Flying Saucer speed boat

I was wondering idf there are any of you out there who remember the Chris Restraunt from back in the 50s and 60s. If was a great place to dine and then take a ride on his converted PT boat named "Flying Saucer" Also wondering if anyone has and picutres of home movies of the vessel crusing along the shore?
Thanks
Mike

Flying Saucers have been determined to be weather balloons or cloud formations or reflections from airplanes - Project Bluebook said so....

3 refurbished PT Boats (one Huckins, two Elco's) were ran by Chris
Montague (Chris' Restaurant-located at 9th and Bay, one property left of
the 9th St Bridge). The Huckins was called the Flying Saucer strictly
used for a wet ride to 21st Street and back. The two Elco's were used
as fast head boats, Wild Goose and Flying Cloud. Each boat had 3
Packard gas engines.

Chris also had a small fast sight seer-Flying Pony, two trawler head
boats, Columbia and Billy C. and a midnight cruise sailboat Sweetheart.

Mike SD45 wrote:

I was wondering idf there are any of you out there who remember the Chris Restraunt from back in the 50s and 60s. If was a great place to dine and then take a ride on his converted PT boat named "Flying Saucer" Also wondering if anyone has and picutres of home movies of the vessel crusing along the shore?
Thanks
Mike

I do remember well and have pictures.

Ken wrote:

<quoted text>I do r remember well and have pictures.

Yes I rode on it many times as a boy during the summer. No pics but I will ask my mother.

I rode on the Flying Saucer and Flying Pony many times with my parents. My brother may have a pic the photographers sell. Of course we got wet. I loved to hear each engine fire up. I think there were four.

Mike SD45 wrote:

I was wondering idf there are any of you out there who remember the Chris Restraunt from back in the 50s and 60s. If was a great place to dine and then take a ride on his converted PT boat named "Flying Saucer" Also wondering if anyone has and picutres of home movies of the vessel crusing along the shore?
Thanks
Mike

see my page www.flickr.com/photos/saucer

see my page
www.flickr.com/photos/saucer

faslane100 wrote:

I rode on the Flying Saucer and Flying Pony many times with my parents. My brother may have a pic the photographers sell. Of course we got wet. I loved to hear each engine fire up. I think there were four.

Flying Saucer

The Flying Saucer had 3 engines. They were a total of 5,400 hp.
see my pictures on
www.flickr.com/photos/saucer

Mike SD45 wrote:

I was wondering idf there are any of you out there who remember the Chris Restraunt from back in the 50s and 60s. If was a great place to dine and then take a ride on his converted PT boat named "Flying Saucer" Also wondering if anyone has and picutres of home movies of the vessel crusing along the shore?
Thanks
Mike

This original Flying Saucer inspired John Yank IIIJohn C. Yank III, owner of Ocean Rockets, Inc. is a visionary boat builder. The Yank family has been building boats at Yank Marine in Tuckahoe, NJ since 1969. As a boy, John worked at his father's boat yard. It was here, he first came to know of the Flying Saucer, his inspiration for building on adventure.
The owner of the original Flying Saucer, Chris Montagna, offered speed boat rides to his restaurant patrons. The Flying Saucer, a converted PT boat out of Ocean City, NJ, would come in for work during the off-season. Young John would clean and scrape her bilge and hull and began to lay out his dream of building adventure powerboats. The original Flying Saucer stayed active for years.
The new Flying Saucer built by John Yank IIIJohn himself brought back the Flying Saucer to Ocean City, New Jersey, where he fine-tuned his action-packed formula for the ultimate thrill of a lifetime.

Mike, I used to drive my parents crazy if we didn't get to Chris' at least once a summer. We had a summer home in Clayton and when we visited my Uncle in the original O.C. we always made a stop there. I once had a tour of the engine room which was 4 Rolls Royce 12 cylinder engines, the same used in P51 Mustangs, I believe. I csn still remember the thrill of those motors starting up, the smell of the fuel and the acceleration heading out to sea. I can't imagine what the insurance would be to have a ride like that today. I wouldn't care, let me sign a waiver. When I think about Mr. Montagne sitting on the seat back and throttling up his PT runabout it's awesome. Great memories there!

