May 2010 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5.
FORTUNE, INC. SOLD TO LEAVITT & PARRIS
By Lee S. Wilbur
Richard “Rick” Fortune IV recently announced this fourth generation sail and canvas shop located for many years in Falmouth, Maine, had been sold to another legacy canvas shop of 93 years, Leavitt and Parris of Portland, Maine.
Always a family business, Fortune Inc. was started in 1946 by Rick’s grandfather, Richard Fortune Jr. Mr. Fortune had moved from Boston where he worked for Palmer
Canvas, a company which had been doing contract work for the US Government during WW II. Mr. Fortune also brought along his father, Richard (the first) to be his bookkeeper.
Fortune Inc. expanded over the next 74 years to service sailors and boatbuilders with sails, canvas and cushion needs as far north as Canada and as far east as Africa. Rick’s father, Richard Fortune III, who began traveling with his father at age 14, tells
Rockland Community Sailing Classes and High School Team Ready
ROCKLAND – Rockland Community Sailing offers mid-coast Maine youth two ways to learn to sail this spring - a High School Sailing Team program and Afterschool Sailing classes. Both start in May. Mid-coast stu- dents in grades 7-12 who are interested in racing are invited to join the High School Sailing team. Practice is held Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3-5 pm, from May 11 through June 10. Middle school students start sailing in the Afterschool Sailing Program, Monday and Wednesdays, 3-5 pm, from May 10 through June 9. Classes are held at The Apprenticeshop waterfront, 643 Main Street, (Route 1) Rockland, located across the road from Dunkin Donuts.
“Why wait until summer when you can enjoy great sailing in the spring in Maine?” says KC Heyniger, Waterfront Programs Di- rector at Rockland Community Sailing. “The longer sunny days and warm spring breezes make ideal conditions for students to get out and mess around in sailboats,” adds Heyniger.
Afterschool sailors can learn the ropes on single person Optimist dinghies, two- person 420 sloops, and a variety of modern and traditional larger boats. Students learn to rig and sail their own boats while becoming familiar with safety, weather, tides, nautical knots, basic racing skills and other arts and crafts of seamanship. RCS sailing instructors teach from safety motor boats and are US Sailing, CPR, and First Aid Certified. High school students interested in the fun and fast growing sport of sailing will primarily practice and race in the 15 – foot, sloop-rigged 420 dinghies. RCS offers High School sailing in both April/May and Sep- tember/October seasons. This way high school sailors can play a land-sport one sea- son and race sailboats in the other, or race in both. Along with practices, the team attends four to eight regattas each year. No experi- ence is required to join the team. “Racing sailboats is exciting. The agile and quick 420 sloops we use feel more like flying an airplane than floating on water,”
says Heyniger. “Students enjoy making friends with teammates from other schools and racing with sailors from all over New England. It is one of the few co-ed high school sports available and many sailors continue racing for the rest of their lives,” he adds. Practices are coached by Patrick Dilalla, former Head Instructor at RCS, and volunteer assistants. “The team includes students with many different experience levels and we all work together to improve everyone’s sailing skill. It’s very rewarding to see students’ self confidence, responsibility, and decision- making skills improve as they develop into more accomplished sailors,” he added. More than one hundred students from Rockland, Camden, Thomaston, and Medomak Valley schools have sailed with the team since it began in 2004. The team races against sailors from all over the northeast and travels to regattas along Maine’s coast in- cluding Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, and Portland. High School Sailing has existed since the 1930’s, but has experienced considerable growth in the last 30 years. The Interscholas- tic Sailing Association includes 350 teams nationwide. ISSA hosts national champion- ships in both two-person and singlehanded boats. There are approximately 85 teams in New England and 15 active teams in Maine. Rockland Community Sailing has been teaching adult and youth sailing lessons for 13 years at The Apprenticeshop (formerly Atlantic Challenge), a nonprofit school teaching traditional boatbuilding and sea- manship. Since 1972, The Apprenticeshop has offered hands-on programs dedicated to inspiring personal growth through crafts- manship, community, and the traditions of the sea. Boatbuilding and sailing courses are offered throughout the year at our Rockland waterfront campus. After School classes and the High School team cost $150 per season. Youth sailing scholarships are available. Call KC Heyniger at 207-594-1800, or go online today for more information –
www.apprenticeshop.org.
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great stories of going Downeast to work for such builder and boatyard icons as the three Rich Brothers, Robert “Bobby”, Ronald, and Roger, Henry Hinckley, “Bing” Sargent at Southwest Boat Corp., MDI Yacht Yard, and Ralph Stanley. Richard remembers doing the challenging job for the last three-masted schooner on the Maine coast, VICTORY CHIMES, owned by the legendary Capt. Boyd Guild. Fortune made sails as well for much smaller vessels such as Alonzo Eaton’s “Castine” Class.
After graduating from Southern Maine Vocational Tech in 1965 at age 20, Richard III went to work full time at his father’s business. His wife Mary joined the company in 1974 after the death of Richard’s mother, Christine, and came on board as bookkeeper to the company. The company soon grew to include some 26 employees. In 2000, Richard III, (or “R3” as Mary often calls him) rented space from Robert Brown, owner of “The Boathouse” in Manset for what turned out to be a very successful satellite branch for Fortune Inc. This branch services the area’s needs of what at that time was the largest concentration of boatbuilding activity on the Maine Coast. Fortune manufactured for yards such as H. R, Hinckley, John Williams, Morris Yachts, Jarvis Newman, Wilbur Yachts, Ellis Boat Co., MDI Yacht Yard, “Chummy” Rich and Eric Clark.
By 2003, Rick had worked for his parents, Richard III and Mary for 12 years. They decided it was time to pass on the business as his father had before him. “Take it and run with it” And he did, again expanding the business. A few years later, however, a mutual friend introduced Rick to
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John Hutchins III, owner of Leavitt & Parris who specialized in custom furniture coverings, awnings, tents and party rentals. Leavitt and Parris, founded in 1919 by Mr. Leavitt and Keith Parris, was primarily a sailmaking company into the mid ‘50s”. By the mid ‘70s” the company had been sold a few times after moving to Scarborough. In 1987, John, who had been working in real estate at the time, remembers well being in the midst of a recruitment interview when a call came in looking for someone to take over and manage Leavitt & Parris. The interviewer said, “I think I may have just the person sitting here.”
John did take over, admitting he “Knew nothing about canvas, sails, or any of the products related.” Shortly thereafter he purchased the company, and moved Leavitt& Parris back to Portland, where through successful real estate acquisitions, John and his sons, John Hutchins IV, and Jason Hutchins, was able to successfully enlarge the company to include innovative custom furniture, party rentals of tents, awnings and other canvas related goods. Both John and Rick have stated they feel Fortune Inc. and Leavitt & Parris will be a good fit. Fortune Inc. with their knowledge of the boatbuilding industry and Leavitt & Parris’s niche in commercial and residential along with their physical facilities will make for a very successful relationship. Rick especially looks forward to being back on the road visiting his customers on a one to one basis again.
Maine Coastal News includes their best wishes for this new venture.
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