81-year-old from Orrington enjoys building, racing slender watercraft
Saturday, October 08, 2005 - Bangor Daily News
ORRINGTON - He has been on the water most of his 81 years, and he and his kayak can paddle circles around most people.
Part of the reason is that he's a boat designer, mostly of kayaks, and has worked for years to master which hull works best in various types of water.
The other reason comes from his years racing, something he has done more than half of his life, and his physical conditioning.
Earl Baldwin Jr., owner of Baldwin Boat Co. in Orrington, is known by all of Maine's paddling community as "the dean of kayaking." Baldwin was building "tame fishing kayaks" when he was talked into racing the first Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race in 1967.
(editor's note: the first Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race was held in 1966.)
"When I started building, I had no idea about racing boats - I thought it was kind of foolish," he said recently. "In '67 someone talked me into it (entering the Kenduskeag race). I did pretty well for someone who didn't know what (he) was doing."
After his first race, Baldwin was addicted. He designed the Short Downriver, a light 13-foot, 2-inch fiberglass kayak, for the next race. "I never designed anything better," he said. "I designed that boat as a touring boat that could do white water. It was the fastest boat of the time."
He paddled in his 36th Kenduskeag Stream Race last spring and plans to tackle the 161/2-mile race again next spring. He's on the water year round, in a wet suit during colder months, and tries to hit area lakes, streams or the Penobscot River at least three times a week to stay conditioned.
The octogenarian, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, could pass for a younger man because he's in such great shape. He said the reason he took up racing in the first place was that he was getting a little chubby. "It's been good for me," Baldwin said. "At a desk I was paunchy, and I didn't get as much exercise as I should have. Since I've been doing this, I've been in good shape."
The first job Baldwin had was as an airplane mechanic for the Army Air Corps, now known as the U.S. Air Force. After three years in the Pacific theater during World War II, he was discharged and took a job as an accountant, then was business manager for the Bangor School Department before deciding to use his mechanic skills to build boats.
After starting Baldwin Boat Co., "there were some lean years because people didn't know what a kayak was."
That all changed when a well-known local canoe company decided to offer kayaks.
"In 1970, Old Town Canoe decided they would build kayaks and, at first, I thought they would wipe me out good, but they didn't," Baldwin said. "They actually helped me a lot because they got a lot of people interested in kayaking."
As the popularity of kayaks increased, so did the number of races. "There are races every weekend" in Maine throughout the spring and summer, said Baldwin, who sits on the Kenduskeag race committee and tries to participate in as many Maine races as possible.
"Last year, I was sixth out of 41 racers in [my] class with a time of 2 hours, 53 minutes," in the Kenduskeag, he said. Baldwin, a former Orrington selectman, moved to town in 1952 and built boats out of his garage until he built a workshop on his property in 1978.
All 10 of the boats he has designed or modified are stored in his garage. "Some are current, and some are out of date," he said of his collection. "There are several different types of kayaks." Sitting on the floor is his first design, the Family K-2, a heavy two-person open-cockpit kayak in red designed to be difficult to flip. It was used for years by area campgrounds.
"At that time, it was a pretty light boat at 60 pounds," the boat builder said. "It served its purpose as a family boat - kids couldn't tip it over."
Over the years, Baldwin branched out and has built a three-tenths-scale model of a yacht that won the America's Cup, heavy-duty boats for repairing dams, large resin drums for chemical storage and even a fiberglass door for a sewer treatment plant.
In addition to designing boats, Baldwin also has designed kayaking paddles.
"When I started building kayaks, the paddles were two canoe paddles [put together]," he said. His first paddle design, which he still owns, had a square top that over the years has been modified into one with tear-shape ends at 80-degree angles to each other.
The materials Baldwin used to build boats also have changed.
"I started out using fiberglass cloth ... and polyester resin," he said.
Kevlar, which is half the weight of fiberglass, emerged on the market in the '70s, and after trying numerous techniques, Baldwin was able to master using both Kevlar and fiberglass to make his kayaks light and strong. "I never build a boat with only Kevlar," he said. "I use it for weight control and blowout protection."
With his decades of experience building boats, he's also a master at repairing them. In his shop on Hoxie Hill Road, a damaged kayak sits on his workbench awaiting Baldwin's magic touch.
Through the years, Baldwin has made numerous kayaks, and even though he cut back on the number he makes each year, the orders keep coming in.
"I have enough orders ahead probably to last the rest of my life," he said. "I expected people to call and cancel them but they haven't, and when I get them done, they want it."
Back To Top
Back To News Archive Page
