'Homecoming' Stories Distinguish Feature Boats at Les Cheneaux Show
August 11 Event's Guest of Honor Is Grandson of Chris Craft Founder
By Amy Polk

The 26-foot, 1926 Hacker Craft Uandi took the Best of Show and People's Choice awards at the 2006 Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show. The boat will return to the 30th anniversary show as one of the three feature boats.

The Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show is about memories and connections to the past. Families piled inside a boat for a sunset ride. Damp old boathouses sheltering dark, sleek hulls of wooden boats. Creaky wooden docks with boats attached by slender white lines. The thrill of a youngster driving a boat for the first time after years of enviously watching adults do it. Polishing the wood deck until it shines like a tabletop. Boat names that commemorate ancestors. The scent of varnish, oil, and lake water that cling long after the boat ride is over; and the distinct, deep sound of a gurgling engine that echoes in memories.

Chris Smith, grandson of Chris Craft founder Christopher Columbus Smith, knows that sound well. He can often tell a boat by the engine sound, and that's how he reunited with a boat from his past, 45 years after parting with the vessel. Standing at a boat show in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, hundreds of miles from Michigan, where he last operated the boat, he heard a boat's twin engines start up a few feet away. He thought the sound was familiar, and he followed it to a 1956 Chris Craft Continental that was custom made for him while he was still working for Chris Craft. He owned the boat for six years before selling it.

Mr. Smith, who turned 80 this July 4 while vacationing with family and friends in Cedarville, is this year's boat show guest of honor.

He says he literally grew up in Chris Craft's wooden boat factory in Algonac. When it came time to choose a career path, he picked what he knew and loved best. He started at the ground level of the business, and worked his way up to the engineering department. His first job was counting screws on boats to make sure each had the correct number.

"I can honestly say I've never received a paycheck from anyone but Chris Craft," Mr. Smith said while in Cedarville July 5.

He participated in Cedarville's Independence Day festivities Wednesday, July 4, where he rode in a boat through the parade and distributed flags to the crowd. He was the guest of honor at the 1983 boat show in Hessel, and has been a regular show participant in other years, showing his prized antique boats, Odyssea and Odyssea II.

Two more stories about memories that connected boats to their owners will highlight the 30th Anniversary Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show and Festival of Arts in Hessel this year. Activities will start Friday night, August 10, culminating in the Saturday, August 11, show and art festival, and ending with a Sunday brunch at the Les Cheneaux Yacht Club in Cedarville for participants.

One of this year's feature boats, Boss, returning to the Les Cheneaux show this year, is featured on the 2007 show poster. The poster is Diana J. Windsor Grenier's artistic rendition of the magnificent 42-foot, 1921 Great Lakes Boat Building Corporation vessel designed for cruising parties and day trips. Janet Carrington of Cedarville and Florida recalled seeing it when she was a young girl, and was determined to find the boat again. Tom Mertaugh of Classic and Antique Boats of Hessel eventually found the boat in the Grand Rapids area, and she was able to buy it and bring it to the 2006 show.

Another of this year's feature boats is Uandi, a 26-foot, 1926 Hacker Craft that won the 2006 show's two top prizes: Best of Show and People's Choice. The vessel's owner, Norman Betts of Ann Arbor, spent 10 years trying to bring the boat home after its 30- year absence from the Les Cheneaux Islands, where the Blain family used her during summers at their cottage. The Blains are now Mr. Betts' in-laws, after his 1987 marriage to Keeley LaRocca, a granddaughter of the Blains who established the cottage. Years of stories told the importance of the boat to his new wife's family, and Mr. Betts finally acquired the boat in 2006.

The third feature boat, Chief Waramaug, owned by Ted and Barbara Grulikowski of Brighton, is a 26-foot, 1927 Chris Craft Cadet. It was purchased in January 1927 by Stuart Augustus Mead of Greenwich, Connecticut, at the New York Motor Boat Show in New York City, where he also met Christopher Columbus Smith. He named the boat Chief Waramaug after a highly regarded American Indian chief in Connecticut and in recognition of memories of the chief's hunting and fishing lands. The Mead family used the boat through the start of World War II. After the war, the boat was rarely used, and remained in Connecticut until 1979, when it came to the Les Cheneaux Islands.

Boat show activities will start Friday night, August 10, with the boat show participants' cocktail at the Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum in Cedarville hosted by the Les Cheneaux Chamber of Commerce. At the same time, the Cedarville Trojans Athletics Booster Club will stage a fish sandwich supper and silent auction in downtown Hessel. The event will raise money for school athletics.

Activities at the Saturday show will include performances by the Sault Swing Band, two Arnold Transit Company channel cruises at noon and 2:30 p.m., the Festival of Arts, concessions, and Dockside Traders. The Michigan Steerman's Group, which presented a biplane show last year, are planning another fly-over, boat show coordinators said.

A Sunday brunch for boat show registrants and guests will be offered at the Les Cheneaux Yacht Club on Marquette Island at 10:30 a.m.

Registration and information is available at Les Cheneaux Historical Museum in Cedarville, by calling (906) 484-2821.