Member Spotlight -

Randy Havel

The beginning of this story goes back forty years when, as a youth, my family used to vacation in the beautiful Les Chaneaux Islands of Michigan. During that time, we would always rent an old wooden launch to hold our family of four plus my grandparents. These old launches had a Model “A” Ford engine and I recall my grandfather virtually overhauling them on the water when they wouldn’t start after a day of fishing. (He didn’t believe the outboards of that era were very reliable.) Of course, we went many times to Mertau’s Marina and Boat Works in Hessel, Michigan to get the latest in lures and bait. Wooden boats in that area at that time were just vehicles to get to a fishing spot or a good duck hunting point.

Growing up on the Lake Erie watershed, farm auctions and sales were a weekend ritual and a cheap date for my wife Jo and I in those early years. We started buying bushel baskets of wood duck decoys for my own use for $2.50 a bushel. Most of these wooden relics happened to be manufactured by the Mason Decoy Factory in Detroit and were plentiful because plastics had just begun to hit the decoy market. Wooden decoys and wooden duck boats always went together and I have many cherished memories loading decoys, wet and heavy, into a small wooden duck boat or canoe.

When aluminum and fiberglass duck boats were becoming popular and the old “Shell Lake” duck boats were getting scarce, our wood boat and canoe collection was starting to grow along with the now expanding decoy collection. While researching a decoy I had uncovered, I discovered that Chris Smith, founder of Chris Craft, Inc., was a noted decoy carver in the early 1900’s and that he got his start in the boat business by building duck boats and selling them on the St. Claire Flats of Michigan. I have yet to find a Chris Smith duck boat hanging in a barn somewhere, but I do have two of his hand-carved decoys proudly displayed in our home, a result of a Christmas gift from Jo.

Randy in June 1957-- just taking it easy!

About ten years ago, a Havel reunion was scheduled back at the location of our childhood spot in the LesChaneaux Islands. We returned to find the resort we always retreated to, dismantled. The wooden launches were long since gone and the “on the water” boat house collapsed in the bay. Our spirits were pretty low as we drove from Cedarville to Hessel to see if our old bait shop and marina had met the same fate as our beloved resort. Mertau’s Marina was alive and well. Better yet, there were about ninety old woodies in the water for the annual boat show there. Someone had even saved and restored one of the launches from our old resort. I stood on the docks and wondered if it was one that I once fished from. I could see my grandfather bending over and adjusting the vent line on the carburetor, my grandmother asleep in the bow, my brother and me playing in the minnow bucket, and my parents making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Wooden boats have been in many of our lives, but the passion to have and enjoy one may be an effort to savor the memories of our youth.