51 YEaRs I
AFlOaT
t was 1965. Ann and Don Hugger represented the all-American family, right out of Central Casting: A comfortable home in a nice Grand Rapids, Michigan, neighborhood; four kids, between 7 and 12; one slightly neurotic Brittany spaniel named Jody. But most importantly, they had a desire to “do something with the kids — something other than mowing the lawn and playing golf,” Don Hugger, 99, explains. The couple spent an entire summer driving up and down the Michigan coastline looking at cottages without success. And then, serendipity struck. The couple’s across-the-street neighbors, Bob and Barb Pemberton, kept Mañana, a 1936 32-foot Chris-Craft at their Topinabee cottage on Mullet Lake. The Pembertons invited the couple to cruise aboard Mañana to Grand Haven — it would be the first time the Huggers had been on a cabin cruiser. The foursome cast off and steamed up Mullet Lake to the Cheboygan River, and then out into the Straits of Mackinac. By the time the old Chris-Craft came out of the lee of Waugoshance Point, five miles past the bridge, Lake Michigan made it clear with a brutal beam sea that she had other plans for the crew. They got the message, turned tail, and headed back to Cheboygan. With time running out before the wind-blown weather changed, the trip was abandoned. But bad weather or not, the hook had been set — boating was about to welcome its newest members.
FIrSt oUtInG
The Huggers found their boat — a steel-hulled, 1959 35-foot ChrisCraft Roamer — at Barrett Boat Works in Spring Lake. On June 1, 1967, they took ownership and named her after their daughter, Kim. “I had never driven a boat,” Hugger explains. “There we were — my wife, four kids and the dog aboard — as broker John Ennenga took us out on Spring Lake for a quick lesson. After the first docking, as we
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Ann & Don Hugger, circa 1977, aboard Kim.
(Above) The Hugger’s first boat was Kim, a steel-hulled, 1959 35′ Chris-Craft Roamer. (Right) Don docks their second Kim, a 32′ 1968 Grand Banks, in Hessel, Michigan.
