Jerry I met your brother Charles on many boating trips on the
Tennessee River. I was Vice President of Manufacturing for Kings Craft
and we ran into each other more than once. I always liked Charlie he
had a great sense of humor and a true passion for house boats. I trust
at this writing he is doing well? He and his family will be in my
prayers. If you remember, I know Charlie will,the largest boat built in
the Shoals area was a 75 ft boat we made at Kings Craft for the
Cheramie Brothers. It was a two and a half year project and is still
moored at the Golden Meadow,La. marina. 

To: Joeboat48

Thanks for the post. The Burns-craft 48 aft-cabin Motor Yacht was designed and built near the end of the two decades of Burns-Craft production. I'm sorry, but I only have one brochure with the 48 pictured. I do not have any other sales, performance, or technical information. They were beautiful. There were only two produced. One was purchased by a Southern businessman, and the other was purchased by the neighbor of a famous person (un-named of course).

To:tommyg

Great to hear from you. Yes I remember Kings Craft and the 75 footer well. I always admired the Kings Craft houseboats. During my years of yacht sales on Lake Texoma I was at times a guest on the Kings Craft houseboat owned and operated by a well known resort there.

Best wishes to both of you.

Jerry

Mr. Burns, exciting post on the history. I'm just jumping in and purchased a seagoing 40. I haven't been able to find any information out about this vessel. Would there be a chance you would know where i might get started?

thanx neil albright

lake metigoshe, NORTH DAKOTA

Neil,

Great to hear that you are getting into houseboating. In direct answer to your post, in boating years, the production of Seagoing houseboats was quite a long time ago. There is probably no surviving technical, written information. It might be almost impossible to find such info.

However, as any houseboater will probably tell you, the best bet is to find a good mechanic with boat experience. That is what I would do.

As Old Houseboater told you, Seagoing houseboats were built mainly with steel hulls, and fiberglass hulls only in the late history of the company. They were built in Florence, Alabama. The founder and owner of the comapny was Mr. Paul Donaldson, a good friend and a well know businessman in the Muscle Shoals, Alabama area. I do believe he is probably now deceased. Another man promanant in Seagoing was Mr. Jim Beam, who encouraged my brother, Charles Burns to go into boat building in 1969.

As a note, it was quite remarkable that a relative small, but extremely beautiful and historial area in the Tennessee Valley area of North Alabama, was at one time a center of houseboat and cruiser production. On the north side of the River, in Florence, there was Seagoing, Kings Craft, Nauti Line (Nauti Craft) and Sun Runner. On the south side of the river in Colbert county, Burns-Craft and Island Queen.

Best of luck, Neil, with your houseboat.

Jerry

Hi there!

I’m not a house boater but I was struck by the historical information you provided about Sun Runner Boats. You see I just recently purchased a 1986 Sun Runner 242 and I really like it but I can’t find out any information about it anywhere. In fact I didn’t know that the company went out of business until I bought the boat and started attempting to find out more data about them.



I’ve been all over the Web but I find are other people trying to do the same thing and once in while I find someone that speaks about Sun runner like they really what they are all about.

Is there anyone or place I can find manuals, parts and general information on the seemly great boats?

Is there a Sun runner user’s forum or group?



“Arejay in California�
robtjames@earth_link_.net

I love reading stuff like this

I have a 1976 50 ft burns. I also have a wife that is a minister and recently purchased a marina.

http://www.meehansmarina.com

One small question to you, Pirate, or anyone that can answer What does a 50 ft burns weigh?

Approx 23,500 lbs

Thanks, I have a 15 ton travel lift and I am scared to try and lift a 50 FT boat, especially that heavily built burns.