Kayaker forges reputation as ultimate 'Mr. Fix-it'

Fiona Cohen, The Bellingham Herald
June 28, 2002

Sterling Donalson built his first kayak sometime back in the 1980s, because, he says, there weren't any boats built for people like him.

He's six-foot-three and built like a bear - too much bulk for an ordinary kayak - and he has only one leg. When he was 15, he developed bone cancer in his right knee. Doctors removed the leg at the hip.

It didn't stop him from becoming an athlete. In 1972, he became the national amputee skiing champion. He still keeps the trophy, he says, because he likes its figure of a one-legged skier fashioned from railroad spikes.

The lack of a suitable boat didn't stop him from becoming a kayaker. He did some research, bought the materials, and designed and built his own big boat. Instead of the usual kayak steering system, in which the rudder is controlled by cables to two foot-pegs, he devised a one-foot method. The rudder is held by an elastic cord and the left foot works against it. Push hard and the rudder goes to the left, push a little and it holds straight. Release and it goes right.

At 52, he has a thriving cottage industry repairing and customizing boats for kayakers throughout Western Washington. His steering system has become the standard for cross country paddlers who don't have the use of a leg. He gives presentations on kayak repair for the Whatcom Association of Kayak Enthusiasts and the annual Coast Kayak Symposium. And he paddles almost every day.

The business, Chuckanut Bay Boatworks, run out of a workshop next to his Laurel home, is strictly a hobby, says Donalson, who recently retired from his work as an insurance agent and is taking a break before moving on to the next thing. Tinkering has always been part of his family life.

"My dad builds airplanes as a hobby - real airplanes," he says. "My brother builds limousines as a hobby."

SIMPLY THE BEST

Andy Wallis, retail manager at Johnson Outdoors Inc., in Ferndale, makers of Ocean Kayaks and Necky Kayaks, says Donalson does the best work around.

"If you want it done right, you take it to him," Wallis says. "He takes boats that are 10, 15 years old and they look like they're brand new."

"He's the most knowledgeable about the materials and the technology of using them of anybody I know," says Dave Peebles, a retired high school English teacher and a long-time kayaker.

A trailer sitting outside of his garage shows some examples of his work: One kayak is crushed on the bottom, the result of a common type of accident. After loading it on a vehicle, the owner forgot to tie the bow rope down, and when the car started going it got pulled against the rack.

Most of the repair jobs he gets are from mishaps with racks. The worst he's dealt with was one that flew off a car and shattered its bottom against a highway department sign. On another kayak he's installed bulkheads to keep it more buoyant. On the workbench is a sleek racing boat. A Bellingham kayak racer ordered it from a Florida company. When it arrived, the foot holds on the deck proved too short for his six-foot-five frame. Donalson is adjusting the kayak to make it fit.

This isn't just a matter of layering fiberglass. Although the kayak is 21 feet long, it only weighs about 30 pounds. It's made of lightweight composite materials. To keep up with the technology, Donalson follows advances in the aerospace industry. He has a bookshelf crammed with catalogs for aeronautical composites. The pungent chemical smell of resin hangs in the air of the workshop, which is in a state of active clutter. "This is actually pretty clean compared to how it is a lot of the time."

Tabletops hide under a layer of tools, pots and rolls of engineered fiber. Two cats - Baby and Chance - stalk in and out. Molds for kayak tops and bottoms hang from the ceiling, coated in a film of dust. Donalson makes two models of kayaks. His main seagoing kayak is the Sucia, named after the island. He also builds the Mariah-thon, a racing boat.


"(Kayaking) is a sport I can actively participate in because I have no disabilities in the boat." Sterling Donalson

PADDLING FAR

As one of the first kayakers in town, Donalson has been an energetic founder of the sport, as Gene Davis discovered. Davis, a retired border patrol officer, now has a garage full of kayak equipment and a hard-drive loaded with images from the water. But when he met Donalson he'd never put paddle to water. He was taking a car in to be fixed at Pioneer Ford in Lynden, when one of the salesmen fixed on him and started telling him all about this sport with little boats. It was Donalson.

It wasn't something he did to just any Ford customer, Donalson says. Davis was dressed like an outdoors person. "I just thought he would be interested in something like that."

When Donalson is on the water, he can leave many of his friends behind. "He goes too fast," says Jim Graeser, a retired mechanical engineer. "You have to get him in a big slug of a boat."

"If I paddle as fast as I can, I can just keep up with him for a few minutes before he pulls away," says Peebles. "He likes to start off paddling strong right from the beginning. Typically he just takes off, then after about 5 or 10 minutes he just slows down and lets the rest of us catch him."

Donalson says many can beat him, at least at a short race, such as Ski to Sea's kayak leg. "I don't necessarily paddle all that fast. It's just that I have a lot of stamina and can paddle a long way," he says. He does, however, paddle faster than most, and he paddles constantly. It's a way of keeping his bulky body stable in the boat. And it's just fun to be on the water.

"It's a sport I can actively participate in because I have no disabilities in the boat."

Graeser once tried out Donalson's boat. He paddled it around, but couldn't quite get it right. "I had trouble with the right foot peg." He told Donalson, who said that there wasn't a right foot peg in the boat. Then Graeser looked down.

"I turned several shades of fuchsia."