Bob Ammend's replica Coast Guard cutter sank to the bottom of the Andover Station Pond one spring day in 2011, partly because of the wind.
It had been a struggle for him to make the model boat seaworthy from the get-go, so it almost seemed fitting. "I didn't want to retrieve it. I said, 'That's where it belongs.' "
The pond near the Target store is the home base for the Andover RC Boat Club, of which Ammend is a co-founder. Formed in 2011, the club gives model-boat enthusiasts a chance to test the vessels, socialize and talk shop, Ammend said.
Anyone is welcome to join in, and any type of electric boat will do. "It's a fun run club. It's non-structured and there are no dues," said Ammend. There are currently about 20 members.
Some people design and build their own boats while others buy ready-made ones. The club's fleet runs the gamut in terms of speed, size and style. There are vintage speedboats, sailboats, tugboats, military ships, modified racers and even a boat carved out of a zucchini. Ammend, a Navy veteran, has a model of the U.S.S. Carronade, the ship he was on during the Vietnam War.
Usually, the group attracts a small crowd of spectators.
The group's most striking display happens in the fall, an event called "Light Up the Pond," during which members illuminate their boats and float them at dusk.
Ammend said the club wants to promote the hobby, which he said isn't as popular in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes," as one might expect.
A creative outlet
Early on, Ammend recruited Keith Johnson, who lives in St. Francis, to join the club.
Johnson was game, in part because he likes the technical aspect of the hobby. "I enjoy modeling and things and it's a creative force for me," he said.
He's "half Swedish," he said, and he crafted a yacht-like boat that reflects his heritage. The work involved translating plans he found online from Swedish into English, but the resulting boat "is kind of my pride and joy," he said.
Right now, he's toying with other ideas for new boats, including a submarine. His 6-year-old grandson, Raymond Tempany, who often accompanies him to the club's meets, has a couple of boats of his own. "It's fun to see him enjoying the same things, passing them onto him," he said.
Other club members have decked out their boats with Barbie doll skiers and other accessories.
Dennis Swen of East Bethel, whose interest in model boating grew out of a passion for woodworking, gave his miniature rowboat a driver, plus a small collie that sits in the front seat.
Similarly, the Noah's Ark he built "had to have a Noah and animals," and his Chris Craft has three sunbathers.
Family activity
Members come to the hobby in a variety of ways.
Maria Cecere and her husband, Joe, who live in Moundsview, received a model boat as a gift from their adult son. For Mother's Day this year, Cecere decided to go for a faster vessel.
Andover resident Matt Haupert used to run boats as a child. When he noticed a newspaper story about the club, "It inspired me to pull the boats off the shelf and get them up and running again," he said.
He was drawn to the club for "the shared common interest. It's less fun by yourself," he said. "People talk about what they did to make a boat faster or to scale."
Haupert is sentimental about the older, slower-moving models, but his son, Evan, 6, always asks, 'When can we make ours go that fast?' he said.
For Raymond Guimont of Andover, a founder of the club, model boating has become a lifelong hobby. He takes his boats with him wherever he travels. Back in his Air Force days, his boats sailed everywhere from the then Gulf of Siam to the River Thames in Oxford, England.
Nowadays, the retiree's boats, some of them four feet long, loom large on the Andover pond. "I crash into everyone on the pond, that's what I'm famous for," he said.
There was a follow-up to the story of Ammend's Coast Guard cutter. The pond later swallowed a similar model, and Ammend jokes that the group now has a policy that is not lost on the veteran of that service: "We tell people, 'no Coast Guard boats are allowed.' "
Anna Pratt is a Minneapolis freelance writer.
