Let us take you on a journey.

It begins in Algonac, Michigan, a sleepy town on the St. Clair River. It was here that Christopher Columbus Smith built his first boat in 1874, aged 13.

He built a simple lake boat for duck hunting. It demonstrated that he had an extraordinary natural talent for working with wood. From modest beginnings, it wasn't long before Chris and his brother Hank began to build a succession of wooden boats. A new company was established and a legend was born. Today, Chris-Craft is one of the world's most renowned and universally recognized names in boat building. Some dictionaries even list the word Chris-Craft as a synonym for pleasure boat.

By the beginning of the 20th Century, Chris Smith's reputation had begun to spread. At about the same time that Henry Ford started making cars, Chris Smith began to build speed boats. Experimenting with a variety of hull and gasoline engine combinations, Smith realized that powered boats needed an entirely new type of hull design to ensure efficient movement through water.