( I think we were in the old Tahiti building in Bellflower when this happened, not the building in Huntington Beach) and everyone is checking it out and then the interior shop guys took all the interior out, copied the frames for patterns and then installed new interior. Someone else switched the Omega emblems for Hawaiians and a short time later we have it in the L.A. boat show and its selling like hot cakes. We debuted it at the exact moment in time that Omega did but we didnt even have a set of molds yet. lol
My dad and I went partners on one, had it until he passed in '99. Nice little hull that doesn't really like rough water.

I didn't know Omega survived the crash in '80. In fact I'm almost 100% they closed their doors then. Forrest must have kept the name and fired back up in the 90s?

So on the mini cruisers I posted above who splashed who? Hawaiian or Omega?

 

[old rigger]

So on the mini cruisers I posted above who splashed who? Hawaiian or Omega?

Don't remember who tooled it up, might have been Tahiti? Hawaiian was really just Tahiti pt II, same owners and a lot of the same employees.

That was a pretty popular hull and several builders offered it. There was a 19 and a 21 of that design.

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

Don't remember who tooled it up, might have been Tahiti? Hawaiian was really just Tahiti pt II, same owners and a lot of the same employees.

That was a pretty popular hull and several builders offered it. There was a 19 and a 21 of that design.

Ahh yes.. I believe it was Tahiti now that you mention it!

 

[mash on it]

My buddy has a 70s Omega jet boat, same hull as the Hawaiian of that era!

They where a good hull back then except they used Panther Pumps!

Nice headers

Dan'l

 

[Hydroman55]

Forest Pittard owned Omega boats. One of my old salesman worked at Omega. I will just tell you this. You get what you pay for.

Could not be said better.
Bottom feeder of production boats.

 

[guest hs]

Back in the day Omega came out with the first production open bow hull, a low profile 21. It shared the bottom with the mini cruiser posted above with the pizza on the deck. Omega was an average builder back then comparable to the bulk of boats being pumped out the 70s. Anyway I was at Hawaiian at the time and the owners sent someone to purchase the then brand new open bow. Before then the only open bows were tri hulls or conversions from a hard deck. The new Omega arrives at the shop ( I think we were in the old Tahiti building in Bellflower when this happened, not the building in Huntington Beach) and everyone is checking it out and then the interior shop guys took all the interior out, copied the frames for patterns and then installed new interior. Someone else switched the Omega emblems for Hawaiians and a short time later we have it in the L.A. boat show and its selling like hot cakes. We debuted it at the exact moment in time that Omega did but we didnt even have a set of molds yet. lol
My dad and I went partners on one, had it until he passed in '99. Nice little hull that doesn't really like rough water.

I didn't know Omega survived the crash in '80. In fact I'm almost 100% they closed their doors then. Forrest must have kept the name and fired back up in the 90s?

The boat was called a Sunstreaker and might have been copied more the the 20 Spectra. I could name almost a dozen that used that hull. I don’t care for it. It’s to low profile. The closed bow looks better then the open bow in my opinion.

 

[old rigger]

The boat was called a Sunstreaker and might have been copied more the the 20 Spectra. I could name almost a dozen that used that hull. I don’t care for it. It’s to low profile. The closed bow looks better then the open bow in my opinion.

It was the Moonraker at Hawaiian but that was after a few years of not having name other than the 21 LP open bow. Something like that. Someone up stairs was a big James Bond fan.

I've never seen a closed bow version of that open bow, would love to see it. Post up some pics.

It's nowhere near the 'splash' status of the Spectra 20. Yes it was copied but almost every shop had the 20 Spectra and the 20 was #3 in the splashing order of boats, if there is such a thing. #1, the 16 Tahiti and # 2 was the 18 Southwind.

Throw in the 19 mini in this thread plus the oddball tri-hull and there were dozens and dozens of shops back in the day and those were the only boats in their line up. You could hardly fail in the 70s building boats and there were plenty of shops putting out bottom feeders that lasted the decade. It was an amazing time, jet boats and 4X4 trucks, shops couldn't build them fast enough. The funny thing about the crash in '80 was most of the bottom feeders didn't survive into the next decade. Hell they didnt make it to see '81.

 

[Jay Dub]

Forest Pittard owned Omega boats. One of my old salesman worked at Omega. I will just tell you this. You get what you pay for.

Somehow Omega became involved with the shop that used to service my prior boat in So Cal. I never trusted the Omega folks. I would pass for sure.

 

[Willie B]

... Had a 20‘6“ ...1975 Omega Daycruiser 455 Olds with a Jacuzzi jet... it was a boat my sister had... I drove from California to Georgia to pick it up ...when I got it back to California... I stepped on the floor it was like stepping on a sponge so I ripped out the floor and could not believe what I saw it was a three stringer hull but the center stringer only had fiberglass roving draped over the center stringer...Really didn’t appear to offer much of any structural support... Nice looking boat but???...yikes...I couldn’t believe a manufacturer would turn out something so poorly thrown together???...Dunno???...

