Looking it over Looking over their handiwork are, from left, Justin Beach, CAD engineer; Andy Stone, engine mechanic, and Stan Widmer, president of Stanley Widmer and Associates. Not pictured was Gary Gustafson, CAD engineer. They are looking over the first plastic hull of Widmer Sometimes in tiny steps, sometimes in big moves, a dream is slowly taking shape.

Stan Widmer’s idea for an indestructible boat, one that he started thinking about 50 years ago, in the past month has become a boat.

“I’m hoping to get it in the water sometime in May or June. I’m hoping for some whitecaps,” Stan said, eager to put his ‘baby’ through some rigorous testing.

Stan and his employees took two days to drive back to Staples from Farmington, Missouri on March 8 and 9. They were pulling a heavy duty boat trailer that carried their first ever prototype of the 21-foot long plastic boat. Its hull is in one-piece, made of thermoplastic using his patented ‘kiss-off’ design that gives the boat unprecedented strength.

So much so that the Office of Naval Research has been funding Widmer’s last two to three years of design and development. In that time, they have completed the design and moved the boat from a onequarter sale model, to a wooden pattern of the full size boat, then a sand cast version, next an aluminum tooling version that was used by the roto-molding company in Missouri to make their plastic boat that now sits in Widmer’s shop in the Staples Industrial Building.

The next step will be this summer, when the finished boat is turned over to the Navy for their testing. If things go as Stan and his designers think they will, good things could happen after that.

Stan’s employees at Stanley Widmer and Associates have been spending the past three weeks adding pieces to the boat, parts that include the boat’s engine, transmission, drive shaft and jet drive, the fuel tanks, electronics, air bags and other addons.

“It will drive like a big jet ski,” Stan says. His design has no propeller.

Those workers include Gary Gustafson, a Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) specialist; Andy Stone, engine mechanic; Justin Beach, also a CAD engineer; and long time employe Duane Pogreba, a model maker and carpenter. Both Justin and Andy are former Larson Boat Company workers from their Little falls plant.

They expect to have the prototype boat in the water sometime this May or June, with Stan wanting to get some 20 hours or more on the motor before he takes it to Oshkosh, Wisc., this summer and turns it over to the Navy. Currently the Navy is planning to test the boat in July. “They want to turn it over to their test pilot named Crash Kush,” Stan says. While they expect him to try his best to find the boat’s weak points, they don’t think he will succeed. As Stan would say, there are no weak points.

That’s because the Widmer team has already tested their design via computer, found any weak points and taken several steps to eliminate them. It’s also because Stan’s design using his kiss-offs, his crosslink design when the plastic is being molded and adding strength with an aluminum membrane the length of the hull. Their computer models show aluminum and fiberglass construction boats being torn apart under stress. Their plastic boat, subjected to double the stress (wave height and speed) bends a little but returns to its original dimensions.

Their boat is a seven meter (23-1/2 feet) long model that they hope, could turn into an order from the Navy for 50. After that,they believe the Navy will want an 11 meter model (35 feet).

The boat could be used for harbor of river patrols and also for use on the ocean. Widmer believes the Navy is eyeing use of several boats on the high seas operating from a ‘mother’ ship. For that reason, they are outfitting their model with hooks where cables can be attached to hoist their boat into a mother ship.

His boat has become just one of Stan’s dreams. Now he working on designs for recreational uses for his plastic boat. He‘s also working on designs for a manufacturing complex. Where might it be located? On the east coast? Or West Coast?

“We would want it here in Staples,” he said. He has talked to his two main suppliers, the Forte molding company in Missouri and the Northstar Tooling firm in Cedarsburg, Wisc. and each, if there is a large contact with the government, would be willing to set up a plant at Staples.

Not very many people three years ago thought Stan would ever get his dream of a boat realized. Today, there are a few more people thinking this dream of a manufacturing complex could become a reality..