10 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDERCompiled by Dan Spurr
ROVINGS
One of the most remarkable and in uential people in
boatbuilding passed away last August 27 from skin cancer
at the age of 78. With brothers Joel and Jan, Meade formed
Gougeon Brothers Inc. in 1969 to formulate and mar-
ket WEST System epoxy resins and accessories. e name
WEST stands for Wood Epoxy
Saturation Technique, a pro-
cess he developed to improve
on traditional cold-molded
hulls, in which multiple layers
of thin wood veneers are diag-
onally stapled over frames and
coated with low-viscosity epoxy
resin to lock the pieces into a
sti monocoque structure. Liv-
ing as the boys did on Saginaw
Bay, inside Michigan’s thumb,
racing iceboats was a popular
winter activity. Soon they began
building them—200 between
1969 and 1974.
From the beginning the
Gougeons were true believers
in wood; its excellent physical
properties confirmed their
conclusions in numerous lab
tests they performed. But not-
ing that just 25% of the strength
of a good mechanically fas-
tened joint is transferred, they
began an intensive search for
a means to join wood parts
without fasteners. As any car-
penter knows, wood and glue
go together like a horse and
saddle. Popular glues such as
resorcinol required high clamp-
ing pressures in the order of 125 psi (862 kPa), and they were
not suitable as coatings. With the aid of Herbert Dow,
grandson of Dow Chemical Company’s founder and an avid
iceboater, the Gougeons were introduced to a chemist who
helped formulate an epoxy resin that functioned as a glue
and as a coating to seal in desired moisture content of the
wood used in construction.
Con dent of their direction, Meade quit his job as an
industrial salesman, and Joel, who ew 131 combat missions
in the Vietnam War, contributed some of his savings. Alongwith younger brother Jan they bought a building on the
Saginaw River and continued building boats—more DN ice-
boats and then the rst all-WEST System boat, the 35'
(10.7m) Adagio trimaran. e year was 1970. No metal fas-
teners were employed in the boat’s basic structures.
In the early days all three
brothers worked in the boat-
shop, commencing an impres-
sive build list: the trimaran
Victor T, which won the
C-class Nationals in 1969; the
Ron Holland–designed Golden
Dazy, which won the 1975
Canada’s Cup; the 60' (18.3m)
proa/sloop Slingshot, intended
to break the world’s speed
record under sail; the 60'
Rogue Wave that newspaper-
man Phil Weld commissioned
to compete in the OSTAR
from Plymouth, England, to
Newport, Rhode Island; and
the Gary Mull–designed Hot
Flash Half Tonner. All were
cold-molded: lightweight,
sti , and strong. e boat-
building world took note—
not so much for the cold-
molding construction pro-
cess, but for their epoxy.
Word traveled locally at
rst, and eventually across the
U.S. and to Europe and else-
where. And not just among
boat people. J.R. Watson, an
early employee who spent a
lot of time in customer ser-
vice, recalls people calling and wanting to know if WEST
System epoxy could repair a toilet tank. Indeed, GBI’s news-
letter, Epoxyworks, advises readers on a very wide range of
applications, many of which can be classi ed as home
improvement.
By the late 1970s it was only natural that someone of
Meade’s intellect desired to gather the company’s collective
knowledge and share it via publication of a book. As it hap-
pened, Meade advertised for a writer/editor to join the GBI
team, and I answered. My “interview” consisted of three visitsDAN SPURR
Meade Gougeon works on a piece of rigging for a 32' (9.8m)
catamaran designed by brother Jan. In the 1960s Meade and
his brothers, Joel and Jan, built DN iceboats, raced them on
Michigan’s Saginaw Bay...and never really stopped.Game Changer: Meade Gougeon, 1938–
Rovings170-ADFinal.indd 10 11/2/17 1:31 PM