Dick Clarke always had an eye for classic wooden boats. Apparently, he had an ear for them, as well.

“Dick could walk by, listen for a moment and tell you what was wrong with a motor,” said fellow Lake Tahoe boat restorer and longtime friend Tony Brown, who worked for Clarke at Sierra Boat Company. “Of course, I didn’t always listen to him at first. But I learned that I could save myself a lot of time by just doing what he said.”

While Clarke excelled as a mechanic – he repaired F-82 fighter planes for the Army Air Corps during the Korean
War – his talent wasn’t limited to motors. He began a movement to preserve classic wooden boats in the Lake Tahoe area during the 1960s, and his restoration efforts still reverberate across the lake – and the hobby.

“Dick was an amazing mechanic, but he was also a talented restorer,” Brown said. “He was a wonderful wood worker and varnisher. He was very highly skilled. He planned things well; he was great at seeing the big picture."

“His attention to detail, especially on invoices, drove everybody nuts,” Brown said with a laugh. “But he always did it right. He loved bringing these boats back to life.”

Clarke’s contributions to the classic wooden boat hobby and to Hagerty are so widely recognized that he was an obvious choice for membership in the inaugural class of the Hagerty Classic Marine Hall of Fame.

“Dick is a legend,” said Pat Bagan, who also worked for Clarke and is now general manager at Sierra Boat. “He really got the wooden boat restoration craze going here, and it led to the preservation of a lot of history. He lived for this.”

Richard Sinclair Clarke spent more than 50 of his 80 years living on picturesque Lake Tahoe. He first moved there in 1945, right after World War II, then – after serving in the Korean War – moved his family back again in 1954. The Clarkes settled in Carnelian Bay, Calif., on Lake Tahoe’s west shore, and Dick went to work for R. Stanley Dollar Jr., Ollie Meek and Morlan Visel at the Sierra Boat Company. He was the top mechanic for Sierra’s fleet of racing vessels. Clarke’s career took a sudden turn, however, when the company purchased a Century dealership. With Clarke leading the way, Sierra soon became the country’s No. 1 Century boat dealer. But as fiberglass boats began sweeping the industry in the 1960s – Century was the last company to turn to fiberglass in 1968 – Clarke looked to the past and saw his future.

“He loved the grace and mystery of the ‘old girls,’ as he called them,” Carol van Etten wrote in the Tahoe World newspaper in January of 2002. “And his enthusiasm for saving vintage watercraft was infectious.” Tony Brown agreed.

“Dick saw the future very clearly. He knew what he was doing,” Brown said. “He knew that as long as there were people out there interested in wooden boats, they would be treasured.”

Pat Bagan, who worked with Clarke for more than 25 years, said Clarke “lived and breathed wooden boats,” so much so that “he was here (at Sierra Boat) nine days a week.” Bagan said Clarke knew that many Tahoe families considered their wooden boats heirlooms, which made them even more special to him – and to Sierra Boat.

“They were ordered by the family, brought here new and passed from generation to generation,” Bagan said. “That’s what Sierra is all about – taking care of those family boats. I’m on the third generation with some of the families I work with.”

But Clarke, who became Sierra’s GM in 1963, wasn’t content with maintaining and restoring the Chris-Craft, Gar Wood and Century boats that were already on the lake. He began making off-season jaunts to wooden boat havens in New York, the Midwest and Canada and purchased vessels that were lesser known in the Tahoe area.

“He would travel every fall and winter and bring back some old girls to add a little class to the venue,” Bagan said. “People would say, ‘I don’t want what everybody else has, I want something different.’ And Dick would say, ‘How about this?’ Then he would really bring them into the restoration. From the upholstery to flooring to wood work, he wanted the owners to be part of the process.”

When Hagerty introduced classic marine insurance in 1984, Clarke became one of its biggest advocators.

“Everyone was gun shy about insuring wooden boats, so when Hagerty came along, we were all tickled pink,” Bagan said. “I know Dick got together with the Hagerty family early on, and he was immediately on board. Every time a customer would buy a boat and ask how to insure it, Dick would say, ‘With one phone call – to Hagerty.’ ”

Clarke retired from Sierra Boat in 1990, but he hardly slowed down. There are plenty of stories from wooden boat owners whose interest in the hobby can be traced to conversations with the humble boat salesman who, Tony Brown said, “enjoyed pretty girls, old dogs and hand-rolled cigarettes.”

“When Dick heard people compliment his work, he’d always say, ‘I’m no hero. The boat owners – the people who step up and pay the money to save those treasures – they’re the heroes. They’re the curators,’ ” Brown said.

So how would Clarke, who died in 2002 at the age of 80, react to his induction into the Hagerty Marine Hall of Fame?

“He’d be high on it, but he wouldn’t let you know it,” Brown said. “He’d say, ‘We’re just tools. It’s all about the boats – the beauty of the boats.’ That’s how he looked at it. He was a humble man, a determined man. I really miss him.”

He isn’t alone.