Crescent 53

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Rapier
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Crescent 53

Post by Rapier »

After a long time I managed to track down the original manufacurer of one of our family boats. Built for us in Rhodesia in 1971 (I assume under licence) and delivered by road through Mocambique, prior to the escalation of the bush war. The 53 was used in offshore racing in Sweden and typically powered by Volvo Penta I/Os. Sold in the late 80s, it's still in use after 46 years, though powered by an 85hp Yamaha now. It was an unsual boat, no one on the lake had a day cabincruiser and it was one of about 4 boats with a deep V hull, so we always got home safely (if not quickly..or dry).
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Re: Crescent 53

Post by Rapier »

Se7en, this is the model that Crescent used with the 45deg drive.
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se7en
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Re: Crescent 53

Post by se7en »

I liked the 45 drive......not many others did though.....it was expensive to produce, there was no good reason to put one in a boat, it produced 50hp but took the same amount of space up as 120hp stern drive, and was a 2 stroke ,and the gear box was at the top of the leg and a bugger to work on ,however, some had a two speed forward gear box, and they were silky smooth when running.......yes I liked them

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Re: Crescent 53

Post by Rapier »

This was the 1st time I've seen an illustration of one..was it based on the ubiquitous Wartburg motor? I guess the drive concept never died as I saw this link yesterday - I'd imagine it to be more susceptible to damage from floating objects as well.

http://www.mby.com/gear/volvo-penta-for ... show-44873
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Re: Crescent 53

Post by se7en »

The Cylinder block was a 499 cc three cylinder , its the same block that was used on the 35/45 hp outboards, the thing that made the engine just a little smoother and sweeter to use was that it had an Amal slide carburetor instead of the Bing fixed jet used on the outboard,
Re the propeller "pulling instead of "Pushing", there were test done at the time that showed it to have significantly less power loss that way round.

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Re: Crescent 53

Post by Rapier »

Ag, yes of course would have been a Crescent unit...It is a heavy boat, so would have struggled with that power unit, but read that they used to race with those drives as they handled better and one race driver / company tester said "A fantastic system, it was possible to drive with full gas all the time".

We were only able to get a top end of about 26mph with the 65hp Merc. Later, I went for a test drive in a Jetflite with an '72 85hp Merc on the back - was supposed to replace the 650 and it would have made a big difference. For a long time during the 70s petrol shortages & high prices put paid to a lot of the boating we did.
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