The intruiging history of New Zealand’s rarest boat: Whimsical Mistress

This is part one of a three-part series on the purchase, shipping, restoration, and launch of Whimsical Mistress, one of only a few of these types of boats in New Zealand. Read part two to discover the story of Glen purchasing the vessel sight unseen off Ebay then shipping it to New Zealand and part three on the restoration and launch of the boat.

Glen Archer is a Hamilton family man, a Business Development Manager for G.J Gardner Homes, and a boating enthusiast. One day he found himself longing for something a little different:

“I am mostly office based, doing a job that I love yet I really enjoy practical hands-on projects. This kind of work always gave me so much satisfaction,” Glen said.

With that in mind, he started searching the internet for a project that would combine his twin passions of boating and hands-on work. Little did he know, the project he took on would take up most of his nights and weekends for almost five years.

It’s just a beautiful boat

Whimsical Mistress is a 72-year-old (ish) Chris-Craft Riviera, a pleasure craft built with rich mahogany timber. When Glen saw it listed on eBay it caught his eye straight away:

“It’s just a beautiful boat. I just looked at it and thought, that’s the one, it’s exactly the style of boat I was looking for. The lines on it are so smart.”

The vessel is rare too. Only 288 were ever made and only 30-35 still exist, which has turned them into a cult figure in America’s boating scene. Considering the craftsmanship that went into building these beauties, it’s easy to see why they’re so popular:

“They’re built using natural-finished mahogany timber, with white oak frames. I believe Chris-Craft would import the timber out of the Philippines especially for these boats.”

As well as the gorgeous materials, the vessel features a blonde accent king plank from the bow to the stern, with an eye-catching red Tolex interior and a small windscreen.

A boat for the post-war boom

The Chris-Craft Riviera 20 was built from 1950 to 1954 during an interesting time in American history. The post-war economy was booming as America diverted money away from manufacturing munitions to productive industries and the country’s middle class was growing fast.

Chris-Craft, then headquartered in a small Michigan town called Algonac, had built 12,000 boats for the American military's war effort. They saw an opportunity to serve increasingly wealthy American consumers and rapidly introduced several powerboat models, one of which was the Riviera 20.

The boat was built in a factory production line in Algonac by off-season agricultural workers guided by boat builders in order to keep costs down. The vessel was screwed together rather than glued:

“The end product is a leisure craft and runabout that was not practical at all. It’s definitely form over function and was intended to serve the growing middle class,” Glen said.

“Back then you could pick one of these up for about $4,000 USD.” (Just under $70,000 NZD today).

The Riviera 20 wasn’t built to last 70+ years and it certainly wasn’t practical (in fact Glen reckons it was built to last 5-10 years max). Despite that Glen’s eyes absolutely light up when he talks about the vessel 

“It was built in a time of affluence and it shows. Building a boat like this today would be incredibly expensive, they were a boat of their times.”