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32cm op 15cm

Fleetline Marine, Inc., was a company based in California that imported the K&O Models, Inc., toy outboard motors from Japan into the USA. They also sold their own line of toy boats that they had manufactured in Japan and brought to this country. The first boats started coming here in the early 1950s and were of poor quality. They were made completely of wood, including the hull, but were often defective. In fact, it's said that about 30% of the early all wood boats that here had to be thrown into the garbage because the wood would separate and the boat would sink if placed in the water. Soon, however, Fleetline started making much better quality boats that were either all plastic or had plastic leak proof hulls with wooden decks. These were far more successful and millions were sold. To me the nicest of these boats were the Marlin, the Sea Rocket, the Zephyr and the Wizard and Wiz Twin boats. Most of the Fleetline boats are not hard to find, especially the Dolphin and Marlin, but there are some exceptions like the Sea Rocket which is very rare. These boats were not made for display but for kids to play with so many are found in beat up condition. Still, they are fun to own and to display your motors on. Unfortunately, after the 1962 season Fleetline sold it's business to the Craftmaster company. The Craftmaster company then made much cheaper looking boats and motors. The motors were no longer die cast metal but plastic and the quality of the boats suffered too. Craftmaster still used the Fleetline name on some of it's toy boat packages.