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Tower harbor launches new business

Sunrise River Boatworks now restoring wooden boats

Jodi Summit
Posted 2/26/15

TOWER- Wooden boats will be making their appearance in Tower’s harbor once again.

Sunrise River Boatworks, which offers full-service wooden boat restoration, is now restoring classic old wooden …

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Tower harbor launches new business

Sunrise River Boatworks now restoring wooden boats

Posted

TOWER- Wooden boats will be making their appearance in Tower’s harbor once again.

Sunrise River Boatworks, which offers full-service wooden boat restoration, is now restoring classic old wooden boats just over a block away from Tower’s almost-completed harbor.

“This is a great location for a boat shop,” said co-owner Aaron Starke. “Tower’s a great spot, with the harbor and the history on the lake.”

Starke, who is from the Twin Cities, along with Dana Hein and Jeff Larson, both of Ely, purchased the old Northern Insulation Building on Cedar Street. The building was a perfect fit for their needs, with plenty of heated space for boat restoration, as well as over 5,000 sq. ft. of indoor unheated storage, for boats waiting for their turn in the shop. The three have found a steady stream of boats to restore in the area, mostly from Lake Vermilion and Burntside.

The three owners are all passionate about their work.

“We are lucky to make a living doing this,” they said.

Starke restores boats full-time, while Hein and Larson also spend time doing custom woodworking in Ely. Starke is a also a partner in a boat restoration shop in the Twin Cities, of the same name.

“We had a quite a few clients from Lake Vermilion and Burntside,” he said. “We couldn’t handle all of them, so started looking for a location up here.”

The three spent the fall renovating the building, setting up a warm and bright workshop space, which can fit three boats at a time. This summer they plan to spruce up the exterior of the older metal building.

The actual work involves a lot of traditional craftsmanship. Hand tools outnumber power tools. The shop is stocked with many types of planes and chisels, wooden mallets, and old measuring tools, and only a few power tools.

Most of the pieces are hand-fitted back together.

“This is one of the last great art forms of woodworking,” Starke said. “The original craftsmanship is very high. Bringing them back to the original is an art.”

Woods are matched, as much as possible, to the original. This means using mahogany, which is favored because of its strength, resistance to rotting, and low shrinkage. The deep red colors of the wood give the old wooden boats their classic sheen. Mahogany has traditionally been sourced from rainforests, but many countries have cracked down on the illegal logging that contributed to deforestation in the tropics and rapidly shrinking ranges where the trees can grow to harvestable size.

“It’s been a heartache for boat restorers,” said Starke, who said that it is harder to find reliable supplies of the wood.

“We make do,” he said.

Making do means reusing as much of the boat’s original wood as possible. Wooden planks are carefully removed and, if possible, refinished.

“You always find some bad wood when you start a job,” he said.

But sometimes modern materials make more sense. Marine-grade plywoods and high-tech sealants mean boat bottoms can be made watertight.

Traditionally, a wooden boat often only became watertight after being soaked in the water, causing the wood to swell and seal up joints. This was a process that needed to be repeated each boating season. And as boats aged, they often started to leak.

Each boat they work on calls for different skills.

Right now the three men are working on three boats: a 1947 Chris Craft deluxe runabout, a 1959 Chris Craft Sportsman, and a 1950 Thompson Speed Demon, which had been used for racing.

The crew mostly works on boats that date from the 1920s through the 1960s. They said there are about six shops in the state that specialize in restoring wooden boats.

“These boats are great Americana,” said Starke. “All of them have a story and a history.”

The romance of wooden boats is often tied to their family history.

“Lots of these boats have been in the same family for generations,” said Dana Hein, “and the memories are tied to their family cabins.”

“We always hear their stories,” said Starke. “They often treat their boats as if they were family members, like babies.”

One of the boats they are working on right now was purchased in an auction sale over 60 years ago. The family used the boat, even though it was in poor condition and leaked, for years.

“Finally the children, who grew up with the boat at their cabin, have the money to have it properly restored,” Starke said.

The business also can restore the original engines and motors.

The vast majority of the work the Boatworks does is for individual clients, but every once in a while they find a treasure they hope to restore for themselves.

Hein and Larson recently bought an old boat from Aronson’s.

“We just had to save it,” they said. The boat is sitting in storage now, waiting for some free time. But these old wooden treasures are harder to come by.

“We don’t find too many barn finds anymore,” they said.

Sunrise River Boatworks is located on 202 N. Cedar St. in Tower (on the way to Hoodoo Point). They can be reached at 952-297-5414, by email at sunriseriverboatworks@yahoo.com, or online at www.sunriseriverboatworks.com.