Finger Lakes Boating Museum

During the early 1900’s, anglers on the Finger Lakes used small wooden rowboats to fish for lake trout and walleyes. The boats were commonly called cottage boats, and later troutboats. Generally, they were constructed by individuals who designed them according to their personal preferences. When outboard trolling motors became available, many builders changed their transom designs to accommodate this new feature.

George Pragel was one such builder. A man of many talents and large energy, he owned and operated a 140 acre vegetable farm in Wayland, NY. Additionally, he was employed as the dry-kiln foreman for the Gunlocke Chair Company, a manufacturer of high quality wooden executive office furniture in Wayland. He learned the lumber business at Syracuse University’s School of Forestry.

Pragel was an avid hunter and fisherman, fishing primarily on Canandaigua and Conesus Lakes. On Conesus, where the family had a cottage, he liked to fish at night and frequently employed a stove pipe with a battery operated flood light to shine down into the water so he could see the fish. This technique often enabled him to catch his limit in less than two hours.

George’s avocation was building boats, starting in the 1920’s. During that era, boatbuilding was a thriving cottage industry. Unfortunately few builders identified their boats with a name plate and consequently it is frequently difficult to determine the origin of a surviving example.

The term “troutboat” is often thought to be a relatively new name for this type of “rowboat”. However, a letter written in 1945 and contained in the Pragel family archives was found to include the term troutboat, so apparently it was in use at least as early as that era.

George Pragel built only troutboats, reputedly employing a design he developed based on similar boats produced by Penn Yan and Thompson. He is thought to have built approximately twenty-five to thirty boats, and the fit and finish on surviving examples demonstrate a high level of craftsmanship. The family remembers that he built his first boat inside his home, and had to break up a staircase to get it outside when finished. After that, manufacturing took place in his workshop building.

Pragel usually planked his boats with cedar over oak ribs. Family letters written during World War II describe the difficulty he experienced in locating boatbuilding materials, resulting in the need to spend hours searching through local hardware stores in pursuit of copper nails. When traditional boatbuilding lumber was unavailable, he employed hardwoods such as cherry and mahogany secured from Gunlocke. Upon completion of the mahogany boat he vowed never again to use that material because it was too hard to bend and generally difficult to work with.

George Pragel never actively marketed his boats, and was often reluctant to sell one (at one time there were 14 finished boats in his barn). Occasionally he gave one to a friend as barter or in return for a favor. Of those he did sell in the 1940’s, the going price was $250 for a varnished boat and $150-$175 for what he referred to as a “paint job” boat. He built his last boat in the early 1960’s. By then the boatbuilding industry had moved away from wooden hull construction and on to man-made materials (aluminum and fiberglass). George Pragel died in 1978 at the age of 83.

The following year the author's father and brother attended George Pragel's estate auction held at his farm in Wayland, NY, and purchased two of the six troutboats offered for sale that day. They

were in excellent condition, one never having been in the water. The boats have been carefully maintained since then, and look almost new in spite of their advanced age. They are identical in structure; twelve feet and eleven inches long with a forty-two and a half inch beam. Both have decked bows and sterns and the transoms are designed to accommodate a trolling motor. They are constructed of cedar clinch-nailed to white oak ribs.

The author is indebted to members of the Pragel family for sharing photos and memories of George Pragel and his boatbuilding years to enable this article. Anyone having additional information about Pragel boats is encouraged to contact him at ljboise@rochester.rr.com or contact the Finger Lakes Boating Museum.