TOPIC: Has anyone heard of a Sherry brand fiberglass boat

My girlfriend bought a Sherry boat at the classic boat auction in Clayton New York this weekend and we can't find any reference to it on the web. Does anyone know anything about this brand?

Here is a link to the auction listing (with photos): www.antiqueboatamerica.com/ab_list_boatNew.asp?Left=Auction&Type=ViewBoat&BoatId=30393

I haven't heard of Sherry, but it sure looks to be in good shape.
I like the lines to that one. And that Merc. is one heck of a good engine.

Hope you have fun with it.

Someone will hopefully have more info for you. Until then keep searching, somethings got to pop up, that boat looks to well put together to be a one off.

Nice boat I have looked everywhere for your boat brand and found nothing. I am sure there is someone that knows something on this forum.I wonder if its name is sherry but the manufacturer name is something else like for instants a Starcraft Sherry.Which doesnt exsist but I just dont see anything on that boat.Just watch someone here will come up with the history.Good Luck Dan

the front bow section sure looks like my old fleetform, there were a few knock offs made off of the fleetform style.

Thanks. I'll keep waiting for someone to dig up something.

Mark

sidewinder,

this is ONLY a "SWAG". i strongly suspect that you have a KNOCK-OFF of a FLEETFORM, done by some small or "independent" boatbuilder.
(doing that was REALLY common in the 1955-1970 period. - buy a boat, make a mold from it, after making a FEW cosmetic changes, and then start "popping out boats".

fwiw, i have identified over 50 "small & independent boatbuilders" in TX alone & over 25 in FL alone. = there must have been HUNDREDS over that 15 year period! ====> some actually "folded" before they made even ONE boat.
(FIREFLY PLASTICS out of Linden, TX was unfortunate enough to "go broke" just after they built ONE prototype boat called: TEXAS FAST ONE", which still was owned by a man from Pittaburg, TX about 10 years ago - i don't know if it still exists BUT it was a KNOCK-OFF of a 1958, 16ft, YELLOWJACKET (molded plywood) hull & DOWNRIGHT PURTY, too.)

WELCOME to the forum & BEST WISHES on your restoration of the rig.====> it just MAY be the ONLY "Sherry" boat out there!
(fyi, i'm "sleuthing around" to buy the FIREFLY if it still exists.)

yours, satx

Satx - Thanks for the input. I sure hope we find out more about it as it is a cute little boat.

sidewinder,

it surely IS a NIFTY boat.

BEST WISHES on restoring it.
(I cannot tell you exactly WHY but i'm interested in the "small & independent regional builders" KNOCK -OFF & "Special Design" boats. - it has something to do with RARITY but i think it's more than that. = maybe, "cheering for the underdog"???)

fyi, "my ear is always to the ground" looking for "ONE OF A KIND" boats, particuliarly those "independent designs" of TX boatbuilders.

One "independent builder" in Boliver, Galveston County,TX did NOT "knock-off" anyone else's design. - instead Mr F.T. Gonzalez (circa 1917- 1972) would build MOST ANYTHING that a buyer wanted built.
(i'm told that MOST of his "output" was commercial bay shrimp boats BUT that he made SEVERAL large IB runabouts/utilities for local saltwater fishermen.)

yours, satx

Just thought I'd bump this to the top to see if anyone else has any ideas about the manufacturer.

There is a dealer tag on the boat from Mid-State Boat Company in Syracuse NY. I have googled them and found some old newspaper ads featuring Mercury motor sales from the late 1950's and early 60's but no information on Sherry Boats

This is all I found ? boat-manufacturers.findthebest.com/l/14520/Sherry-MFG-Co-Inc

Looks like a Sea Fury front end to me without the fins in back ?

Hello, my name is Walt and i have info about your Sherry. The runabout was manufactured not so far from Clayton. it was manufactured at Sherry Marine industries in the town of Hammond, N. Y. on Black Lack Road across from Mc Lear Cottage Colony some where between 1956 and 1970. The company was owned by the Snyder family originally from Syracuse N.Y.. As i recall they came in the blue and a red. It was quite an operation…out of a larger garage type of building.

You boat appears to be a 1962 - 64

There was a web site about it on one of those "free" services but they pulled it last August. So that's why you couldn't find anything on it. I'm trying to find a way to see if it can be retrieved. i want it because I have fond memories of Black Lake (1954 - 1971) and the boat.
Heres the only thing that shows from the site The service was Fortunecity.com (see end of the message)

"Sherry Marine Industries 1956 - 1970 and Black Lake, New York Chamber of Commerce ... My Dad and Mom, Dick and Eleanor Snyder, living then in Syracuse, NY, were …"
members.fortunecity.com

The boat is great. My uncle bought one in 1963 and had it for years. It also had a Merc 35 and it would pull one skier no problem. Great in the rough water of Black Lake. He took it on the St. Lawernce to fish for muskies off of Ogdensburg a couple of times.

Way to come in "Guns Blazin" Walt! .....welcome...I had 1 karma but....must have been something I sd....Youre post deserves a karma bump for sure! Good info...when your dad was on the St Lawrence was when world record muskies where caught right around there by 4 people..2 couples...who still hold the records!

Kurt

Stargazer, you get a "bump"...lol...1 Karma.

Walt, great post, there may be some others in the Wine Country Chapter that remember this company. I know a few people there, and some of them come to our Silver Lake Meet, (more info on www.NickleCityClassics.com ).

I'll be talking to Terry soon on another matter, and I'll try to remember to mention it to him...

