Haines High School senior Jordan Badger is building a 17-foot aluminum jet boat using a design crafted for local river conditions that’s inspired more than a dozen other vessels.
“We’ve always wanted a river boat. I enjoy welding, so it was something I wanted to try,” said Badger, 17, who’s building the craft in the school’s auto shop with help from dad Brad Badger.
Sheets of eighth-inch aluminum in one week have become a recognizable hull. The boat should be done in a few weeks, Jordan Badger said. “I’m surprised how quick it came together. The day we got the aluminum it already started looking like a boat.”
The boat’s design – including plywood pattern boards – originated with resident Charlie DeWitt, who partnered with resident Rocky Hickman to build about 15 such vessels ideal for hauling heavy loads far upriver. At high speeds, they can skim across just inches of water.
“We got Charlie’s patterns. That helped a lot, and we just kind of went for it. We went around town, checking out different ones and looking at (different features). This is kind of a Frankenstein of all of them. Hopefully, it will be a good one,” Badger said.
Badger learned gas welding a few years ago and aluminum welding last year. Previous projects have included a snowmachine deck, and racks for trucks and bikes. The boat started with $2,300 in aluminum, mostly in sheets.
“I’m excited about it, and I’m glad to get the experience fabricating. I learned a lot,” Badger said. The most difficult part so far was shaping the vessel’s bow, which involved using a car jack, straps and vices to bend the pieces in place while tack welding them together, he said.
He’ll add corner seats off the boat’s transom and one bench seat. That will leave plenty of room in the vessel, which has a five-foot-wide deck, for moose and four-wheelers, Badger said.
In fact, hull designer DeWitt had moose hunting along shallow rivers like the upper Chilkat in mind about 30 years ago when he came up with the shape he patterned after an airboat. DeWitt has made modifications over the years, including raising the gunnels.
“It hauls a load,” DeWitt said. “I’ve had five guys and half a moose in one” on the Jim River, about 40 miles south of Coldfoot.
The boat has a shallow draft but is a foot wider than many commercial models. At about 550 pounds, the vessel is manageable, DeWitt said. “I try to make them light. They’re more fuel efficient and if you get them stuck on a sandbar, you can get them off.”
Ralph Borders has owned a DeWitt boat for about a dozen years. Besides moose hunting, he uses it for sportfishing and sightseeing and has taken it to the Chilkat River gorge, Turtle Rock and on the Tahini River.
“They’re stable.You can haul a big load and go all over in it,” Borders said.
DeWitt said he and Hickman aren’t the only people in town who’ve made their own river boats. That may be because similar, commercially made ones are not as wide, or as durable.
“They make some that are good, but most of the ones made today are made of lighter materials and riveted. If you go to Chilkat Lake one time, the rivets are loose. I figured if you weld one together, it will last,” DeWitt said.
“I always wanted a better jetboat. I looked around and looked around and came up with that boat. Rocky cuts them out and I do most of the welding. We can build one in three or four days,” DeWitt said.
DeWitt said it’s encouraging to see the vessel coming out of the high school’s metal shop.
DeWitt worked as a shop teacher at the school in the early 1980s, and said he pushed the district to create a curriculum around commercial fishing instead of auto mechanics, with instruction in skills like fiberglassing and marine electrical, but the idea didn’t catch on.
“I’m just excited Jordan’s building it,” DeWitt said.