OAR SURE Small Orono business has huge reputation for handcrafted boat accessories

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Over the last 40 years at his Southwest Harbor boatyard, Jarvis Newman has hand-built 660 12-foot fiberglass yacht tenders.

Newman, who is a bit of a legend in the boat-building world, included a pair of oars made by Shaw & Tenney with every one of those rowboats. There are other oar manufacturers, but Newman says they can’t compete with the small shop in Orono – which has a big reputation.

“They are the best,” he said. “They just have a lot of pride in their work, and they just do a superb job.”

Shaw & Tenney, which also makes paddles, spars, masts and boat hooks for traditional wooden craft, stands out from the crowd because of the level of craftsmanship, the fact that each piece is made entirely by hand, and the woods from which those products are crafted.

While most oar and paddle makers use ash, Shaw & Tenney only does for heavy applications. A small portion of the shop’s products are made of specialty woods, and the remainder – about 90 percent – are made of clear red spruce, which is an anomaly.

Of the red spruce harvested in Maine each year, half of 1 percent is clear. But the shop buys 100 percent of that harvest for one simple reason – red spruce has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any North American softwood.

“It is unquestionably the best wood there is for manufacturing spars and oars,” said Steven Holt, who bought Shaw & Tenney 11/2 years ago from longtime owner Paul Reagan.

Founded in 1858 on an island in the Stillwater River, Shaw & Tenney is the third oldest marine business in the nation. Though the factory has moved several times – it’s now located at the bottom of Mill Street – it remained in the Tenney family until 1972. When Reagan took over, the company had a few wholesale accounts, but the main thrust was making bars, or “sticks of wood,” as he says, for the nearby Byer Manufacturing factory.

“I decided I was going to get into the retail business,” Reagan recalled. “That built the name up, and the customer base, too, but because you’re selling them retail, that gave me $14 more to play with [for each paddle sold]. That allows you to make a better paddle. … When you make a better product, each piece of product is its own advertisement.”

Holt knew about Shaw & Tenney long before he moved to Maine. He had been around boats his whole life, and formerly raced International One designs. When he came to the University of Maine to study forest engineering in 1975, Shaw & Tenney was one of his first stops, but he had no idea he’d own the business one day.

Nearly three decades after Holt’s first visit, Reagan had a life-changing moment. Driving back from his camp in Seboeis, he narrowly avoided an accident on the interstate. His first thought was, “I could’ve been killed.” His second thought was, “What would happen to Shaw & Tenney?”

He figured his wife, Helen, would sell it in distress. And he wanted to pick his successor, which turned out to be a little more difficult than he first imagined.

“Selling your business is like putting your child up for adoption,” Reagan said, laughing. “I rejected them all.”

There was the guy who wanted to move the business to Maryland and another who wanted to move it to New York. The worst was a man who wanted to look into using other woods because he wanted to sell oars to Wal-Mart.

“It was just awful,” Reagan said.

He talked with another dozen people and was about to tell his broker to take Shaw & Tenney off the market when Steven Holt and his wife, Nancy Forster-Holt, arrived on the scene. The couple lived in Hampden, and Steven was working as an executive with a local company while Nancy worked as the executive vice president of a financial institution.

“He was going to continue it exactly as I had made it,” Reagan said. “I had started a couple of things, a couple of masts, and he was going to carry that on. He made an offer that was not as high as some of the others, but the point was not the money so much as he was going to carry it on.”

And the Holts have. They even moved to Orono to be closer to their business. They’ve added a few products to the Shaw & Tenney lineup, including the masts and spars, as well as caned seats, yokes and forks. They’ve also worked with a local firm to develop an e-commerce site. But otherwise, things are pretty much the same as they have been for the last 148 years.

“We make the finest oars and paddles in the world,” Steven Holt said. “That’s not a marketing ploy. We honestly believe it.”

“Initially, we were actually humbled by how real that is,” Nancy Forster-Holt added. “We feel like we’re in a stewardship role because the reputation has been built before us and we’re carrying it forward.”

Though the Holts brought Brad Wright, a master carpenter, on board, the rest of the staff is still the same as well. Eddie Gowen has been making oars for the last 15 years, and Dennis Grant has been with Shaw & Tenney for 25 years. As Grant and Gowen worked nearby, Wright said he, too, feels humbled by his work at Shaw & Tenney.

“These craftsmen here are world-class craftsmen,” Wright said. “It’s unbelievable what they can do.”

Wright stood by a set of large clamps holding three 25-foot-long boards that had been laminated together to make a mast. The glue would cure for five days, and then Gowen would sculpt an octagonal mast that would gradually taper at the ends.

“There’s a lot of work to do on this,” Wright said.

Gowen admits he prefers powerboats, but he loves watching boat races and he loves his work even more. His favorite project was a set of 14-foot-long oars that are now used in the gondolas at the Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

“They were very, very long with a slim blade and a long, tapered handle,” Gowen explained, tracing their shape with his hands like he was describing a woman’s figure. “I think that’s probably the most unusual thing I’ve done.”

Grant’s specialty is specialty items. He makes all the paddles and anything out of unusual woods, such as sassafras, walnut, birdseye maple and the like. He starts with a solid board and eyeballs it as he hones it down into a perfectly balanced paddle.

“Hardwoods are more difficult, less forgiving,” Grant explained. “You need to be more exacting. It requires more effort to work down, but you get a little more satisfaction because when you finish what you’re doing, they’re really beautiful-looking, more so than your everyday woods.”

The showroom at Shaw & Tenney is like a woodworker’s dream – oars of all different shapes and sizes line the walls, gleaming with varnish and adorned with cherry tips or handsewn leathers and buttons. Some – like the birdseye maple oar – are made for both looks and performance. Many U.S. Marines give the company’s paddles as a gift when an officer leaves the ranks. And it’s not uncommon for boaters to request fancy oars to use as balusters or stair rails in their homes.

But even the workaday pieces are worthy of display. Most of Shaw & Tenney’s products are used with traditional craft, such as a wood and canvas canoe or a dinghy (Billy Joel posed in Soundings magazine with his dinghy – and a set of Shaw & Tenney oars). Many of these craft are built by hand, Holt explained.

“You’ve worked so hard to build your boat,” he said. “Would you really put anything that wasn’t equal to that effort in your boat?”

At WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, the answer is no. The school’s whole fleet uses nothing but Shaw & Tenney paddles because they’re the next best thing to custom, director Rich Hillsinger said.

“They’re first-class, true to their customers, and if you have any problems, they always back it up,” Hillsinger said. “They’ve always used the highest quality wood so it’s a lightweight oar and paddle.”

That means less fatigue for the rower. Hillsinger explained that there’s a whole mathematical process that uses a customer’s height, arm length and design of the craft to determine the best length of oar or paddle. Like a pair of pants or a baseball glove, paddles and oars need to fit the user properly, but many people buy them off the rack without taking that into account.

“Depending on the boat you’re in, a good oar or paddle will have an enormous effect on the performance of that vessel,” Hillsinger said. “Some people will go out and buy a cheap oar or paddle and never know the difference in how much easier, how much more enjoyable rowing that boat could be.”

Jarvis Newman knows. The oars he includes with his rowboats fit just right. They also perform quietly thanks to the leathers, and they won’t fall out because of the button stays.

“One stroke of the oars moves you 21/2 boat lengths,” Newman said. “The boat goes right through the water. They’re the right length, They fit perfectly. It’s the right combination. … Shaw & Tenney has the perfect oar.”

Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.