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A friend sent me your article on Skagit Plastics and its association with Guy Lombardo. I have personally been associated with Skagit Plastics boats since my childhood. My dad, brother and I got a tour through the plant in the summer of 1957. That tour and trip to la Conner was the first time I saw the plug for what Skagit Plastics called the largest all fiberglass production cruiser in the world.
I saw the completed Skagit 31 Saratogan at the 1958 model year boat show in Seattle in October of 1957. I was eleven years old and thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.
Many years later I found one of the three 31 Saratogans looking forlorn sitting on the ground. I bought it in 1988 and began what turned out to be a lengthy restoration process. Restoration began with a five-year research project of the company that built her. All the research culminated in a club being formed around the boats built by Skagit Plastics.
My Saratogan was launched in October of 2010 after 22 years of work and dreaming of getting the boat in the water. On launch day, in Friday Harbor, the boat had been sitting on the ‘hard’, as they say, for 37 years.
Many people seeing the very rare Skagit 31, refer to it as the most beautiful fiberglass boat they’ve ever seen. I agree. The Howard Roberts designed classic turns heads wherever I take her. It’s a piece of functional art.
The Guy Lombardo connection has been known for a long time and a friend has an original Guy Lombardo/Skagit brochure which is basically the Skagit brochure with the Skagit logos air brushed out.
Searching for 30-plus years, we have not found a single Lombardo/Skagit boat in existence. We believe that while the contract was signed, the reality of the business deal required Skagit to produce a complete set of molds which would have taken some time to fabricate and ship east.
Another company in Vancouver, BC also was licensed to build Skagit boats and I have seen a few examples of them.
Today there are many restored Skagit boats in existence. The Skagit 20 Express is probably the most popular model to restore. I own two of the Skagit 31 Saratogans, one restored and one unrestored. I’m still looking for Saratogan hull number one, which was sold in California.
The photo that you show is assembly plant 2. The fiberglass layup shop was further south across from the entrance to Shelter Bay. There was also a third building, a wood shop in town. For a while Skagit Plastic ran two shifts.
In addition to the boat division, Skagit built milk truck bodies, camel floats for the navy and a prototype 50-foot captains gig for the navy.
Tim Jones grew up in Burien in a pleasure boating family. He lived on the San Juan Islands for 40 years. For three years he used his Skagit 31 Saratogan for a whale watching tourism business.
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