Bill Van Wagoner keeps a piece of his past on Lake Orion.
The Oxford resident has a 1957 model (made in 1956), 17-foot sportsman utility wooden boat that his father bought when Van Wagoner was a child living in Lake Orion.
“It’s a third generation boat, now owned by my son Bruce,” Van Wagoner said. “I just play with (the boat). He keeps it on Lake Orion, and he lives in the house there that my parents lived in.”
Van Wagoner decided on a whim to enter the boat in the 26th Annual Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Wooden Boat Show in Hessel after he took the boat up there to have some work done.
“I haven’t had it on the water because it wasn’t running right,” he said. “This is one of the biggest boat shows Michigan has…they have 176 wooden boats in the water. We decided we’d enter it since (the boat) was already there.”
Van Wagoner won second place on Aug. 9 in his boat’s class, which was a surprise.
“That was kind of neat,” he said. “I was really surprised to get a second…some of the wooden boats there are just awesome. Some go back to 1939.”
Keeping up a wooden boat is a lot of work.
“My dad had a boat from 1939…every stick of wood in it is mahogany,” he said. “(The 1956 boat) runs perfect. It was in the water last summer.”
Finding someone with the knowledge required to do maintenance on a wooden boat is no easy task either.
“I had this boat all redone in 1995 because a lot of the wood broke,” he said. “That’s why people don’t mess with (wooden boats) much anymore. If you don’t store them properly, you have a lot of problems.”
Van Wagoner remembers his father as a boat lover who especially appreciated the craftsmanship of wooden boats.
“He was a boat nut,” he said. “He loved to watch them make wood boats. Power boats were just unheard of. Back in 1956, this boat was worth $2,500 when my dad bought it…today it’s worth $15,000.”
Van Wagoner said he plans to take the boat back out on Lake Orion soon.
“It’s always been on Lake Orion,” he said. “I’ll probably put it back in the water, my brother is coming from Reno.”
His boat has been requested back at the antique wooden boat show for next year.
“They want me to come back,” he said. “I said ‘Maybe I’ll let my son take it.'”