HarveysLake.org interviewed Frank “Bucky” Kelly, of Forty-Fort, in May 2004, nearly 50 years after the recovery of the sunken hydroplane in Harvey’s Lake.

Jack Zorzi was a well-known race boat enthusiast and boat-builder at the Lake in the late 1920s-early 1930s. The boat in this article was a hydroplane fitted with a 6 cylinder Chrysler automobile engine. The engine weight and a front rudder assembly made the boat difficult at times to handle. It hit a steamboat wake when the accident occurred.

Bucky Kelly and one-dozen friends were among the earliest scuba divers in Pennsylvania. Their group was formed in 1954 at the Lake. After they discovered Zorzi’s boat they engaged Carl Swanson’s floating pile driver (for building docks) and raised the boat. The boat was taken to Lake Carey and restored. The original battery, under-water for 20 years, was cleaned and was able to be recharged. A 6 cylinder U.S. Postal truck engine was installed and the boat had a top speed of 45 miles per hour. Later the boat was taken to Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, where it operated until additional damage occurred and it was abandoned.

While diving at the Lake Bucky Kelly noted grey circles on the bottom which were underwater springs feeding the Lake. His friends captured a 44 pound carp (released into the Irem Temple swimming pool). They undertook a comprehensive search for the legendary lumber sled and lost horses which fell through the Lake ice in the early 1900s but were unsuccessful.

They experienced the 10 feet of silt (mud in suspension) which covers the deepest parts of the Lake bottom.

Bucky also helped haul logs from the Lake bottom at Alderson - from the Lake’s lumber era - which were sawed into commercial lumber in the late 1950s.