P.S. "Flying Pony" was OK but not the same thrill.

Mike SD45 wrote:

I was wondering idf there are any of you out there who remember the Chris Restraunt from back in the 50s and 60s. If was a great place to dine and then take a ride on his converted PT boat named "Flying Saucer" Also wondering if anyone has and picutres of home movies of the vessel crusing along the shore?
Thanks
Mike

I do have photo's of all Chris's boats. I can be reached at oceanrockets@verizon.net

I understand that the Flying Saucer was in fact a 70' Vosper PT Boat built under license by the Annapolis Boatworks in Annapolis, MD, and that it was intended to go to Russia under the lend-lease program. I think the hull number was 718.

I have a copy of an advertisement from right after WWII, offering PT Boats for sale at $4,000 per boat - "A lot of boat for the money!" boasted the ad. The ad said to contact the Director, Division of Small Vessel Sales, United States Maritime Commission, Commerce Building, Washington 22, D.C.

Ken, I'd like thank you for posting the pictures of my Great Uncle Chris and his boats. Most of the other replies got it right. Those boats and the man were and are special to us, his family. My father work with him off & on fixing and tuning those Rolls Royce engines. By the way the Saucer had 4 engines and also needed air rutters to stear her. It was the first,the largest and fastest off shore speedboat ever in the United States. I got to ride in the cockpit one time with him when I was 14. He just had the engines worked on and was making a test run. We were about a mile out when he really cranked her up. It was as close as you can come to being in a rocket. Each engine had it's own gauges and throttles. Needless to say he scared the crap out of me when he told me to take hold of the controls and I froze in place, fearful of screwing up. Again thanks for the pictures . I'll tell my family to check this site out.

to Big Horse,

If you look at the pictures in the cockpit, she only had three engines. Look for the shifters and throttles

Pics of the boat & restaurant here:
http://electrospark.blogspot.com/2009/10/chri...

Ahh...memories of Chris' Seafood Restaurant and the Flying Pony! Rode it many times in the 1950s. When I visited O.C. in the '80s I was deeply disappointed to see condo's in place of Chris'. What a delightful place that was!!!

I worked for Chris Montagna in the 60's. He had three speed boats running. The Flying Saucer was a WWII Elco PT boat stripped to the gunnels. It had three 1500 hp engines made by Alison, the same ones used in the P-51 fighter. It seated 50 people and empty could cruise at 60 knots. With a load, we could make 48 knots consistently. There were a few times we had problems. Most notable was the time Chris hit a whale. That boat was driven exclusively by Chris. It was 97' long.

The second boat was a Huckins PT boat. Two 1500 horse engines, and 58 feet long, it was called the Flying Cloud.

His third boat was an inshore Enco boat, 45 feet long, called the Flying Pony. I drove that for two years, 1965 and 1966.

There was a fourth boat, though I cannot rememnber the name. Chris never go around to putting it on line, since he needed the engines as spares for Saucer and Cloud. It sat anchored on the south side of the 9th Street Causeway, half way to Somers Point, and had the "Chris' Seafood Restaurant name painted on the side.

Fond memories.

Sadly, there will probably never again be anything like Chris' in O.C.

Although I'm nearly 70 years old I can still "hear" those Merlin/Rolls Royce (Allison?) V-12s coming to life at the dock.

Chris' was an institution, and it's too bad that the operation wasn't carried on by someone else after his passing. It was a great disappointment, sometime in the '80s, when I drove over the bridge from Somers Point and saw the condo' development. I'd been in Philly on business...drove down specifically to spend the day at Chris' and walk the boardwalk. Not only was Chris' gone, but so was Simms Restaurant (replaced by what appeared to be a tacky video arcade!). In fact the whole town looked like it had been taken over by corporate interests.

And I haven't been back since.