Willy Goergen, left, and his son, Andrew, stand at the stern of the Catalyst. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

His latest venture is unusual.

Goergen is building a fishing boat by hand. It began with an old hull that had been sitting on the north side of the Chetco River, near the bridge, for several years.

Eventually the owner decided to sell rather than reconstruct it and Goergen was interested.

“I decided to take it off his hands,” he said.

Tony Baron, a friend who has helped with the building project, put it more colorfully.

“It started with a moment of insanity,” he said.

The two men have done all the work outdoors with the new boat, the 46-foot Catalyst.

“The port has been extremely helpful,” said Goergen, adding that Port Manager Ted Fitzgerald allowed him to park the boat in the slip normally used by Henrietta, Goergen’s other boat.

The new craft features many parts from the Panda, a commercial fishing boat destroyed by the tsunami last March.

“Building a boat is one of the most custom things you can do,” said Baron.

Goergen, a 43-year-old Harbor resident, has been working on it for seven years, a process interrupted during the summer by his other love – youth sports.

“He’s dedicated to Little League and softball,” explained Baron. “That cuts into the good days and is why the boat has taken so long.”

When it’s finished though, Goergen will have a real bargain on his hands. He paid $15,000 for the hull, which he said is about 10 percent of the normal cost. Goergen estimates he’ll spend a total of $200,000 on the boat that will be worth $600,000 when finished.

There’s already been a celebration for the Catalyst. It was launched Nov. 17 with the crack of a champagne bottle by Goergen’s daughter, Hannah, which took a chunk of Fiberglass out of the hull with the impact.

That didn’t bother Goergen, who happily shared the event with lots of friends.

“Half the town showed up,” he said.