Lund Boat Factory and Statues in Perham MN Area

Our next stop was Golden Eagle Campground near Perham MN through which we maintain our Coast To Coast membership. This is our third visit. At the suggestion of a friend, we toured the Lund Boat factory in nearby New York Mills.

The Lund Boat business was started several years ago in New York Mills. It has been acquired by Brunswick, and it has moved the production of Crestliner aluminum boats to the Lund factory. The two boats are quite similar, except Lund aluminum boats are riveted and Crestliner hulls are welded. The company recently began sending boats to dealers with engines installed and on their own trailers. It currently employs about 400 working one shift and some overtime.

We started our tour where rolls of heavy aluminum are cut with computer controlled routers into pieces needed to assemble the hulls and formed on large break machines, also computer controlled. Here they are being riveted together to form the  hull.

Tracy was our guide for the plant tour. He is in charge of the “paint kitchen’ shown here, also computer controlled. Paint is mixed here and goes from the containers shown here by overhead pipes to the long paint booths where several painters spray paint the hulls.

Interior parts and assemblies are installed after strengthening members are put in the hull and foam is installed for floatation. All of the parts of the interior are brought to the boat in one large container, as are the upholstered parts in the next step.

 

Here is a completed “top of the line” Pro V boat completed except for adding the engine. Tracy told us that it will retail for about $65,000 including the motor and trailer. From here it is wrapped in white plastic, put on its trailer and then shipped by truck to the dealer, Lund also makes low end aluminum rowboats, with many models between the two.

A practice of municipalities and businesses in the area is to erect a statue of an animal and proclaim that is the largest in the world. Here is the turkey statue. There are many turkey barns in the area. A nearby town has a statue of a loon, a pelican, and another, of a bison.

 

And here is the statue of an otter, appropriately in the town of Otter Tail, County of Otter Tail. New York Mills also has a more traditional statuary park.