Around The Shops

 Fall, 2010

By Bill John

For this fall edition of Around The Shops, we recently visited with the Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville, Michigan. This column was written for our ACBS  publication Cutwater and our chapter Website, with the objective of keeping our members informed of the projects at our local shops. The concept is similar to the “Around the Yards” column in Wooden Boat Magazine.

 

In the last several issues of the Cutwater, I have written about the professional boat builders and restorers. In the next several issues, I will be writing about the schools for wooden boat building and restoration. For without these schools, there could be no training of young men and women to carry on this work.

The very core mission of the Antique and Classic Boat Society is to protect the heritage of boating by promoting the preservation and restoration of historic, antique and classic boats. This would be impossible to do if there were no one interested in doing the work of preserving and restoring wooden boats. Fortunately, there are antique boat museum programs, professional boat builders and restorers and several schools that are devoted to just this mission.

 

While attending the 2010 Annual ACBS International Meeting, we visited a school that was established just recently in 2006. The Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville, Michigan holds a proprietary school license from the State of Michigan. The School has an articulation agreement with North Central Michigan College that allows interested students to pursue an Associate Degree in Wooden Boat Building through their combined curriculums. As of 2010, the school has graduated 3 classes of students for a total of 30 students. 

The Great Lakes Boat Building School holds a 9 month vocational program during a regular school year open to full-time students. Students can enroll in a one or two year program.  In addition, it holds numerous seminars during the summer open to the public, that includes boat building, building half hulls and the art of lofting. More about lofting later.

 

The School got established through the generous support of individuals and organizations, including the Antique and Classic Boat Society. It has a simple mission statement:

 

"A non-profit educational center that seeks to provide quality wooden and composite boat building skills to preserve and continue the right maritime heritage of the Great Lakes."

 

The School's physical plant consists of a newly constructed 12,000 square foot building. Great care was given to providing plenty of natural light and adequate ventilation. It was designed to complement the natural character of the historic boat workshops and boathouses in Northern Michigan. A huge loft area provides plenty of space for students to learn the "art of lofting". What exactly is lofting?

Lofting of the boat is the first and most essential step in the construction of any boat. It is the process whereby a scale drawing of the boat is created full size. To be able to accurately reproduce a designed boat, it is essential that accurate and full size drawings of the structural parts are produced. Lofting is the process of drawing lines of a boat full-size, to get the shapes and patterns needed for building the boat. Think of it as architect's drawings of a building, only these are done life size. Students lay the paper on the floor of the large loft and on their knees create pencil drawings of the designed boat.

 The instructors at the Great Lake Boat Building School are led by program director and head instructor Patrick Mahon. Patrick is a master boat builder who now devotes full-time to teaching the students the techniques of boat building. Supporting Patrick is another instructor Adam Burks, and both are assisted in recruiting students and managing the school by the Executive Director Dave Lesh.

 

All students, regardless of skill level, are taught the basics first. They learn how to sharpen their tools by hand. This familiarizes them with the tools of the trade. From there they learn basic woodworking and build their own wooden tool boxes. Shop safety is stressed and there are workshops devoted to just this topic. In addition, they learn the basics of joinery and lofting, using both ancient techniques and newer processes that employ epoxies in wooden composite construction. From the planning and building of projects to the final coats of varnish, these students learn it all.

 

Following the first two years of successful instruction, a new program for advanced students was created. The advanced program focuses on the construction of a modern power boat designs, developed for the School by nationally recognized boat builder Steve Van Dam of Boyne City, Michigan.

Students survive the harsh and lonely winters of Northern Michigan by returning to the School after classes to continue working on their projects. In addition, there is a library filled with books and magazines about boat building and restoration. Videos and DVD's complement the library's offerings of instructive materials. They live in accommodations that would normally be empty during the three off-seasons. After graduation, some students stay in the Cedarville area or have found jobs in nearby boat restoration and boat building shops. So far, most of the students have come from Michigan, with some students from Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio. 

The Great Lakes Boat Building School is located about 17 miles east of the Mackinac Bridge. The Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) is a suspension bridge spanning the Straits of Mackinac at the top of Lake Michigan. The bridge connects the upper and lower peninsulas of the State of Michigan. It is the third longest suspension bridge in the world and is spectacular  while crossing, especially on a clear day. The views of the islands, the grand hotel, the mainlands and the many boats traversing the Strait were fabulous!

We were very impressed by beautiful upper peninsula and the passion for our beloved wooden boats by Dave Lesh and his crew at the Great Lakes Boat Building School. It is nice to know that there are actually wooden boat building and restoration schools out there that share our ACBS passion for wooden boats, and that these schools are training the people who will build and maintain our wooden boats well into the future.

 

Great Lakes Boat Building School

485 South Meridian Road

Cedarville, MI 49719

1-906-484-1081

info@greatlakesboatbuilding.org

Bill John

Vintage Race Boat Shop
603-569-5824 (Shop phone)
http://www.vintageraceboatshop.com

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