Monthly Archives: May 2019

Michigander, a 21st Century stern steerer ice yacht

Michigander – A 21st Century Stern Steerer

by Randy Rogoski, West Michigan Ice Yacht Club
Epoxyworks 48 Building Restoration and Repair with Epoxy Spring 2019

Michigander on Lake Pewaukee, Wisconson for the 2018 Wisconsin SternSteerers Association regatta. Photo by Jay Yaeso.

Michigander is 40-feet long and weighs 1,400 pounds. It’s in a class by itself and is one of the largest ice yachts sailing anywhere in the 21st century.

This “A”-class stern steerer carries 360 square feet of sloop-rigged sail. “That’s a lot of horsepower,” said skipper Eric Sawyer. Michigander also sports a 250-square-foot Kevlar® mainsail for better control in more wind. She’ll sail in excess of 60 mph in a 10 mph wind.

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The employee-owners of Gougeon Brothers, Inc.

50 Years of Epoxy Excellence

By Grace Ombry

Epoxy Excellence since 1969

Here at Gougeon Brothers, Inc. we’re celebrating our 50th anniversary in business. We’ve grown from a modest boat shop that began experimenting with epoxy in the late 1960s to a trusted manufacturer and supplier of epoxies worldwide. We serve the high-end composite, boatbuilding, boat repair, and board-sports industries. Our products are manufactured under rigorous ISO 9001:2015 standards to ensure consistent high quality and performance. Marine and composites educators, designers and manufacturers consider GBI epoxies—WEST SYSTEM®, PRO-SET®, and bio-based Entropy Resins®—the gold standard in their respective markets. Continue reading →

USA Bobsled Team repairs their sleds with WEST SYSTEM

Bobsled

By Richard Laubenstein

USA Bobsled/Skeleton’s Crew Chief, Richard Laubenstein, constantly works toward one main goal: to design and maintain the fastest, most aerodynamic bobsleds for Team USA’s athletes. Bobsleds are high-performance machines powered by people. Athletes push the sled in a sprinting start to gain speed, then jump in to continue down the icy track at speeds exceeding 95 mph. Continue reading →

Mini Skeeter

by Randy Rogoski

There is only one solution that comes from the ache of seeing iceboats ripping around on Mona Lake all your life: give in and buy one. If the thrill doesn’t quite meet expectations, build one that will be faster.  Pat Filius has lived 20 years on a now-flooded celery flat fed by Black Creek, the main tributary of Mona Lake in Norton, Michigan. In 2014 he bought his first iceboat for $400. Sailing it just once was enough to convince him that he wanted a faster boat. Continue reading →

Fiberglass Repair on a Yamaha WaveRunner

By Jordan Teddleton

I wanted to purchase a personal watercraft so I’d be able to join my friends at the local lake for some fun in the sin this summer.  Like most people on a budget, I searched Craigslist for the best deal.  I needed something low maintenance, so a WaveRunner™ felt like a good fit.  After a week of looking, I found a 2004 Yamaha GP1300r that appeared to be in decent shape; however, a strangely placed sticker on the top port side turned out to be covering a painful past. Continue reading →

Aluminum hinge repair on a SeaArk

Aluminum Hinge Repair

By Gary Harrison

I made a difficult rear-hatch repair on my 2007 aluminum SeaArk 1872 MVJT (modified V-jet tunnel) center console using WEST SYSTEM G/flex Epoxy.

The year before I bought it, my SeaArk center console had undergone a complete rebuild. The entire inside of the boat was sprayed with Line-X® Protective Coating, which makes clean-up super easy but prohibits any additional welding to the aluminum.

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Cemetery Monument Repairs

by Ron Graham

I started working regularly at Pine Ridge Cemetery, an abandoned, historic cemetery in Bay City, Michigan in 2009. For several years, I concentrated on mowing and clearing out scrub growth (clusters of hawthorn with up to 1 ½” thorns). I reached a point where things looked better with the grass and trees. That’s when I began working on monuments that needed to be raised, straightened, or stood up.

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Bruce Niederer doing what he loves best, sailing.

I Walked With Giants

By Bruce Niederer — Retired GBI Technical Advisor

I thought a lot about my career here at Gougeon Brothers, Inc. as my time for retirement drew near. I’ve been working every day, more or less, from the time I was 16 years old. I’ve had a lot of different jobs. But for the last 22 years and change I’ve been with GBI and—without sounding too hyperbolic—it has been life-changing. Soon it will all be over and I can reap the rewards I’ve earned in retirement.

I couldn’t be more excited… I couldn’t be more apprehensive.

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Daniel's grandson taking his new car and boat with trailer for a spin.

Chris Craft Baby Runabout

by Daniel Laeyendecker

I designed this project by scaling down a Chris Craft runabout from pictures I found online.

Hull and Drive Assembly

I started with five rib frames and a center beam temporarily mounted upside-down on a workbench. I glued and stapled the ¼” x ¾” bead-and-cove pine strips to the ribs. Once all the strips were installed, I removed the staples and sanded the hull smooth for the heat-activated 2″ mahogany strips I’d apply later.

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