Golden Inspiration
Hessel Model Boat Builder Wins Gold in Contest
By Amy Polk

Paul Wilson of Hessel holds his model of the Edna B., a gaff-rigged sloop that won him a gold award at the Midwestern Model Ships and Boats Contest in Manitowac, Wisconsin.

The home of Paul and Pat Wilson overlooks a bay where grasses ripple gently, like waves on the lake beyond. The water inspires Mr. Wilson, a meticulous craftsman, to create the kinds of vessels that slip quietly through bays, parting reeds along the way. The canoes, kayaks, and sailboats he makes all suggest a quiet life along the water's edge.

Mr. Wilson's craftsmanship finally earned him recognition in May, when he won a gold award at the Midwestern Model Ships and Boats Contest, at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. It was his first time in the show. He beat 45 other contestants to take the top award for a gaff-rigged model sloop he built called the Edna B, named after an 18-foot sailboat last owned by Oliver and Edna Birge. The Birges were friends and neighbors of the Wilsons, and Edna B. was a boat Mr. Wilson became well acquainted with.

The boat was built between 1900 and 1910, a commissioned vessel ordered by Sewell Avery, chairman of Montgomery Wards stores during the 1940s. Mr. Avery wanted the boat for use at his summer cottage in the Les Cheneaux Islands. The designer and builder were unknown by the family, Mr. Wilson said.

"The Sloop," as it was known by the Avery family, was used for recreation until 1926, when they gave it to Ernest Birge, who lived across the bay from the Avery cottage.

"At this time, the sloop needed paint and minor repairs, including repairs to several sprung planks," Mr. Wilson said. "Ernest, unwilling to do the repairs, entrusted the sloop to his brother, Oliver Birge."

Mr. Birge sailed the boat until 1956. Before that time, during the Great Depression, when work was hard to find, Mr. Birge, an artist, draftsman, and engineer, started recording the lines of the sloop to draw plans for its construction. He eventually drew nine sets of boat plans for different boats.

“By the end of 1979, Oliver had drawn 10 sheets of plans documenting the lines, construction, hardware, and rigging of the sloop," Mr. Wilson said. "The sloop was finally named at this time after Oliver's devoted wife, Edna."

Mr. Wilson reconstructed the dilapidated hull of Edna B. in the late 1980s, finishing the work in 1989 with her original hardware that Mr. Birge kept in storage. He launched the boat in Hessel, and Mr. Birge, at 84, sailed the boat home. The restored Edna B. remained at Mr. Birge's dock until his death at age 90. Mr. Wilson continued to sail Edna B. for 10 years after.

Mr. Wilson has built model boats since he was a teenager, and his interest in full-size boat building "was a natural extension from building models," he said. He believes it takes more than an artistic mind to make models, and commented that many of his peers in model building at the show in Manitowoc "are pretty fanatical about the fittings and the details on their models." One of the models at the show had real gold-plated fittings. Another, a model of an ancient Egyptian barge, carried bricks made from materials found in the Nile River region.

Mr. Wilson made the Edna B.'s miniature, bronze-cast, metal fittings himself, making wax molds from which he cast the pieces. He sewed his own sails for the vessel. The vessel's riggings work just as they would on a real boat. Many of the support pieces in the model's hull are inside to truly represent the full-size boat's construction, though Mr. Wilson admitted that kind of detail is invisible to the typical person. Mr. Wilson and his peers are not typical, however, and he invited the discerning viewer to use a mirror and light to inspect the hidden touches inside the boat. The boat took nearly a year to make.

Mr. Wilson taught mathematics at Lake Superior State University for 37 years, attained the rank of full professor, and is now a Professor Emeritus. His wife, Moira "Pat" Wilson, also taught there as adjunct faculty for five years. While they lived in Sault Ste. Marie, they kept a sailboat at Viking Boat Harbor in Cedarville, and visited friends here starting in the 1960s. In 2000, they moved to their permanent home on Point Brulee in Hessel, where their surroundings continue to inspire Mr. Wilson's craft. He builds full-size boats as well as the models, and each year, builds a vessel for the Les Cheneaux Historical Association's annual boat raffle. This year, he created a cedar canoe, with a red, painted body and natural interior. Raffle tickets are $5, and are sold at area businesses and the Les Cheneaux Historical and Maritime museums in Cedarville.