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