Yacht Tender Lady A Wins Best of Show
Hessel Event Reports Revenue Up, Attendance Down by 100 This Year
By Amy Polk

Judy and Chuck Andrews of Orchard Lake and Glen Lake were happy to win both the Jim Bohn People's Choice and Best of Show awards at the 2007 Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show and Festival of Arts Saturday, August 11, with their yacht tender launch, Lady A.

A diminutive launch used for shuttling wealthy yacht owners to and from their vessels won the two top awards at the 2007 Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show Saturday, August 11.

Lady A, the 20-foot, 1915 Consolidated Shipbuilding launch that won the awards, was small but exquisite, giving a glimpse of the lavish decadence onboard the tender's former parent vessel. Richly decorated with plush, tufted cushions and pillows, a cabin in the center of the boat featured etched glass windows that curved around the enclosed area. The yacht owner and guests of the boat rode in the cabin, according to the old brochures and advertisements for the boat. A chauffeur drove the boat from the front cockpit, said the vessel's owner, Chuck Andrews, while a deck hand stood at attention in the rear cockpit with a pole in hand, ready to land the boat or push off rocks.

At right: Pellston residents Robbie Cieslak (left) and his father, Russ, finished the restoration of this 16- foot, 1954 Larson the morning of Boat Show, August 11. The boat is powered by a 25-horsepower Johnson Seahorse outboard motor. Robbie received the boat as a Christmas gift in 2004, and he and his father have been working on the boat since he was 14 years old. This was their first restoration project, and the first time they have shown the boat. They have attended the Les Cheneaux show in Hessel three times. They refinished the boat's cedar and oak hull with mahogany strips, and were helped by a neighbor and boat builder, John Yotter.

Lady A's function is described in literature Mr. Andrews obtained from the Mystic Seaport Museum of America and the Sea, in Connecticut. The museum has an archive of boat plans and literature on historic boats, and has saved some of these documents.

Mr. Andrews said when Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation was closed about 50 years ago, all boat documentation, including plans and promotional materials, was disposed of. A person walking by the trash recovered the documents, and they are now saved in the museum.

The sons of the late Jim Bohn (from left) Jason, Greg, and Curt Bohn, with their mother, Nancy Bohn (far right) present the newly named Jim Bohn People's Choice Award to Chuck Andrews for his 20- foot, 1915 Consolidated launch used for tending yachts. The late Mr. Bohn was a boat builder and boat show volunteer for about 20 years.

Luckily for Mr. Andrews, he was able to find plans at the museum that matched the 20-foot hull he obtained five years ago in Grand Rapids. He also saw advertisements and pictures of what the vessel probably looked like and how it was used. The literature provided a plan for how Danenberg Boatworks of Manistee would rebuild the tender on the foundation of the old hull.

"We knew the seating configuration and compartments from the way the hull was designed," Mr. Andrews said. "The rest was rebuilt based on drawings from the museum, brochures, and another vessel very much like this that we saw in Annapolis, Maryland. The information we had on the boat was what allowed us to build it the way we did."

Tom Rudy of Grand Rapids polishes his 2007, 21-foot custom runabout replica, Retrospective, in the early hours before the Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show and Festival of Arts begins. The boat won second place in the replica class at this year's show.

Pictures show how the tender used to hang from its large, brass lifting rings in a cradle on the side of a yacht, then lashed to the larger vessel by four brass lashing rings on the sides of the deck. Most of the hardware is original, including the rings, cleats, side rails, air vents, and handrail rings. Some of the hardware was reproduced from plans and pictures of similar boats. The rudder was based on the one on the boat Mr. Andrews saw in Annapolis.

"My feeling is that this is the closest to the original boat we could find or create," he said.

Lady A is powered by a fourcylinder, 40-horsepower Grey Marine engine, although her original would have been a Speedway engine, Mr. Andrews said.

Show boats arrive at the Hessel Marina at 7:15 a.m. the morning of the Les Cheneaux Boat Show and Festival of Arts Saturday, August 11.

The vessel is made of teak. All but four planks in the hull, and the deck, are the boat's original wood. Mr. Andrews thinks the most unique feature of the boat is its seating configuration, and separation of the passengers from the operators.

Other, unique and eye-catching features include its brass hardware and white hull, a large wooden rudder, brass handrails, and dozens of other sumptuous details expressed in the hardware and accessories of the boat.

The one thing it lacks is its history, Mr. Andrews said. The boat does not have an identifying hull number.

"It would be interesting and it would have been fun to know that, but unfortunately, the history of that boat just isn't available," he said.

What it lacks in pedigree, it makes up for in charm, however, and Lady A is an example of a specific type of historic working boat. There are only three other yacht tenders in the country Mr. Andrews knows of. He thinks Lady A's unusual appearance is what attracts so much attention when she has been shown.

