|
The New Haven Register |
|
| |
Designer Of Adirondack
Boats
|
|
Inspired By A Higher
Authority
|
|
|
by
Helen Jankowski
|
|
|
|
|
It is a clear late June morning and
the sun is just rising on Lake Champlain. My Adirondack guideboat slices through the still
water with an easy pull on the oars. From a distance, the voices of two fishermen in a
drifting outboard carry over the ripples, noting the boat’s classic lines. A couple
paddled toward me in a kayak stops to ask about the boat. I feel like a celebrity! |
| I’d come to Vermont
for a few days to learn more about this fascinating boat being built in Ferrisburgh,
Vermont. David Rosen believes that Steve Kaulback, his partner and the designer of these
lovely boats, “goes someplace spiritual” for his Adirondack guide boat designs.
|
|
Created in the 1830s to be light
enough for one man to carry yet sturdy enough to bear the weight of three men, two dogs
and two dead deer, the classic boats are lovely to begin with. Kaulback took the best
features of his favorite builders and added his own innovations including a Kevlar option
and ergonomic seats. |
| One of the nice things
about a guide boat is that passengers face each other, unlike a canoes where the forward
paddler and his back to the other. Kaulback says the boats are particularly popular with
women, kids and older adults who want a stable-but-lively boats... that are beautiful and
fun to row. |
| “My attraction to
this boats was really aesthetic from a sculptor’s point of view,” says Steve,
who began making the boats 21 years ago. He calls it a happy miracle that a boat as
sophisticated as this appeared when and where it did. “You’d think it more likely to
have happened in Boston Harbor than by these rough men of the Adirondack woods,” he
said. |
| Characteristic of guide
boats is that they want to go in a straight line, and the pinned oars cross at the handles
when rowing, something that’s a little tricky to get used to. They’re also very
fast. The Vermont-made boats have been winning races and breaking records for the past
four years. |
| Based in Ferrisburgh, VT,
the Adirondack Guideboat Company makes three models starting with a 44 pound 12 foot
Kevlar pack boat that sells for $1900, up to a cedar guide boat that costs $12,000 to
$14,000 depending on the boat’s length. A guideboat recently was added to the fleet
of boats kept at the Basin Harbor Club. |