Hawiian boats

[Brknrun]

Does any one have any info on Hawiian boats? :)

[roostwear]

It used to be you could search for that info, but that is long gone with ***boat "improving" the site. Page Old Rigger....I think he was involved with Hawaiian.
http://www.roostwear.com/hawpr2.jpg
[ March 02, 2003, 07:10 AM: Message edited by: roostwear ]

[kcils1]

Brknrun, I've got a 20' 79 Hawian with JW12 pump.It had a 427/396 heads(?) when I purchased it.The motor was sezed.I had to beat the pistons out with a slege hammer.I got it last summer.Since then(winter project) I've put in a 454.Have'nt had it in the water yet.

[old rigger]

Brknrun,
Hawaiian was the bastardized, red headed step son of Tahiti Boats. Tahiti Boats part II if you want. In fact for guys that worked at both shops, there was no difference to us between them. One day we're all at Tahiti, the next day we're back at the old Tahiti shop building Hawaiians. We moved to what later would became the Hardin shop (Tahiti/Caribean) shop for a short time and finally moved into the 2 big buildings on Container lane in Huntington Beach.
Dick Schuster, started Tahiti in the mid 60's, and sold that to Bell Ind. (Bell helmets, etc.) for a cool mil by the end of the decade. A lot of cash back then. He stayed on as president of Tahiti, along with a bean counter from Bell, Jerry Groom.
In the mid 70's the 2 of them started to back door material, everything from glass, resin, molds, motors, pumps, drives and finally employees to start up Hawaiian. Most of us followed Dick to Hawaiian because of the great pay. He was cool and a fair guy to work for, Groom on the other hand was a dick head and should have never been allowed out of his office and into the shop.
Hawaiian was originaly called Tiki, but a court order forced the name change.
A huge lawsuit followed with Groom taking the fall and going to prison over the whole deal. (nobody cared, and we were glad to have him out of our hair. Although when he finally got on the work release program, he started to hire some of these guys he was in prison with. I think he owed them big favors from inside the joint, if you know what I mean. Some of them were real pieces of work.)
Dick, as usual, came out smelling good.
Hawaiian went belly up along with lots of so cal shops in 1980 or so when the energy crunch hit. Dick later bought the Sun Ray boat shop for his kid to have something to do and he nose dived that place in the ground. He didn't any of the ol' mans skills, whatever those may have been. He was at the least, one hell of a salesman and in the early Tahiti days, he built one tuff boat. Those little 16 could take a beating and ask for more.
Anyway, it, Hawaiian, was a big shop, building at the peak, 9 boats a day, all hand laminated. They were great family boats, a step or 2 above a entry level chopper gun boats. But nowhere on the map when it came to high performance hulls. About 75% of the hulls were tooled in house, the others were splashed from other guys stuff.
There was another major factor that contributed to Hawaiians undoing, it wasn't all due to the energy crunch, but that's another story........

[AZKC]

Very cool story Old Rigger, and thanks for the history, as for the other story. Feel free to entertain us with the dirt :D
KC

[GBLASER]

Hawiian has a new shop in Corona today. Who has it now? Without looking close they look pretty dated and cheesy.

[nextasex]

What's up Sean? Glad to see you in the 'hood. Have fun man.
Frank

[Kwicherbichen]

Brknrun, where in La Mirada do you you live? (cross streets).
GBLaser, the Hawaiian you see in Norco is not the same. The one in Norco is called "Team Hawaiian" and they were located on industrial way across from Tom Papp's shop until about 6 weeks ago. Now they are located on Main street?
Team Hawaiian also has a bit of a reputation. I won't go further than that but I suggest if you are in the market for one, get all the information you can before you buy any boat.