This ad is my first Tri-Cabin ad. There are a ton of Trojan Yachts (and, in some years, Trojan Yacht) ads out there, but only a few for the Tri-Cabin, which was manufactured from 1971 until 1985. The ad here tells of the Trojan vs. Chris-Craft story - their version of David vs. Goliath - because Chris-Craft made a tri-cabin boat that was a very popular seller around the same time.

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Our 36’ Tri-Cabin is about to give Goliath another headache.

My first boat was a 26’ Chris-Craft Pawnee sailboat - manufactured in Taiwan - and you’d better believe that I collected vintage Chris-Craft advertising then, too. One day I lucked out: the original art director for the advertising for the Pawnee came by my then-marina in Watkins Glen. He made a habit of wandering marinas looking for that boat, one of very few remaining 35 years later, and he’d finally found one. He asked me if I’d like to have the original ads from his campaign - and they looked amazing! One was a helicopter shot taken of the entire Chris-Craft sailing fleet taken from above, and he shared the story with me: the helicopter pilot had refused to fly directly over the boats for fear of destroying a tremendous amount of value were something to go wrong, so their best shot was from an angle that angered the entire ad team. To me, though, it would have been amazing then, and was an amazing addition to my boat.

This ad for the Tri-Cabin should have been mine. I purchased it from a website not realizing that somehow my former Florida address would be defaulted as the shipping address. I tried to contact the seller, but never heard back. Never received the ad, either.

UPDATE! I missed out on this ad in 2016. In 2019, I found it again. It’s now mine - see if you can spot it in the boat photos.

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And since Trojan dealers are such pushovers, chances are pretty good you'll end up paying less for this 36-footer than you would for somebody else's 34'. 

At some point Trojan's advertising department appears to have decided their target market was the rugged, independent male - "tough customers like you." Several ads showed men warning their yacht broker not to fuck with them, like the one to the left. Tagline: 

"Don't sell me Chocolate, Vanilla or Strawberry. I want a small cruiser that handles like a Porsche, looks like a million, and can sleep my family."

That's one tough customer. LOL.

Another ad I missed out on uses the same strategy, but features a wealthy yacht owner with a motor yacht in the 44' range - I hope to locate a copy and include it here soon - see it below.

Another tough customer... 

This ad sold before I could get my eBay password reset lol. If you see one online, get in touch! [Email] [Facebook]

"So Carol, Alice and Sheila won't break their pretty necks getting to the hors d'oeuvres." 

This one reads like an episode of Mad Men. 

In the 1970s it was okay to run a line like this in an ad.

These days you'd better believe that Bob, Ted, Al are just as capable of serving the hors d'oeuvres.

And Carol might just be the captain these days!

But in the ads of the 1960s and 1970s, as with life… Carol Alice and Sheila had pretty necks, and it was still acceptable to point it out in the advertising.

Under $10,000. Honest. 

I saw one of these boats on sale for $9,999 on Craigslist, and I had to laugh. The inflation rate has risen 396.5% since 1974. This purchase would have been worth - well, under $49,647.37 in 2017 dollars. 

Today a combination of inflation and depreciation has them valued at just under $10K - again. 

Check around. Take a look at every different cruiser in the book. Then take a look at Trojan... 

NOTE: I sold this ad to someone on the Trojan Boat Owners Facebook group. This is the boat that he has, and I had another Tri-Cabin ad on the way and needed the shelf space. This is one of my favorite ads Trojan made, but on my boat it would always be relegated to the ‘museum’ in the head, and I felt like on his boat it would probably be the centerpiece of the salon. He can have it. I’ll take any of the money I didn’t put toward shipping it to him and purchase another Trojan ad.

Coming soon…

Coming soon…

NEWEST ACQUISITION:

This one is still on its way. I’d seen it for sale when I bought the boat in 2016, but it too was a victim of my eBay password being compromised.

The copy in this one is so blurry I can’t even tell what it says. I’ll update this once it arrives. But I am guessing it discusses the addition of A/C to the boat - something I wish the original owners of my Trojan had opted for. Or maybe it discusses some other features that keep it warm in cold weather? We’ll wait and see…

Coming soon…

Coming soon…

What the Trojan Tri-Cabin looked like in 1977. I kind of like the retro plaids - can do without the shag carpet and that old console TV, though.