BEN: Wood does have a romance to it.
So as it moves past you, it's dynamic.
It changes color.
It changes sheen.
It changes how the light reflects off of it.
So it's kind of like ever moving.
That's something that took hundreds of years to be produced in nature and it's
one of those things that kind of tugs at my heart.
While I love wooden boats, I think the part that's most interesting to me is trying to
do something at a level better than anybody else.
Our mission is that we design and build the world's finest wooden boats.
My name is Ben Van Dam and we're at Van Dam Custom Boats.
THOR: The level of quality that we produce here is...
it's a pursuit of an obsession.
Perfect is a function of how closely you look at something.
BEN: We need the areas that you don't see in the boat to look just as good as the areas you do see.
Everything we build is one of a kind and we build them to be passed down
generation to generation.
JEAN: And then there's these beautiful curves of wood.
It's breathtaking at every stage.
It's as close to perfect as we could get possibly get.
I think the most exciting part of a boat is
the start, all the anticipation,
all the planning, all the thought.
People walk through the door with a dream. So we try to make that happen for them.
In the process of that, we start with a clean sheet of paper and after listening to what
the client wants, then we start working.
We'll fully design the boat in 3-D in the computer.
We'll know every little bit before it ever comes out here.
Once we've got all that stuff kind of dialed in, it'll roll into the shop and then from
there, you know, depending on complexity, it could another seven, eight months or it
could be a year and a half.
He and I, we're always looking for the defects.
So when you're right in the middle of it, you're always, "Oh, that's not right.
This isn't right," and it's hard not to see what's wrong with it [LAUGHS] even though
everybody else, they might think it's perfect.
BEN: And again, that's the beauty of having the design department here.
You know, Michel can...if we've got something that isn't quite lining up on the boat, we
can go in there and see, "Okay, this is what it looks like down to four decimal points,"
and then we can bring that back out in the shop.
It's probably a little bit of a layout error with the shaft line.
Right.
So it's gotta be a height thing here.
We've got a paint and varnish crew in this
back room and we've got a metal shop.
JEAN: Jess has graduated into the metal, but he's an artist with the metal.
Traditional built boats had a lot of issues with water finding its way to the wood.
So the process that we use, called cold molding, basically taking thin layers of wood and gluing
them together so there's not voids.
And in a simple sense, it's just building up layers of wood, with thinner layers, building
it up into a thicker layer.
That's how we get the strength.
That's also how we get the durability, longevity.
These handcrafted boats are just really
beautiful pieces to look at.
They're like a piece of artwork.
BEN: For me boatbuilding is a way of life.
It was something I was born into.
You know, the shop was a playground, and as I grew up he obviously taught me more and more to the
point where we're doing this together now.
STEVE: When I started the business I was very headstrong.
It was my way or the highway.
And for Steve, he had to be like that to build this business up.
He had to put his head to the grindstone and that was it.
Steve is slowly transitioning some of his roles to Ben and
Steve is slowly stepping back.
STEVE: Together we built it into a business and it's hard just to let go of that and pass that on.
BEN: But just the nature of transitioning a business from one person to the next, especially when
your family is fraught with a million things that can get in your way and can ruin a relationship
and I feel really fortunate that we haven't allowed that to happen.
But certainly we've had our battles over things that we wanted to do differently.
JEAN: Number one, you have a father and son who are both very strong people with
different ideas, but Steve has just gradually let go.
Ben is patient, been patient with me.
So we've been working it out.
And for me I don't think it would've mattered if you were building houses or boats or cars
or whatever, but that act of building something was cool.
The building stuff, yeah, and I think that's what morphed into me too.
I started wanting to sail around the world, you know [LAUGHS].
I think in my youth I had dreams of sailing around the world and thought the way I could
sail around the world would be to build a boat to sail around the world.
JEAN: We fell in love and he kind of learned to love boatbuilding rather than doing the sailing trip.
I think if I was going to leave my kids something, it would be, I'd want to have a business that
was stable and that could go through that transition, which, quite honestly, is exactly
what my dad has set up for me.
I mean, we've got a business that's stable, that can handle it if I make some mistakes,
which I'm inevitably going to.
So I guess I'd like to leave what he left me.
There's a lot of things that are lost if people stop building things the way we're building things.
If everything comes easy, you can have a lot of things in a real short period of time and
not appreciate them and throw 'em in the trash when you're done with them, but if takes,
you know, a serious amount of time and effort, you appreciate them more and you keep 'em
and you pass 'em down to your kids.
If this goes away, I think it's the loss of craft.
JEAN: There's a place for the quick and dirty and cheap, but there's also a place for these
artistic creations.
STEVE: We do live in a disposable society where people want something right now and then throw it
away when they're done with it, but there's people out there that appreciate the effort
that it takes to produce something of the highest quality that's crafted with your hands
or your spirit.
BEN: And again, that's a testament to how we build.
I mean, we build them for a lifetime, for multiple lifetimes.
STEVE: 2017 will be our 40th year.
It'll be 40 years ago I started the business.
You know, maybe it's time in my life to get back on a boat a little bit more.
In fact, in the last couple of months, Ben and I acquired a boat that we built 25 years ago.
It'll be awesome to have my granddaughter on there.
What a heritage for them too, you know, as they grew up and say, "Jeez, Grandpa built
this back in whatever year it was."
BEN: I don't think he'll ever leave this place.
He may not work as many hours as he has, but I don't see him going anywhere.
I think he will forever be interested in what we're doing and want to help
and I will certainly lean on him for it.