photo/TIM GREENWAY
Marc Bourgoin, co-owner of Lincoln Canoe and Kayak in Freeport
One of the oldest manufacturers of canoes and kayaks in the state,
Freeport-based Lincoln Canoe and Kayak has been churning out its
distinctive brand of handmade boats since 1959.
Lincoln's products
have come a long way since the company was founded by two college
students inspired by a summer spent lugging an 80-pound aluminum canoe
through the Canadian wilderness. The company's products now have a
reputation for sleek design and light construction developed over the
last 53 years, even as the company changed hands.
But current
co-owner Marc Bourgoin was not content to let it rest on its laurels.
"At Lincoln, we're all about our brand, and there is a lot of equity in
that brand, but our dealer base needed to see that we are committed to
improving that brand," he says.
While the "handcrafted"
superlative was part of Lincoln's history, it was not part of Bourgoin's
vision for the future. Rather, he saw a need for modern manufacturing
techniques that he fulfilled by tapping a cadre of young boatbuilders in
southern Maine and offering his production facility as a learning lab.
Today, as a result of that partnership, Lincoln Canoe and Kayak has
doubled its wholesale business over 2011, and can hardly keep the boats —
which range in price from $899 to $3,799 — on the showroom floor.
"All
the signs are for a healthy year ahead and everything we've built so
far has sold, which is a problem," he says. "Right now we're building to
order."
Forming an alliance
The partnership sprang from Bourgoin's growing concern over the viability of making kayaks and canoes by hand.
"Up
until we bought the company, everything had been hand-designed,
hand-lofted, hand-shaped. We have a reputation for being somewhat old-
school," says Bourgoin. "That's a cool way of doing it, but it can be
faster, cleaner and more precise if you incorporate modern technologies.
It streamlines the whole process and the end result tends to be
better."
Much like Lincoln's founders, who embraced emerging
technologies such as fiberglass, Bourgoin looked to modern manufacturing
practices like computer-aided design and advanced composites to
solidify Lincoln's reputation as an industry leader, while demonstrating
a commitment to steadily improving the product. But he was hampered by
Lincoln's economic and technological reality. "We didn't have the
resources to invest in any new technology like CAD or the knowledge to
work with that kind of stuff," says Bourgoin.
But he found people
who did. Knowing that he wanted the technology to create a new, advanced
kayak mold, Bourgoin approached The Landing School, the world-renowned
boatbuilding institution based in Arundel. With programs in wooden and
composite boats, yacht design and marine systems, The Landing School
prepares students for careers in maritime construction and other
industries, such a aerospace and energy, that use similar construction
techniques.
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