Councilman makes his own boat and rows in it

Why would a contractor who spends his work life consumed with construction want to spend his spare time building a boat from a kit? Call it a “busman’s holiday” but that’s exactly how Peter Reich has spent his leisure time since Halloween.

For a boating enthusiast like him, a nautical craft is an art form and building one has little to do with closing up a roof or putting down a floor at a construction site.

“It’s just the satisfaction,” the vice president of Reich/Eklund Construction said. “It was on my bucket list and now it’s done. Besides, I like rowing,” he added.
He named the 16.5-foot rowboat SIKU after a Danish polar bear that was born in captivity, in keeping with a family tradition of naming all boats after bears. His father was a Bowdoin College graduate and the school’s mascot is a bear, Mr. Reich explained.

“It keeps it in the Reich family bear theme,” he said.

What’s unique about the boat is that the rower faces front in the direction he’s moving and can opt to use pedals, oars or both.

“It’s a great workout” although it involves something of a “learning curve” to coordinate both arms and legs, Mr. Reich said.

The veteran Republican town councilman, recently re-elected to a third four-year term, has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the SUNY Maritime College in Ft. Schuyler, where he majored in naval architecture. He repaired boats and worked at a marina back in the early 1980s but he had never built a boat until he got bitten by the bug that prompted him to buy a boat-building kit. He had been looking at kits at FrontRower, a company in Warren, Rhode Island, near his Newport vacation house, and decided it was time to take the plunge.

He plunked down $1,400 for the kit, $2,000 for the front rowing mechanism and estimates he spent about $200 more on paint and other minor supplies.
His records show he spent 110 hours from the time the kit arrived last fall until early April when he finished work in time for an Easter Sunday launching in Menantic Creek.

Along the way, Mr. Reich made some custom changes, adding metal stripping on the side rail lines and front of the boat and recessing the drain plug so he can easily remove sand along with water. And rather than the dark green that many owners of choose, he went with a lighter Paris green suggested by his wife Lauren. The boat is made from Okoume marine plywood and looks like a large kayak from the front view.

Aside from screws to attach the rail lines, the boat is entirely glued together. If there was any nagging annoyance in construction, it came from having to wait, sometimes two days, for the epoxy to dry, Mr. Reich said.

To get the 60-pound boat in and out of the water, Mr. Reich borrowed an idea from his wife’s cake baking. He chose a fondant roller, ordinarily used to spread frostings on cakes, and secured it to the edge of his dock on Menantic Creek. With ease, the craft can be rolled in and out of the water.
Was there ever a moment when he wanted to give up on the project?

“Never. It was so therapeutic,” he said. And because the boat is so much lighter than the 600-pound craft he formerly used for his rowing regimen, he finds himself rowing more frequently.

“It’s so peaceful, so relaxing in the morning,” he said. He puts on Jimmy Buffett music and sips a cup of tea as he paddles his way in the creek. When he’s finished with his tea, the full workout — using arms and legs — begins.

His advice to others contemplating such a project: “Just do it.”