The Cox family's Hessel Vessel won the Carl Malmquist award for best boat name at this year's show. The beaver displayed on the engine cover of the boat added some humor to the entry, as did a skunk on an opposing boat, Blair, which featured a raccoon in the 2006 show.

Mr. Andrews has always had an interest in wooden boats, building his first, a racer, at age 14. He owns several wooden boats he uses on Orchard Lake and at his summer house on Glen Lake. He and his wife, Judy, attended and showed the boat at this year's show.

Nancy Bohn, wife of the late Jim Bohn, for whom the People's Choice award will now be named, presented the award to Mr. Andrews. Her sons, Greg, Jason, and Curt, joined her at the gazebo to present the new plaque, designed by her brother, Rob Robley of Cedarville. The vessel's name will be inscribed on a trophy that will be displayed at the Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum in Cedarville.

Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show volunteers launch one of the show entrants at the Hessel Marina boat launch in the early morning hours before the show Saturday, August 16.

The Doris Heuck Abnee award for second place in the Best of Show category went to Great Date, a 22- foot, 1948 Chris Craft owned by Kelly and Liz Boeve of Spring Lake. The third place in Best of Show award sponsored by Hagerty Insurance went to Fanglepock, a 1961 Chris Craft cruiser owned by Brian, Lynn, and Billy Becker of Saugatuck.

The Arnie Horween Jr. Memorial Skippers' Choice Award for a boat with charisma that "commands a second look," went to an unnamed 1959, 16-foot Thompson owned by Gary Rice and Carol Paxton of Charlevoix.

The Mertaugh Boat Works Best Chris Craft Award went to Sugar, a 1927, 26-foot Chris Craft owned by Joe and Jerry Reid of Cedarville.

The Frank Bronson Memorial Award for the Best Non- Professional Restoration was given to Joe and Nancy Stearns of Edenville for their work on Nancy Mae, a 16-foot, 1962 Century Resorter.

Meggie Reid (left) and Suzanne Reid of Waynesville, Ohio, enjoy lunch on the rocks at the Hessel Marina during Boat Show, against the backdrop of moored boats and the islands off Hessel. The mother and daughter stayed at Cheboygan State Park over the weekend and came up for the show after reading about the Les Cheneaux Islands in Bonnie Stewart Mickleson's cookbook, "Hollyhocks and Radishes." Mrs. Reid bought the book at an Ohio cooking store, and said this was her first trip to the area.

A new award for "best boat name," honoring the memory of local sign-maker and painter Carl Malmquist, was given to Terry and Phyllis Cox of Hessel and Beavercreek, Ohio, for their 18- foot, 1941 Chris Craft named Hessel Vessel. The owners, who typically display their boat with local memorabilia or antiques inside, chose this year to display a stuffed beaver with a sign asking, "Got Wood?" The best boat name award was established in honor of Carl Malmquist, a local legend in sign and transom painting who put the names on hundreds of local boats.

Mary Doezema of Lowell won the Darcy M. Janz Memorial Award for artistic excellence, "and with encouragement to continue being creative in a chosen medium."

At last count, 164 boats were registered through the morning of Boat Show day Saturday, August 11, which is 10 more than last year, and the show ran out of registration packets. Spectator attendance is an estimated 7,400 people. Boat Show Committee Co-chair Barb Smith said attendance was down by about 100 from last year, however, sales of apparel and other items were up.

"I think it was a great show, and we were so fortunate to have Chris Smith," she said of Mr. Smith, grandson of Christopher Columbus Smith, the founder of Chris Craft company and this year's guest of honor at show. "He's just such a neat guy."

Gas prices of just under $3 per gallon around the state might have encouraged more traveling this year, prompting some area businesses to report they are having stronger sales this year. Prices are down from the average $3.50 per gallon last year.

Boat Show spectators were treated to a repeat performance by the Michigan Stearman's club of biplane pilots, who flew over the show and Hessel Bay several times, performing to the delight of crowds on land and the hundreds of boats in the bay below. The club flew into the Clark Township Municipal Airport at Hessel, returning to attend the show and fly over after the great response to last year's impromptu show. Mike Zane, of Cedarville and Ortonville, taxied pilots from the airport to the boat show and collected $164 in donations from pilots, which will be given to the Hessel airport's winter snow-plowing fund.

As always, the proceeds from this year's Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show and Festival of Arts will pay for Les Cheneaux Historical and Maritime Museum operations throughout the year. The event is sponsored by the Les Cheneaux Historical Association, with help from approximately 200 volunteers.

"It takes a lot of people to put on this show," Mrs. Smith said. "Our efforts are really helped by the different event committee heads who know so much and have so much experience. They make my job a lot easier."