Door County Maritime Museum Announces Classic & Wooden Boat Festival Winners

Sikaflex Challenge boatbuilding competition winner Serpentine Seas, built and crewed by George & Neil Zachariasen.

Keith Miller of Northbrook, Ill., earned Best of Show with his boat Time Bandit in a field of 35 boats at the Door County Maritime Museum Classic & Wooden Boat Festival Aug. 7 & 8 in Sturgeon Bay.

Other winners at the festival included George & Neil Zachariasen, who won the Sikaflex Challenge boatbuilding competition, and artist Brian Pier, whose work “Docks on the Bay” claimed first place cash prize in the Paint the Bay plein air art show.

Miller was awarded overall honors based on People’s Choice voting for his home-built 22-foot Biscayne 22. The boat also netted Best Classic Inboard honors.

Other class winners included Mike Wasilczuk of Weston, Wis., for his cedar strip canoe in the Non-Powered category; Sturgeon Bay’s Russ Cihlar and his Amphicar earned the Unique Craft award; Cal Martell of Suamico and his 17-foot Lone Star model claimed Fiberglass class honors; Joe Sherpo’s Sophia was named top Sailboat; and Kevin VanPey’s 14-foot runabout Sherbear received the most votes in the Classic Outboard division.

There were a total of eight entries in the Sikaflex Challenge, a boat-building event in which points are awarded for speed of construction and in-water time trials.

The Zachariasen brothers claimed Sikaflex honors by posting the top race time and jumping all the way up from fifth place following the building portion of the competition. Their Serpentine Seas entry was also the favorite in the Palmer Johnson People’s Choice voting. The husband and wife team of Paul and Jan Smola placed second with their Minion rocket while Coast Guardsmen Brett Belanger and Zeke Rissman took third with “Flat Top.”