Chris Craft Yachts started in 1874, with Christopher Columbus Smith building his own wooden boat. Chris Craft boats today cruise out of Sarasota, Florida, and range in size from 22 feet to 60 feet in length. A blend of classic boat building know-how with cutting-edge technology goes into every Chris Craft boat. Chris Craft boats undergo a 6-step lamination process, using the most up-to-date equipment to apply gel, resin, and foam. There are several propulsion and drive configurations for the various models and high quality electric harnesses are engineered uniquely for each model type. Chris Craft boats have won many awards throughout the years, citing the overall quality of the vessels.
A Chris Craft is a boat that moves you even when it is standing still. Wherever you go, it is a boat that is a destination in itself. Designed without compromise, it is exhilaration taken to the extreme. Whichever model you choose, each one will catch the eye, steal the heart and fill your lungs with healthy outdoor air.
A Chris Craft is defined by flowing lines that achieve visual harmony, an unrelenting commitment to quality and timeless elegance that is the ultimate expression of style and individuality. There is simply no other boat built that is so fundamentally right because both concept and execution have been worked out perfectly.
Chris Craft boats exist to give you defining moments of unforgettable pleasure. These boats enable you to spend time on board with your family and friends. Above all, a Chris Craft is something to be treasured and enjoyed again and again.
When Chris Smith started to design motor boats, his brief was simple: to maximize speed and comfort. While this resulted in boats that looked sleek and purposeful, they were not always practical. But Chris Smith recognized that without focus you cannot achieve excellence. True to the founder's belief, the boats created today are a pleasure to own and use.
Chris Craft Yachts managers believe that no other manufacturer produces boats that achieve a better harmony between four elements: Beautiful design, Performance, Comfort, Practicality. While some competitors offer boats with more interior space, the resulting designs are in many instances no more than ugly and ungainly bath tubs. Other competitors offer boats with ultimate performance but which are uncomfortable at speed or require exceptional driver skill to be controlled safely.
If you cast your eyes around any marina, you will notice that so many of the boats look identical. In a sea of sameness, Chris Crafts stand out because they are defined by clear and explicit design requirements. This requires sustained innovation and a willingness to embrace new ideas.
Hope you never experience the type of heavy seas that your Chris Craft is designed to withstand.
What makes Chris Craft boats seaworthy in the extreme is the fundamental geometry of the hull design and bulkheads that ensure its rigidity. The hulls are stable in all conditions ensuring a comfortable ride even in choppy conditions. Matched with appropriate engines, the deep-V of a Chris Craft hull effortlessly cuts through water.
The longstanding experience of Chris Craft Yachts in using wood for marine applications has been applied to the interiors of the cabins. When you board any Chris Craft, the passion for quality will be evident from what you see, from what you touch and from what you hear. Knock on the sides of a boat and you will hear what real build integrity sounds like.
As you step on board, you notice the unique shape of a Chris Craft's sleek exterior dimensions. Your first impression is that you are about to experience something special. This feeling is confirmed when you see intricate details, gleaming steel and burnished wood, which beautifully combine past and present. When your foot touches teak decking, you leave your worries behind.
Owning a Chris Craft provides a kaleidoscope of experiences that offer just about everything you could ever want any leisure activity or a boat to provide.
From 1954 through the end of the wood boat era in 1969, Chris Craft manufactured the popular Sea Skiff line. Today, the Chris Craft Sea Skiff exists in far more numbers that its very reasonable factory price would ever have predicted. While many bigger and more expensive Chris Crafts have long ago been abandoned, today, thousands of Sea Skiffs of all sizes, from just 18 ft. to 40 ft., provide cruising fun and a style that only a wood boat can offer.
The attraction of these boats is their lines. Every Sea Skiff, form the smallest to the largest, has a distinctive silhouette that almost always draws admiring glances.
It has been copied but never duplicated. The Chris Craft Sea Skiff remains one of 20th Century boating's true icons.