wooden boat: Wooden boat restoration is his passion and work
BY CRAIG McCOOL
mccoolrecordeagle@sbcglobal.net
CHARLEVOIX — The shop smells like varnish and wood dust. William Dreyer II paces anxiously, cell phone pressed to his ear.
"You have it?" he says into the phone. "I just need one. Ship it ... Yes. Overnight."
After months of hard work, the 1957 Century Resorter is nearly done. The varnish is beautiful. The boot stripe, bright white.
But a crucial piece of hardware is late from the replating shop, and the boat is to be delivered in less than two weeks.
In the wooden boat restoration business, spring is a busy time.
"Everybody wants their boat by Memorial Day," Dreyer said.
Dreyer, 31, seems an unlikely wooden boat enthusiast.
His fashion sense leans more to hemp necklaces and Doc Martens than dock loafers.
Chris-Craft abandoned mahogany for fiberglass years before Dreyer was born.
The boats he works on generally predate him by at least a few decades.
Dreyer graduated Charlevoix High School in 1993 — his favorite class was wood shop — and went on to Hope College, where he earned degrees in biology and psychology. Then, to his parents' dismay, he decided he'd rather be a woodworker.
Dreyer answered a newspaper ad for a boat-building company in Saugatuck. He worked there more than four years, learning the trade.
In 2004, he moved back to Charlevoix with his wife.
He leased a large pole building and set out looking for people who might be willing to trust him with their expensive investments.
"I came up here with no clients, no contacts," he said. "I went to marinas ... I jumped in my parents' boat and went around Lake Charlevoix. Anytime I saw a wooden boat, I chased them down."
The tactic worked. Jobs started coming in. His first complete restoration, a year-long custom overhaul of a 1962 Chris-Craft Sea Skiff called Kawliga, hits the boat show circuit for the first time this summer.
Dreyer's shop accommodates about three projects at a time.
There currently: the Resorter, a Century Coronado and a rarer 1938 Chris-Craft runabout.
Dreyer's own boat, a 1957 Sea Skiff, is outside under a tarp.
He has no employees but sometimes has help. He keeps an open-shop policy, meaning clients, if they are inclined, can stop by and work.
"Some really like to learn. They want to be here when I work on their boat," Dreyer said.
He returned his attention to the Resorter. Months earlier, the owner, in the spirit of helpfulness, mislabeled all of the wiring in the boat's electrical harness — another last-minute dilemma.
But not insurmountable, and Dreyer's favorite phase of the project was coming up: "I water test each boat," he said, smiling. "To make sure everything is working just right."
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