Just outside of Mancos, a small group of people worked together Friday to create something that defies logic – a lightweight boat that can handle nearly anything, yet roll up to fit at the bottom of a pack.
And the woman who started it all, Sheri Tingey, sat at a sewing machine Friday, piecing together a new camouflaged boat fabric.
“This fabric was hard to find,” she said, standing up to give a tour of the shop, a group of dogs following her around.
At 69, Tingey said she still very much likes to sit down and sew.
“That is where I belong,” she said.
She started Alpacka Rafts in Chugiak, Alaska, in 2001 and moved to Mancos eight years ago. The business moved to its current location just east of Mancos off U.S. Highway 160 in October 2013.
Tingey started her company when her son Thor began backcountry adventures in Alaska.
“Trying to hike through Alaska, the most difficult thing is water,” she said.
So, about 14 years ago, her son set off on an adventure with a boat he purchased from a retail store.
“It weighed 3½ pounds when he started,” Tingey said. “When he got back, it had so many patches on it, that it weighed 13 pounds.”
That is when Thor asked his mom a favor.
“He said, ‘Mom, you’ve got to look at this. Can you build me a boat?’” she recalled. “It was one of those magic moments; my health was coming back, and I said, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’”
The rest is history.
Today, Alpacka Rafts employs nine full-time and six part-time employees.
“This is our cutting room,” said Tingey, while giving a tour of the building, which she recently equipped with solar panels on the roof last year.
“They run this whole shop,” Tingey said.
The business is growing, thanks to the Internet, Tingey said.
While Tingey would not say how many rafts the company makes a year, she did say they sell all over the world.
“We’ve had boats go to Mongolia, Siberia and Antarctica,” she said. “It is quite fun because we have a loyal clientele. We are very connected to all of our clients.”
Clients usually share pictures of their grand adventures after purchasing a boat.
The company make 11 styles of boats, including the Ghost, which is designed with flat water and fishermen in mind. It weighs only 1.5 pounds and can be rolled up and put in a fisherman’s vest. Then there’s the Alpackalypse, the world’s first whitewater packraft, which weighs about 12 pounds with all the gear.
Tingey was proud to show of the Alpackalypse on Friday.
“This is for serious whitewater,” she said. “This is designed to run up to Class V rapids.”
Because of the Internet, Tingey says she is able to craft everything in the United States.
“I don’t wholesale,” she said. “That’s how I can manufacture here.”
Because Tingey was 55 when she started her business, she said she was at an age that she could look back and figure out what is important.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t produce the best product and do it with honor and pay a wage people can live on,” she said.
In the ’60s, Tingey started up a outdoor clothing company, so she wasn’t new to the design world.
Today, Thor is a lawyer in Portland, and he still goes on backcountry adventures with rafts his mom makes.
The company also makes repairs on boats and tests them in a testing pond behind the main building.
“I don’t want boats ending up in landfills,” she said. “Plus,if people send them back for repairs,we can see what is going wrong with them and fix it.”
And the boats have gained some fame over the years.
Recently, an Alpacka raft was on “Ultimate Survival Alaska.” The rafts also appeared in a show called “Motion” and were featured on the Discovery Channel’s “Mother of God”.