Boats You Can Hug  

  

 by Cliff Gromer

Contributing Editor
 
    At The New York National Boat Show 
 
        Packing the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center with 1100 watercraft, marine-related gear and miscellaneous items not really related to anything at all, the show was the place to come to forget about winter temperatures and streets adorned with plow-carved snow bank art. It was a place to fantasize about good times, warm times. Having fun on the water with friends and family.
        The floating toys, which weren't floating but stationed securely to the Javits Center floor, ranged in size from luxury floating hotels to inflatable (and conversely, deflatable) tenders, and wooden boats with two-oar power. The buzz among the exhibitors was the sudden bankruptcy of OMC, (Outboard Motor Corporation, the combined company formed by the merger of Johnson and Evenrude.)
        OMC’s vast unused space at the New York Boat Show was given to a tiny company from Vermont which hand-builds Adirondack guideboats and guide boat kits……while the boat show is usually devoted almost exclusively to powered craft, one exhibitor, Adirondack Guideboat, takes water travel back to its roots. Adirondack Guideboat’s handcrafted boats, in either Kevlar or wood, boats remarkably true to original designs dating back 180 years.
       These are fast boats that have an enviable record in winning races, boats destined to become cherished heirlooms—unlike many powerboats with which, as the saying goes, your two happiest days are when you buy the boat and when you sell it. These classics almost never show up on the used-boat market. The guideboats are really beautiful in the true sense and seaworthy both in salt and freshwater. They also can haul lots of stuff. Models range from the 12-ft., 46-
pound Kevlar PackBoat that starts at $1750 to the
 top-of-the-line, 17-ft. 10-in. wooden guideboat for $13,600. Wooden guideboat kits, which you lovingly screw together plank by plank, go for 3 grand for the 15-ft. model. Add or subtract $150 per foot. Truly, these are boats you can hug. 

 

 

 

     
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