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Professional BoatBuilder
Simple Pleasures
by Brooks Townes
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Adirondack guide boats are light, fast and responsive. They're shaped
like pure sculpture, and they're going to become far more popular
shortly, mark my words. To many of us, they are simply the sweetest
rowing craft around, and your Rovings
writer has rowed a broad sampling of craft, from boxy paint floats and Avon Red Crests to
Maine peapods, Whitehalls and wherries, to shells and working Grand Banks dories - plus a
lot of boats I've forgotten. I haven't forgotten a friend's Adirondack guide from years
ago. |
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These boats are not well known very far from upstate New York where they
were developed by nobody knows who about 150 years ago. Locals in what
was then really a wilderness crafted these boats of burden to haul
"sports" into the wilds to hunt and fish. Wealthy city slickers had
discovered the Adirondack Mountains as a place for manly recreation -
but not too manly. They didn't want to row themselves around.
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Built to easily haul two men, their gear, two dogs and a deer, they take
surprisingly little energy to row great distances. When solo and sitting
still, take one strong stroke of a 70 lb. guide boat's bendy overlapping
oars. The acceleration is startling, the speed attained surprising.
Built cleverly to be strong and burdensome, they were easily carried
through the woods on one man's shoulders. They still are.
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The memory of my friend's guide boat prompted an abrupt U-turn while
driving through Vermont recently. I'd spied a plain metal building by
the side of the road with several guide boats out front and a sign -
"Adirondack Guideboat, Inc." Inside in an open-mold
a woman was energetically rolling polyurethane resin into 6 oz. E-glass, pushing resin and
Aerosil and dispersion (color pigment) through the weave. Next would come layers of 5.6
oz. Kevlar - from three to seven depending on strength and rigidity requirements - and on
top of that would go a layer of 10 oz .E-glass. |
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| "We keep
rigidity with the Kevlar just where we need it," said Production Manager
Randy Stewart, quick to credit business founder and co-owner Steve
Kaulback with the engineering. Kaulback also designed the 15' boats,
taking the best of famous canoe builder J. Henry Ruston and the best of
a couple other long-gone but highly regarded guide boat builders. His
standards are high. The boats are beautiful, strong and faster than
most. They weigh 68 lbs. |
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Kaulback also builds beautiful cedar over spruce versions with epoxy
laminated stems and frames and cherrywood interior parts. He's been
building and refining those for a couple of decades. He began building
fiberglass versions 15 years ago and has used Kevlar for eight years. In
all, the company has sold close to 1,500 boats. It recently added 12'
Kevlar "PackBoat" weighing 46 lbs. |
| "Last week we did our 100th composite
hull, plus 10 wooden boats on top of that," Stewart said in November. Depending on
fit and finish, the wooden boats can cost as much as a new small car. Kevlar versions sell for far less - some $3,900
complete with oars. Now, with energetic partner David Rosen handling the business end
(garnering free ink in Forbes and Yachting and on Vermont Public
Television and Radio, for example), the company is poised to expand. Rosen and
Kaulback are considering taking on investors. They're looking for the right people to add
to their 19-person crew, and they're sure the wider world is ready for the treat of a good
guide boat. |
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About the author
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