...Unfortunately where you see the boat sitting at my lake Oroville property that is where it met its demise in September when the fire roard through there...

 

[old rigger]

... Had a 20‘6“ ...1975 Omega Daycruiser 455 Olds with a Jacuzzi jet... it was a boat my sister had... I drove from California to Georgia to pick it up ...when I got it back to California... I stepped on the floor it was like stepping on a sponge so I ripped out the floor and could not believe what I saw it was a three stringer hull but the center stringer only had fiberglass roving draped over the center stringer...Really didn’t appear to offer much of any structural support... Nice looking boat but???...yikes...I couldn’t believe a manufacturer would turn out something so poorly thrown together???...Dunno???...

...Unfortunately where are you see the boat sitting at my lake Oroville property that is where it met its demise in September when the fire roard through there...


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That's terrible.

About that center stringer, it's not really a stringer but just a support to hold the floor up. That's it's only purpose life and pretty much the standard of the industry back when short stringer layups were the rage.

 

[Riverhound]

Bought a 76 21 Tahiti in the early 90's and ran that thing to death on the lower river. Did a complete resto on it and used it for another 10 years before I upgraded. Great little boat and was built like a tank.

 

[Water Romper]

Bought a 76 21 Tahiti in the early 90's and ran that thing to death on the lower river. Did a complete resto on it and used it for another 10 years before I upgraded. Great little boat and was built like a tank.
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I bet some beer were had in that lil' squirter . That's a clean looking boat

 

[old rigger]

Bought a 76 21 Tahiti in the early 90's and ran that thing to death on the lower river. Did a complete resto on it and used it for another 10 years before I upgraded. Great little boat and was built like a tank.
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That 20 was being tooled up as some of us left Tahiti with Schuster to go to Hawaiian. I think it’s one of the best looking hulls of the 70s as far as a family boat. We had that model at Advantage too.

 

[riverroyal]

I think omega is out of the question from what i just saw

 

[Willie B]

That's terrible.

About that center stringer, it's not really a stringer but just a support to hold the floor up. That's it's only purpose life and pretty much the standard of the industry back when short stringer layups were the rage.

...Well that certainly leaves me scratching my head I don’t recall the center deal being tall enough so that it could be a support for the floor...but then again I’ve been wrong before???...
...The way I put it back together I made it so that center deal became a third stringer...it was all done with West Systems Epoxy...not a screw not a bolt ...replaced the plywood in the transom both stringers and the entire floor ...Put a piece that attached the two outer stringers together and epoxied what became the third stringer to the crosspiece with West systems... pretty sure that boat would’ve taken a blower motor it was strong... as it was I got it up to a whopping 46 miles an hour...lol...

 

[Willie B]

That's terrible.

About that center stringer, it's not really a stringer but just a support to hold the floor up. That's it's only purpose life and pretty much the standard of the industry back when short stringer layups were the rage.

...It’s all coming back to me now that center floor support was in truth about 3/4 of an inch to an inch lower than the stringers ...that’s why I assumed it was a poor job of putting a third stringer in... I remember a friend saying maybe that is just for floor support which is when I put a straight edge across the stringers and the floor support was quite a bit lower than the stringers???...(Maybe lol)...

 

[old rigger]

...It’s all coming back to me now that center floor support was in truth about 3/4 of an inch to an inch lower than the stringers ...that’s why I assumed it was a poor job of putting a third stringer in... I remember a friend saying maybe that is just for floor support which is when I put a straight edge across the stringers and the floor support was quite a bit lower than the stringers???...(Maybe lol)...

that's just shitty workmanship. The only job that center 'stringer' has is to hold the floor up, having it 3/4 below the top of the stringers is pretty funny actually. Nice little dip in the floor to retain water.

 

[Willie B]

that's just shitty workmanship. The only job that center 'stringer' has is to hold the floor up, having it 3/4 below the top of the stringers is pretty funny actually. Nice little dip in the floor to retain water.

...If it wasn’t for the three-quarter or 1 inch dip I might not have noticed that the floor was a semi sponge..:

 

[Riverhound]

That 20 was being tooled up as some of us left Tahiti with Schuster to go to Hawaiian. I think it’s one of the best looking hulls of the 70s as far as a family boat. We had that model at Advantage too.

Funny thing, the title said it was a 21. Most people called it a 20 but it measured out at 20.6 from tip to tail. I just chalked it up to craziness going on in the 70’s boat building word!

 

[Shrub Lurker]

I wound up with one of these hunks last year. I cut it up and sold the engine, interior and trailer. Think I still have the name plates if anyone on here is dying for them. PM me