page_title: Hacker-Craft
section_title: John L. Hacker, the early years
hierarchical_section_title: Hacker-Craft / John L. Hacker, the early years
caption_attribution_description: English: The Hacker logo hand-painted in gold leaf on the side of a mahogany runabout
context_page_description: Hacker-Craft is the name given to boats built by The Hacker Boat Co. It is an American company, founded in Detroit, Michigan in 1908 by John Ludwig Hacker and is the oldest constructor of wooden motor boats in the world. The company moved operations to New York State in the 1970s and continues to produce hand-built boats in Ticonderoga, near Lake George, with corporate offices, storage facilities and a marina lakeside in Silver Bay.
  Hacker was a naval architect and American motorboat designer. His major design and engineering accomplishments include the invention of the "V"-hull design and the floating biplane for the Wright brothers. The company was known for its runabouts, utilities, commuters, and tenders.
context_section_description: Hacker was born in Detroit, Michigan on May 24, 1877. For four years, while working at his fathers business as a bookkeeper, he attended night school and took a correspondence course in order to become an accredited marine designer. Once qualified (at the age of 22) he set about solving a number of problems that inhibited speed and performance in motor boats. Pleasure boats of the 1900 era were narrow, round bottomed launches that plowed through the water instead of planing over it as boats do nowadays. Hacker's first major task in boat design was to try to solve the problem of "squatting", which occurred with all the canoe-stern shaped powerboats of the 1900s. His theory was that if his boats were going to go fast, they would have to "plane" rather than plow through the water, but the tendency to plane was considered an unsafe mode that was to be avoided. Nonetheless, he built a test craft to prove his new theories—a 30-foot (9.1 m) runabout. The boat's propeller and rudder were mounted under the transom and a strut was used to position the propeller shaft. The boat also featured Hacker's revolutionary "V"-hull design, which produced stunning speed and efficiency at low horsepower.
  In 1904, he designed Au Revoir, the fastest boat in the world at the time, and on August 12, 1908, building on this success, he founded the Hacker Boat Company in Detroit, upon purchasing and renaming  an existing firm, the Detroit Launch and Power Company. Coincidentally, this was the same day on which the first ever Model T Ford automobile was produced by his friend, Henry Ford.
  Hacker's designs led to many advances that today's boat owners take for granted. His combination of design flair and engineering brilliance led him to create the shape and style that was to become the signature look of American speedboats. The names of his designs include Pardon Me, the Minute Man, Thunderbird, El Lagarto, Bootlegger, Peerless, Dolphin, Kitty Hawk, Tempo VI, the Belle Isle Bear Cats, Lockpat II, and My Sweetie.
caption: Hacker-Craft's logo, hand-painted in gold leaf on the side of a mahogany runabout
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