Klinger Engineering

[rowing]

Klinger Engineering is closing the boat repair part of the buisness

Does anyone have any details on this ?

[Scott @ Noble Hardware]

Really? Wow. It seemed like they were doing pretty brisk business.

[lt.wolf]

I got the email this morning and was surprised. I coxed Klinger at NU. Great guy and did great work.

[AaronDoucett]

Damn, and I was just up there a couple weeks ago! Bob Klinger is a great guy... anyone have the details on why?

They should sell off their inventory... who doesn't want empacher paint?

[southernrower]

Well f$%#...who else is as good as Klinger? Not a rhetorical question. Who else is out there?

[AaronDoucett]

Well f$%#...who else is as good as Klinger? Not a rhetorical question. Who else is out there?

There's the Rowing Repair Center in Oak Ridge, but that's waaay out of the way for the New England crews!

[midweight]

There's a good guy who has a small shop in Hancock, NH, his name is Hunt Dowse, believe he coached at BB&N before starting repairs. I think he did a lot of work on the wooden boats for St. Paul's and others. I've taken several club singles there for work and it was all good quality.

Unless he's expanded dramatically he won't be able to fill the gap left by Klinger getting out of boat repairs. Damn!

[AND]

Was there a time-line given, phasing out the repairs, a date they will stop excepting new jobs?

Also was this public info, I don't want to feel bad about divulging a secret when I call and ask them about it.

Very sad to hear, they do excellent work.

[suahoi]

Tom Gallagher, the Sykes rep, also runs the Shax Shop in Philly and does some really nice repair work.

[lt.wolf]

A mass email was sent out so I am pretty sure it is public

[viking1]

I received the e-mail from Klinger Engineering, as well. I have two boats that I was planning on sending to Klinger in June.

I was just about to pose the same question to this board-who else does work at the standards that Klinger does in the mid-Atlantic/New England region? I know of Tom Gallagher and someone out in Conshohocken, PA at Whitemarsh Boat Club, but I'd really prefer to take my repair work to someone with a comparable background and history to Klinger. I know Resolute says that they'll repair other manufacturers' shells. Has anyone ever sent a boat (other than a Resolute) to Resolute to be repaired?

I'm not saying that these other guys can't turn out good work, it's just that I've had boats repaired at some places and they just never came back quite as good as the work that I had sent to Klinger. Klinger even weighed the boats pre-repair and post-repair and sent you photos of your boat on the scale.

I agree with what was said in the e-mail about Klinger Engineering "raising the bar on manufacturers and repair personnel who service our sport" and that they "have added immensely to the skills and knowledge base of private owners, coaches, and program administrators". I hope that I can find a boat repair business with the personnel, attention to detail, and facilities/skill to repeatedly turn out excellent repair work.

On another note, the last paragraph of the e-mail states that they "look forward to seeing many of you as we continue our involvement in the rowing community". Anyone know how they're planning on staying in the sport?

[AaronDoucett]

I know Karen Klinger is the head coach at Smith College, I guess that's part of the rowing community. Not sure what else. Also, would anyone mind forwarding the email as a PM to me?

[rowing_group]

We work on boats here in Chicago, small shop, but I was taught by Klinger at one of his two week how-to sessions. Learned it all, get some work done out here for programs from this region, but I'm always interested in helping people from other regions, too.

Rowing Group
http://rowinggroup.com/repair.htm

[dsquared_5]

Saratoga has a repair shop. They mostly work on modern racing shells, but did a great job refinishing my wood Hudson.

[southernrower]

Gord at Fluid sent an email today saying he will fix any boat you get to him.