George H. Cuthbertson Archives

Vice President Custom 1976

Erick Bruckmann – Arrives in Canada in 1958 and seeks work at the RCYC yard at which he has a friend. Finds the friend has moved with Dell Ives to Metro Marine, so Bruckmann gets a job there instead. Trained as a cabinet maker, not a boat builder, but soon adapts and becomes shop foreman under new manager Johnny Walker. Leaves Metro in 1965 to establish his own company, initially EB Kitchens, then returning to boat building, Bruckmann Manufacturing. Early job was installing the interior into the aluminum Cuthbertson & Cassian designed Ivanhoe. In 1966 builds early fiberglass Red Jacket, Inferno II, and Xanadu. With Cuthbertson & Cassian, Hinterhoeller Yachts, and Belleville Marine forms C&C Yachts in 1969. 

Rob Mazza

Erich Bruckmann helped launch boat-building firm
Burlington Post
Thursday, November 10, 2011

A master boat builder and founding partner of one of the most highly-regarded yacht/racing sailboat construction companies in the world has died.

Longtime local resident Erich Bruckmann died on Oct. 28 at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital surrounded by his family. He was 81.

A native of Dusseldorf, Germany, Mr. Bruckmann came to Canada in 1956 followed later by his wife Lisa and young son Peter. They settled in Aldershot. The growing family eventually moved to Waterdown then Bronte in west Oakville and finally to Burlington in the early 1970s.

Mr. Bruckmann, a cabinet maker in Germany, built boats for Bronte-based Metro Marine from 1958-63. He then formed the business bond that propelled his handicraft to the world stage of yacht building and boat racing.

“In the early 1960s he hooked up with a pair of young designers named George Cuthberston and George Cassian (eventually C&C Yachts) and together they were truly the avatars of a method of yacht design and construction not seen before,” son Mark Bruckmann said in eulogizing his father during a memorial service attended by 200-plus people at Smith’s Funeral Home last Saturday.

“They quickly built a reputation in the yacht racing world and the rest, as they say, is history,” added Mark, who has followed in his father’s footsteps as the owner of Bruckmann Yachts in Mississauga.

Erich Bruckmann began Bruckmann Manufacturing around 1964 on Maple Avenue in Burlington. He later set up shop on Wallace Road in the Speers Road and Third Line area of Oakville, still as Bruckmann Mfg.

Cuthbertson & Cassian, Hinterholler Yachts, Belleville Marine and Bruckmann Manufacturing joined forces in 1970 to form C&C Yachts, which was based in Port Credit.

Mr. Bruckmann’s Oakville plant became part of C&C Yachts, where all of its custom boats were built. He built boats there under the C&C banner until his retirement in 1986.

Among Mr. Bruckmnann’s most notable creations were the racing sailboats Condor and Evergreen, which he built for C&C, and Red Jacket, a C&C design built by Bruckmann Manufacturing.


https://www.insidehalton.com/community-story/2893491-erich-bruckmann-helped-launch-boat-building-firm/

If we remember George H. Cuthbertson and his partner at the time Peter Davidson had come across the 78’ ketch Mir for Harry Greb of Greb Shoes Co.  G.H.C. sailed her across the Atlantic and brought her to Lake Ontario in 1953.  Mr. Greb had bought Northern Shipbuilding and Repair at Bronte Harbour, Ontario renamed it Metro Marine to work on his 50’ schooner Herron.  Mir being larger he acquired the Oakville Yacht Company as a home for her in Oakville Harbour.

To staff Metro Marine, he had hired Dell Ives from the Royal Canadian Yacht Club to manage.  Mr. Ives was responsible for hiring Erich Bruckmann in 1956.  Erich had just arrived from Austria where he had apprenticed as a cabinetmaker.   In no short time the shop with the skilled craftsmen were building multiple G.H.C. designs, La Mouette, Pipedream, 6 Pintail double enders, and the 42’ Thermopylae. 

Dick Telford introduces the building technique of “Inside-Out” where the interior was finished first and then the hull planking applied. He also developed the process of cove and bead with the hull planks where a cove and bead were placed on each plank; the plank was installed with cove up to hold the glue and conforms to the shape without any gaps. This technique was used for the construction of the plugs for later fiberglass boats at Bruckmann Manufacturing.

Erich Bruckmann left in 1965 to start his own cabinet shop, but continued contact with George C. by doing the interior on a couple of CN 35s.  By 1966, Erich couldn’t stay away from boat building and accepts the job of building Red Jacket. 

Even before Red Jacket is complete more orders start arriving and the cabinet shop is left behind and Bruckmann’s shop becomes a boat building hotbed.   His original shop overwhelmed by Red Jacket, she is moved to a new shop on Wallace Road in Oakville, Ontario.  He would move the shop once more to Speers Road in Oakville that later would become to be known as C&C Custom Shop. In 1969, the three Canadian contenders for the Canada’s Cup, all designed by Cuthbertson and Cassian were built by Erich, Manitou, Bagatelle and True North.

Bob Sale organizes 4 companies, Cuthbertson & Cassian, Hinterhoeller Yachts, Belleville Marine Yard and Bruckmann Manufacturing in 1969 into C&C Yachts Ltd.

 1984, C&C Yachts had been bought the Jim Plaxton and Bill Deluce. Erich steps away from the boat building industry but not far.  Mark, Erich’s son soon starts up Bruckmann Manufacturing in 1986 in the old Metro Marine shop on Bronte Harbour.

Erich passed away in 2011 from tuberculosis that he had contracted as a child.

History of GHC