Hi, Walt again about the Sherry runabout. A tidbit about the Sherry my Uncle had. My father in law bought it from him and towed it from Black Lake, St. Lawerence County to Chatauqua Lake, Chatauqua County N.Y. and he used it from about 1981 to 1984. Those boats were built well.

There are folks trying to recover sites from that Forevercity outfit but don't know if the Sherry site will make the list. I submitted an inquiry to them on their recovery site so we shall see. If successful I'll post it. It was a great site with old photos, some boats, the building, and even boats in process of being built. (My cousin and I walked to it when we were about 12 years old).

When we were on the St. Lawrence fishing the sandbar off of Ogdensburg all we caught was a couple of eels. My Uncle had to peel it off his arm after he took it off the hook.

Anyway its been a long time I was in a small boat. The place my folks and Anunt & Uncle had on Black Lake was sold years ago. Great place near Cedars Grange on Black Lake Road,

I primarily wanted to get the info out about the Sherry because I had it.

Good luck with the boat. You got a good one.

Luckily the Internet Archive Wayback Machine has a copy of the website:

web.archive.bibalex.org/web/20040612055554/http://www.blacklake.org/sherry.html

Maybe you can find the son, Frederick A. Snyder of Pulaski, NY (according to the July 7, 1992 obit for Charles R. Snyder in the Syracuse Herald).

Walt here again. That's the site !!! Excellent. Thanks so much Handy Andy. Now the main thing is to capture the site so it's not lost again.
Oh, I forgot all about the fiberglas rod bodies. He dabbled in everything.

Brings back memories from 55 years ago for me.

And all that because of a posting inquiring about a Sherry Fiberglas boat.

the top looks like a sun runer and the bottom of a bellboy

I found a newspaper advertisement for Sherry Marine Industries with a drawing of a boat. I acneed it and saved it to Photobucket. Photobucket has changed and I am attempting to figure it out so that I can post the ad here.

Andreas

Hi all,

I created a page in the Library for Sherry. The page includes a link to the archived website- out of respect to Fred Snyder and his family history, I won't use any of his materials until permission is granted. The newspaper ad submitted by Andreas will be added soon once a bug is fixed.

www.fiberglassics.com/library/Sherry

Walt here again. Thanks for the Sherry page in the Archives.

Wow! This is more information than I could have ever hoped for. Thank-you Walt, HandyAndy, thompsonboat and others who posted.

I look forward to cleaning this little boat up in the spring and hopefully having it at one of the upstate NY boat shows.

I too, have fond memories of a childhood by a lake, water-skiing behind 14 ft runabouts with 30 and 40 horsepower outboards. The lake I was on, was a bit further east.

Lake Memphremagog, on the Canadian side, just north of Newport, Vermont in the 1960's and 70's was a great place to get hooked on fiberglass boats. The passion has lasted a lifetime.

Today my "toy box" is home to a couple of 1960's vintage Boston Whalers, a Sidewinder, a couple of early 1970's Crestliners, a '58 Whitehouse, the Sherry as well as a couple of 1950's wooden runabouts. Tucked in the attic are a "B" and "C" class hydro. The ex-wife thinks this is a disease - I think it is a calling - laugh! "Mark's Home for Orphaned Boats".

Thanks again for all the Sherry information and the memories of summers long ago.

Mark

I recently came across this discussion thread and thought I might be able to address any specific questions the group had about Sherry boats. Probably the best approach is to email me directly since I only sporadically check this site.

Bill Sherry, who started the company, was my grandfather. I spent some time during the summers of my high school years helping out with the boat production and chores around his cottages. If someone wanted to demo a boat, it was my job to take them for a test drive... the salary wasn't great but for a teenager the benefit package ( use of the boat anytime) couldn't be beat.

The business grew out of my grandfathers need to replace a fleet of aging wooden Thompson fishing boats he rented with his cottages. Every spring was a marathon of repairs to the old boats. Replacement was going to be costly and he decided that the best option would be try and manufacture his own replacements out of fiberglass. After a lot of research he purchased a hull from a manufacturer in the midwest and created a mold from it. He fabricated a deck from mahogany and used that to build the mold. The first boats were built in the basement of my parents home on Black Lake. Lots of funny stories about that... couldn't get the first one out of the basement without "modifying" the doorway . After replacing his own boats... some of which are still in use as rentals on Black Lake, enough local interest was generated in the boats that the business became self sustaining and the building pictured in the web archive was erected. Two models of boats were built in several configurations, a 16' fishing boat and the 15' runabout. The runabout was by far more popular. I recall we had some consulting help on the design of the hull bottom from Hunter Grimes, a well know race boat driver at the time, from Alex Bay. We were trying to extract the best performance we could from the hull. About 350 boats were built as I recollect.

The earliest production of the runabout had the molded in rear well pictured in this thread. That was subsequently eliminated after it was realized that the larger Mercurys at that time were too tall to tip up all the way into the well..... Oooops. We had an Evinrude!

Later production models also adopted a smooth flat molded-in balsa wood floor, rather than a longitudinal stringer system. It was stronger, and quieter and provided additional flotation, and was easier to keep clean.

It was a great boat, I look back on it with fond memories. I felt safe and secure in it in any kind of water we had an Black Lake. It performed well with a 30 hp engine, but some owners put up to a 45-60 on it (large for that era). I was off to college in 1961 and had little involvement with the business after that.

Rick Sherry

That's very cool Rick to get your personal recollections! Thanks for sharing with us.

Andreas

Hi Rick,

Can we have permission to add your recollection to the Sherry Boats page in the FiberGlassics Library?