Some people dream of high seas adventures in glamorous streamlined ships. Others make those dreams come true. Ferd “Red” Nimphius, 85, started building and remodeling wooden boats in 1929 on Milwaukee’s lakefront.
He moved closer to his lumber supply in 1956, buying a 200-acre farm on Wisconsin Highway 22 in Marquette County.
A small, weathered, green-and-white sign-“Nimphius Boats Inc. 65 years of Building the Best Wood Boats”-marks the approach to this landlocked shipyard. A deep-rutted, dirt-and-gravel road winds through the sandy countryside to a trailer office, a brick farmhouse and two huge, high-roofed buildings.
Nimphius, who was born in Germany in 1909 and came to the U.S. when he was 6, recalls with twinkling eyes the day he bought the land and brick house for $6,000.
“I sold my business in Milwaukee and was going to take it easy and build little boats and look what happened.”
The family-run business has received inquiries and orders from all over the world, gaining a reputation for fine craftsmanship and intricate detailed work.
One of Nimphius’ best known ships, a replica of a 1597 Dutch frigate, The Red Lion, measures 50 feet in length and weighs 40 tons. It took 38,000 man hours to build in seven years. The ship’s figurehead is a a three-foot-tall lion carved by Nimphius’ daughter Barbie.
The Red Lion cost about $300,000 to build of oak and pine. Launched in 1983, it sails near Ft. Lauderdale.
Works in progress at Nimphius Boats include: The half completed hull of a 40-foot double-ended canoe-stern sailboat. Its gigantic shell is reminiscent of a pirate’s ship. And a replica of an original Chris Craft Continental made in the 1950s is ready to be varnished in another building.
Nimphius, his son Alex, 32, and son-in-law, Jeff Moore, 35, also are working on design plans for a 74-foot luxury motor yacht, with a price tag of more than $1 million.
Nimphius said his son and Moore were taking over the business. “I’m getting a little arthritic,” he said. Paging through well-worn photo albums depicting ships he has created over the years, Nimphius pointed at one stately ship: “That’s the first boat I ever built and it’s still floating,” he said.
In the winter, Alex Nimphius and Moore carved by hand replicas of favorite wooden boats. Some of the them were custom carved for boat owners.
“We wanted to see if there was a market for them, as a diversification of the business,” Moore said.
The elder Nimphius worries about the future of wooden boat building, as wood becomes increasingly scarce and expensive. A nonstop storyteller, Nimphius said that in Germany people long have been required to plant two trees for every one cut down.
“They’re still doing that there,” he said. “Why don’t we do that here?” Luxury boat-building rises and falls with the economy, Nimphius said.
“It’s rough right now. . . . Course, I try to tell my son and son-in-law (that) conditions are like 1929 and 1930, but they don’t remember those Depression years.”
Nimphius said the company probably should start working with aluminum or steel. But he said there is a certain satisfaction in working only with fine woods.
“It’s going to be a rough haul, but the company will survive,” he said. “There will always be people who like wood.”
