Building Kettenburgs [msp045]

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If a man can build the best of himself into a boat, then perhaps a family and a family business, can too. "Integrity" informs the best of craftsmanship as a lasting consequence of choices made by living human beings. A surprising amount of the Kettenburgs' wooden architecture survives, still afloat on the Pacific. This isn't to say that other builders' work lacked quality. It's just that integrity was synonymous with Kettenburg Boat Works from the sailboats themselves on up. Paul Kettenburg had a small plaque behind his desk that simply read: "People Matter." That sentiment defines the history of the Kettenburg Boat Works. When Paul's older brother George W. Kettenburg Jr. launched a high-performance powerboat for the family at San Diego in 1919, he launched the concept for the company that flourished for fifty years. From the high-speed vee-bottom powerboats and Prohibition-era rumrunners of the 1920s to the PC (Pacific Coast) class of the 1930s, the government plane-rearming and fishing boat contracts during World War II, and the classic PCC (Pacific Cruising Class) after the war, the company embodied the vision of George Kettenburg. These boats made their mark in competitions along the length of the Pacific Coast, in races to Hawaii, and even on the Atlantic. After George Kettenburg's premature death in 1952, the company continued under the Kettenburgs and their trusted cohorts, producing some of the West Coast's last wooden class yachts and pioneering fiberglass watercraft. The boatbuilding industry's shift to fiberglass construction and corporate management through the 1970s and 1980s left the Kettenburg Boat Works at such a disadvantage that it finally dissolved in 1994, just about seventy years after its beginnings. Nevertheless, many excellent boats survived the demise of the company. In the 1990s, a growing cadre of enthusiasts began collecting, restoring, and racing the classic PCs, PCCs, K 38s, and other distinctive Kettenburg designs. Through research, restoration, and racing, they keep alive the legacy of one of the West Coast's premier boat builders.