The Fenpro

In 2003, I did a major downsize. I told all my guys they had to start looking for new jobs. As soon as they were all gone I would shudder Boat Fetish and just make bagpipes. I was on the cusp of something big. I was about to introduce crazy looking composite Great Highland bagpipes to the bagpiping world. I was like Les Paul when he introduced the electric guitar. I knew there aren't as many bagpipers as guitar players, but maybe that was about to change. I also designed and patented a carbon fiber chanter that was, and is, the Greatest Chanter Ever Made. I spent hundreds and hundred of hours on this thing and if it wasn't such an expensive process, I would have made thousands of them. Which in retrospect would have probably sucked. 

Everybody left and got new jobs. Everybody but Byron. Byron decided to 'help' me and manage my business so I could focus on the bagpipes. Byron was a good guy, but he was very religious and thought that a constant barrage of Christian music and bible references would lift me out of my depression, help me abandon this whole bagpipe silliness, and get me back on track to build my boat business back up again. 

I'm sure he thought his heart was in the right place, but those six months felt like six years. I took on a job for my favorite customer ever (I don't want to name drop but you know him and his family), modifying his new Hatteras with an electric moon roof, bigger swim platform, drop down shower pans (they're very tall), a hull modification to soften the effects of waves lapping against the waterline, and all kinds of stuff. It was good work and I'm not complaining, but what I needed more than anything was to be rid of Boat Fetish. I just wanted to make bagpipes.

So I got a new and very small shop in the Fenpro building in Ballard. I took a shop that was six feet above ground level so I couldn't bring in any trailerable boats. And I got rid of just about everything related to boats. Everything but Byron. 

It took a couple months of over-drinking and a complete disregard for my business, but eventually Byron and his fucking Christian music went to Florida.

Now I had a new business, Pipe Fetish, and I would never again have employees. My new shop in the Fenpro was awesome. I was able to downsize in a major way. It was cheap, and a friend gave me a trailer so I could live in the back parking lot. 

The Fenpro was the most vibrant and fun place I've ever been a part of. I met many people who I will always be friends with. 

But now the Fenpro is gone. The land was bought by the Norwegians for their silly new museum and the building was torn down. Now they are constructing what will be the largest Norwegian museum in North America and I couldn't be less impressed. The Fenpro was the last building of its kind. You could do anything you wanted in there and was always something sketchy going on. I loved that place. Now everybody's gone. I still live here on a boat in the marina behind the former Fenpro but it's not the same. Not even close. 

​Photo credit- Abby Inpanbutr

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