George and Gena Mishey Built Some Beautiful Boats
I want to start a thread for Mishey Boats as soon as we can post pictures again. Old Alky Racer is right about Ralph Holmes. Ralph was a big time con tractor and helped sponsor races in Phoenix. He was killed in his own private airplane.
Frank Zorkan ran a B Stock Mishey hydro for years before he started building boats.
Other than both Charleton and MISHEY'S HAVING CLOTH DECKS THEIR DESIGNS WERE MILES APART, AT LEAST IN MY MIND THEY WERE. I'm not yelling capital lock went on)...
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Elgin Gates, George Mishey and Charleton Boats
George Mishey lived in Phoenix with his wife Gina (I thought they pronounced it Gena) and they seems to live a good life style. They put on a race or two every year. George was BIG into NOA and F Hydros.
We went to Phoenix for a "BIG" money race in the spring of 1952. My brother worked as a "BOX BOY" at the Greater Central Market in Bellflower and he had to work Saturday. Being it was a "BIG" money race my dad flew my brother to Phoenix.
There was a large field of C Hydros and only two F Hydros. My brother "Stepped Up" to F Hydro. He won C Hydro and he also won F Hydro. When they went to pay the money they gave my brother first place money for C and third place for F. They said the F's were more important than the C's. My brother wanted to know who he could appeal this to in NOA, and they said, "George Mishey."
Well, the Hill Family came home and we only raced 2 or 3 NOA races ever after that and we helped promote APBA for more than 50 years.
Mishey boats were COOL looking, but guys like Wade Terrill were building boat for $100 and could deliver them in a week, and he had some great designs for the time.
Eglin Gates, owned the Needles Trading Post and raced M and C Service. He was poor as a church mouse. He could gas weld aluminum gas tanks, so my dad was always sending him tanks.
Elgin decide he wanted to run for a record or two at Devil's Lake, Oregon. I'm not sure the year, he had my dad go through his M and Service C. Elgin went to Oregon and broke both records. While he was in Oregon he met Doc Jones who was the Mercury Distributor for the Northwest and Doc offered Elgin a job. Elgin came home, sold or closed the trading post and went to work for Doc.
Some where along the line Doc told Elgin he was selling his Mercury Distributorship and buying the OMC distributorship for west of the rockies and he was moving to Phoenix. But, he told Elgin, the Mercury Distributorship for Southern California was coming up for sale and he (Elgin) should buy it, which he did.
Elgin was more of a "Racer" at heart the a businessman, but luck for him his dad had made him take a business man in as a partner, his name was Don Graves. The distributorship started making money hand over fist, Elgin started traveling and actually opening new markets by going to Mexico. He also went to places like Africa with Roy Rogers. He build a large home in Newport Beach that he later sold to John Wayne.
While in Mexico, Elgin decided to build some race boats and I really don't know how many he build, I have first hand knowledge of 3 A-B runabouts, 1 D Runabout, and one B Hydro.
The runabouts were copies of runabouts from the Northwest, Shirely Fathoms and the hydros were Elgins design, I think.
I always thought that the Charleton was a copy of Elgin's Mexican hydro (s), but this may not be the case at all. Making a cloth deck like the Mishey might have been too much trouble and this was easier...
Seaboard Equipment Company Was Born
Elgin's dad agreed to loan him like $15,000 if Eglin would take Don Graves in as a 50% partner, my dad's $5,000 for the first shipment of motors. They reanted a small building behind Sam's Seafood in Surfside and Seaboard Equipment Company was born, early 1949.