Last Man Standing

During the past four decades, the once-thriving business of American production sailboat manufacturing has nearly vanished, and dozens of companies and builders have fallen by the wayside. And then there's Tartan Yachts of northeast Ohio, which, in some aspects, is as vibrant as ever. Longtime Tartan stalwart Tim Jackett, a marine-industry lion in winter still making a stand, might be the central reason why

-  Herb McCormick

I Home Boy

THERE'S AN ALARM CLOCK ON THE NIGHTSTAND beside Tim Jackett's bed in his home in Erie, Pennsylvania, but he doesn't need it. Every weekday morning, at the otherwise sleepy hour of 5 a.m., he's already wide awake, up and at it, ready to go. The drive to Painesville, Ohio, the current home of Tartan Yachts, is a 75-mile straight shot down I-90 that he can generally knock off in a bit over an hour (though he once got stranded on the highway for 11 long hours in a lake-effect blizzard).

Jackett started working for Tartan as a summer job in college almost 50 years ago. Though he hasn't toiled there continuously since then, the work has been the central thread woven through his long, eventful career as a boatbuilder and naval architect. These days, he not only designs the boats at Tartan, but he also oversees the operations and production. The plant gets underway at 7 a.m. sharp, and he won't be late.

Jackett's a boatbuilder all right, but, to be more specific, because his roots play such an important role in who he is and what he does, he's a Midwestern boatbuilder, a born-and-bred northeast Ohio boy, a child of Lake Erie, where his passion for sailing was kindled and the seeds of his lifelong craft were sown.

The sixth of seven kids, Jackett's the son of a US Navy veteran who briefly set down stakes in Florida following his service in World War II but soon returned to good old Cleveland, where he and his wife were raised.