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The Hippest Fashion Accessory?                     by  Robert Sullivan                            Who would have imagined, in this day of plastic, banana-shaped kayaks and hysterical Jet Skis, that the Adirondack guideboat would be the boat of the moment? Steve Kaulback did, and the idea hit him that day when - after leaving Brooklyn, where he taught at Pratt, to get back to nature in Vermont - he experienced one for the first time. "I literally stepped out of the boat and said, "I am going to be a boatbuilder"     Now a Vermont-based craftsman, he designs what he calls, "Floating sculptures," his modern rendition of the nineteenth-century classic. Meticulously constructed out of strips of cedar and planks of white pine, touched with cherry, they are simply works of art. The $14,000 price tag for the best Kaulback has to offer confirms this. (Though there are also less expensive versions, ranging from $2,000 to $4,000).       Katie Ford, President of the Ford Modeling Agency, knows beauty when she sees it. Katie owns one of Steve’s 12-ft boats. Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence, owns two of Steve’s boats; and John Cheffins, the President of Rolls-Royce, owns one of the top-of-the-line cedar guideboats.      A cross between a rowboat and a canoe, the guideboat looks like something out of a Thomas Eakins painting. And it really moves, too. At the Wooden Boat show, in Mystic, Connecticut, it’s oars beat an outboard motor. Taking it out for a ride myself, I could row upstream while feeling as if I were floating down.       Recently I flew across the continent, from New York to British Columbia, measuring America at 35,000 feet by the places I would love to row an Adirondack guideboat. First, of course, there was the Hudson, then the Mississippi, then the Flathead in Montana and the Columbia.      Their website offers a 17-ft version which has enough room for three, along with their gear, and in which you will sit on natural cane seats with a cherry backrest. Or you could get a little packboat, which Kaulback originally designed for his daughter. With any of their boats, the problem is always the same, once you get in, you won't want to get out   Meet Bob Sullivan

 

 

  

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