Fitzke Boatworks: Boatbuilder Profile

As a backyard boatbuilder, Kevin Fitzke tips his cap to the Golden Era with a model called Miss Moonshine.

In a small, half-moon Quonset hut built on an old farm in Winsted, Minnesota is a man who builds wooden boats, one at a time, twice a year. The Quonset dweller’s name is Kevin Fitzke and his current creation goes by the name Miss Moonshine. Fitzke and Miss Moonshine have something in common: they don’t quite belong to the present. While they enjoy many of the comforts that exist in the 21st century, like modern tools and design programs, their hearts (if a boat had one, and some might argue they do) belong to yesteryear. That is, a decade dedicated to pushing the limits of engineering, music, entrepreneurship and freedom—namely the right to have a good time, even if that meant smuggling that good time into hideaway establishments. Fitzke and Miss Moonshine belong to the roaring ’20s.

The Miss Moonshine model got her name from a role many craft of her pedigree filled during the Jazz Age. She’s modeled after a Gold Cup race boat, also known as a gentleman’s racer. It’s a style of boat that doubled perfectly as the sort of small, speedy rum runner necessary to meet the captain of a false-bottomed tugboat anchored offshore and load up before outrunning the G-men to the docks with a hold full of white lightnin’. And while the purpose of boats like this was to be fast and evade the law, or perhaps other rum runners, they’re also quite easy on the eyes.

The low, long, streamlined racers looked fast, even at idle, but they were typically built with enough legroom and accommodation space to serve as day boats (when you weren’t busy smuggling booze with them). A lot of inspiration for Miss Moonshine’s design, Fitzke says, comes from famous, 1920s boats like Baby Bootlegger, which was originally designed by George Crouch, and Scotty and Ethel Ruth 4, which were both John Hacker designs. All had a torpedo shape—pointed at the stern, with a rounded sheer line at the bow. “I took it one step further and I tapered everything so it’s kind of a combination shape of a torpedo meets a bullet,” Fitzke says. “To me it just has a really nice, fast looking stance to it, even though it’s just sitting there in the water—like how sports cars or super cars look fast when they’re parked.”

And based off Fitzke’s renderings, a step inside the cockpit of Miss Moonshine is actually more reminiscent of a classic super car than a wooden boat. And that makes sense, as Fitzke has been obsessed with pre-World War II Alpha Romeos, Bugatti Type 35s and Auto Union Grand Prix racers since he was a young boy. Like these golden age race cars, Fitzke’s 23-footer sports an open cockpit. An oversized steering wheel and stainless-steel curved helm sweeps around your knees and wraps underneath where your arms rest. And the cockpit has plenty of room for two passengers, in terms of shoulder room—cruising without compromising comfort was part of his vision.

To add to the comfort, Miss Moonshine’s design integrates a 14-degree deadrise to cut through water instead of slapping on top of it. “And the rest of the hull is just real sleek and low in the water, and all the hardware I either cast out of aluminum [myself] or I have a couple of companies that 3D print the parts out of aluminum, which is just mind-boggling considering how much technology has really advanced,” Fitzke says. “The goal is to have it look like it was something from maybe the ’20s or ’30s, but you lift up the engine hatch and there’s a modern, fuel injected, electronically controlled motor in there—and the way the boat’s constructed is a cold molded, isotropic style building technique, so it’s incredibly strong.”

On paper, Fitzke’s creation is calculated to run about 54 knots, powered by a 365-horsepower, Ilmor V-8 engine, though you could certainly fine tune that to go even faster. But drivers must take caution, he notes, referencing how Miss Moonshine gets her name. “Moonshine is a pretty powerful liquor,” he says. “You can have a lot of fun with it, but you got to be careful because it can knock you off your feet. It’s a lot like that with Miss Moonshine, you can have a lot of fun with this boat, but you got to be careful with her because it can throw you around. You might wake up in the morning with a headache.”

If you ask Fitzke why he’s so obsessed with the 1920s, he won’t have a direct answer for you. The fashion, the automobiles, the innovation—many factors hold his fixation. Something that’s played into his own lifestyle is the mentality people shared back then. Businesses were going crazy coming up with new products or techniques or materials and were always pushing what could be done from a construction, design and consumer standpoint, Fitzke says. “People were super hardworking; they put in the elbow grease.”

Putting in the elbow grease is exactly what Fitzke does in his Quonset, and he does it solo. Not because he has to, but because he wants to. He takes a lot of pride in learning different skills, from design to woodworking and metalworking and he’s always ready to take a new class or read a new book to compete as a one-man operation. For the last two and a half years, he’s apprenticed under seasoned Naval Architect Michel Berryer, a long time marine designer for Van Dam Boats, who’s taught him to use CAD to create templates for his work as well as essential technical and mathematical aspects of boat building. Using the CAD software, Fitzke solves all of his construction and fairing issues before he builds his boat.

“I also have what’s called a shaper, which is a handheld CNC machine, and this is a crazy tool that I basically use just like you would use a full-size CNC machine,” Fitzke explains. “But I can individualize each of my parts on solid pieces of wood, so I can cut all my bottom frames, various gussets and floor timbers with this handheld CNC machine.”

This tool combined with CAD allows for Fitzke’s actual building process to be quite simple, almost as if assembling the parts of a kit, he says. Cold molding encapsulates the framing wood in resin, and a wooden boat built this way can last forever, Fitzke notes, or at least a whole lot longer than wooden boats built the traditional way.

Although she’s still under construction, Fitzke plans to have Miss Moonshine ready for debut by the September 2024 International Wooden Boat Show in Lake Minnesota. As for what’s next, there are quite a few other vintage ideas the old soul has swimming in his head, including another gentleman’s racer with an exterior inspired by the Mercedes Maybach 6 Cabriolet, while the interior will be modeled after historic hotels of New York, like the St. Regis, Ritz-Carlton and Algonquin. What that will look like is under wraps for now, but one thing is for sure; with boats like these, we can rest assured that the bygone days of getting zozzled off hooch and chasing flappers might still be there—even if only in our dreams.

Miss Moonshine Specifications:

LOA: 23’
Beam: 6’1”
Draft: 2’
Displ.: 2,800 lb.
Fuel: 35 gal.
Power: 365-hp Illmor V8
Cruise Speed: 46 knots
Top Speed: 54 knots
Price: $285,000

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This article originally appeared in the April 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/boats/fitzke-boatworks-boatbuilder-profile