A MARRIAGE OF ART
AND ENGINEERING
Located on the southern tip of Lake Charlevoix
in Boyne City, Van Dam Custom Boats started
in 1977 as a one-man operation in a small
garage workshop behind their mobile home. But
the enterprise soon outgrew its humble origins.
The shop moved to new locations and
expanded several times over the year as
Jean obtained a master’s degree in health
education, caring for their two children and
eventually signing on as business guru. It now
boasts 15 employees and is currently bursting
at the seams of its 16,000-square-foot space,
Steve says. Another expansion is on tap.
Four years ago, the Van Dams added a second
business nearby, Boyne Boat Yard, specializing
in service and storage with 50,000 square feet
of heated space. They also run a yacht brokerage.
“It seems remarkable,” Steve says,
reminiscing about the company’s roots.
For starters, he tinkered with boatbuilding as a
teenager and during a short stint in college. And,
in what he describes as his long-haired hippie
days, he dreamed of sailing around the world.
But before he could satisfy his wanderlust, Steve
decided he had to make the boat himself. “It just
sounded romantic,” he says with a laugh.And that’s what launched his career as a
master craftsman. You might even call him
a “wizard of wood,” devoted to marrying
art and engineering to achieve a perfect
balance between style and functionality in
the rare world of wooden boatbuilding.
En route to their intended honeymoon
in Maine (they never made it), the Van
Dams stopped in Port McNicoll, Ontario,
on Georgian Bay, where he apprenticed for
3.5 years with a boatbuilder and also worked
with a homebuilder and cabinetmaker.
The couple returned to Jean’s hometown,
Harbor Springs, Michigan, and set up their
first modest shop. Beyond restoration and
repair work, Steve got what he calls several
“big breaks” from clients who sought him
out and, he says, “took a huge leap of faith”
by commissioning him to custom-build
their wooden dreamboats.
Steve developed a reputation early on
for his ingenuity and skill using the cold
molding method that he learned as an
apprentice. “We call it laminated wood
construction — we build up layers of thinner
wood into thick layers, kind of like making
plywood,” he explains. It involves laminating
thin layers of wood with room-temperature
adhesives and gently bending the strips
around a frame to form the hull or other
shapes. The process, he says, creates light but
strong boats with superior durability.
The wood for all Van Dam custom boats is
hand-selected for both beauty and integrity,
according to Steve, who says they typically
use Honduran or African mahogany and take
great pains to book-match grain patterns.
Building these wooden marine masterpieces
is an undertaking that obviously doesn’t
happen overnight. A Van Dam boat can
take anywhere from eight to 24 months to
complete, representing thousands of hours of
labor by teams of skilled craftsmen. The shop
spent six months on the design process for the
Iris, for example, consulting frequently with its
actor-owner, Hermann, and another nine months
building the boat to his specifications. “We always
want to exceed expectations,” Steve says.
A considerable portion of the 5,000 to
25,000 hours spent building each boat, Ben
says, is devoted to sanding by hand to achieve
the lustrous finish for which Van Dam
wooden boats are known. “While it takes
longer, it leads to better results and is worth
the investment of time,” he says.Carefully selected materials are ripped, shaped, detailed and fi nished by the hands of the talented
craftsmen, giving every Van Dam creation a polished appearance and stature.48 JULY 2017 | LAKELANDBOATING.COMVanDam_JUL17.indd 48 5/25/17 11:40 AM