THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9608300237
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 248 lines
FOR CENTURIES, residents of northeastern North Carolina have depended on waterways for their work, transportation and recreation.
So they built boats.
Some of the vessels were workhorses, broad-shouldered boats constructed to carry heavy loads. Others were racehorses, designed to fly quickly over the water. And still others were fashioned for fishing in the sounds and the seas.
And all of them in their own way were beautiful.
The Carolina Boat, the shad boat, the moth boat and the Currituck hunting skiff are four vessels that became famous after being conceived in the Albemarle area.
The men who built them were masters of the local waters. When they put wood and nail together, the results were boats that filled their purpose perfectly - and did it with style. Many of their crafts still can be seen skimming the state's waters.
Carolina Boats
Every charter boat except one at the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center is a Carolina Boat built in a workshop not far away.
The ratio is similar at other marinas where charter boats and yachts come home for the night.
At least eight Carolina Boat builders operate on the Outer Banks and sell their vessels all over the country.
The heavily flared bow makes the Carolina Boat one of the prettiest on the water. And its wide beam and V-shaped bottom give it a smooth ride. The design is ideal for the weathered men who work on the water and the wealthy men and women who play on the weekends.
``They come here for our boats because of the way our boats look and the way they perform,'' said Sonny Briggs, a Wanchese boat builder. ``They know if they perform well here, they'll perform well anywhere. It's always rough here. If it's calm in the morning, it'll be rough in the evening. If it's calm in the evening, it was rough in the morning.''
The boat's stability is a plus when the boat is anchored, or when paying customers are trying to catch a trophy fish.
``Narrow boats are like this,'' said Briggs, holding his hand in front of him palm down and briskly rotating it. ``Our boats are like this.'' He moves his hand in a gentle roll.
Warren O'Neal built the first Carolina Boat for Oregon Inlet Fishing Center Capt. Omie Tillett in 1960. Both O'Neal and his craft are legends among Outer Banks boat builders.
O'Neal is 86 now and hasn't worked in his shop for years. But his boats are still on the water. Even the first boat he made for Tillett was still running in Florida as late as two years ago, he said. Another of O'Neal's boats, called ``Sinbad,'' still operates out of Oregon Inlet Fishing Center.
Said Briggs of O'Neal, ``He put the quality into boat building.''
O'Neal admits the Carolina Boat is not all original. But it is an improvement on past designs. And each builder of a Carolina Boat has his own fingerprints, though most of them learned the trade from either O'Neal or Tillett.
``I don't think there is anybody in the business who doesn't want to improve on what he's done before,'' said O'Neal. ``You can tell right off that a boat was built around Roanoke Island. And you can usually tell who built her.''
Briggs, who was a charter boat fisherman himself, builds Carolina Boats one at a time with a crew of five skilled men. He has orders to last him two years - as do most other builders, he said. He has sold his boats to buyers as far away as Africa.
Carolina Boats range in length anywhere from 34 feet to 60 feet. Depending on how elaborate the interior is, the price runs from $250,000 to $1 million or more - which is still less than many of its class.
``People who eat up advertising will go with a Hatteras or a Bertram,'' said Briggs. ``Anybody who knows boats wants a Carolina Boat.''
Albemarle Sound shad boats
The Albemarle Sound shad boat was so unique and important to the watermen who sailed it that it became the official state boat of North Carolina in 1987 - even though its heyday had ended 60 years before.
``Shad boats had a very sea-worthy and sea-kindly hull form,'' said Roger Allen, curator of boat building technology at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
The 8-foot beam gave it stability. And the round bottom and the deep V-shaped bow cradled it through rough waters. She sailed well when loaded down with the day's catch - or with the whole family and their belongings.
``The hull shape of the Albemarle Sound shad boat is a very capable shape for dealing with the waters of coastal North Carolina,'' said Allen. ``The Albemarle Sound is not a friendly place for small boats.''
George Washington Creef fished in the Albemarle Sound when he built the first shad boat in 1870. He combined the characteristics of the ``kunner,'' a boat made from dug out logs, and the more modern plank construction, said Allen. Kunner was a local slang name for canoe.
Creef made his shad boats from Atlantic white cedar, known locally as juniper. The wood is so durable that several shad boats built at the turn of the century have been salvaged after sitting under water for decades.
Colington Island fisherman Phil Haywood bought a shad boat when he was 9 years old - in 1961. The boat was built before 1900 and was in excellent shape. Haywood used it for crabbing and fishing full time until just 10 years ago.
``She worked like a dream. But as I got bigger, I wanted a bigger boat,'' said Haywood. ``Sometimes I wish I had her instead of some of the other boats I've got.''
The Museum of the Albemarle is restoring a shad boat built by A.B. Wright in 1904. When found, it was covered with brush and trees in the woods. Yet the juniper frame is still solid. Museum carpenter Wayne Mathews will restore the boat with the help of Enno Reckendorf, retired director of a boat building school in Norfolk. The boat will be a centerpiece exhibit in the proposed new Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City.
Mathews was astounded when he jacked up the bow and stern of the shadboat - and its middle held firm. Trees as tall as a man grew out of the organic matter gathered inside the boat.
The most famous shad boat was called the Hattie Creef, built by Creef himself and named for his daughter. The Hattie Creef hauled the Wright brothers and their airplane to the Outer Banks from Elizabeth City just after the turn of the century. She was extra long at 55 feet. Most shad boats were around 30 feet long.
Ironically, the quality of the shad boat helped lead to its demise, said Allen. Building a shad boat was heavy labor.
``It generally required two trees,'' he said. ``All the curved members came from the root structure. It took them months to dig out the roots.''
Haywood's boat sits in a lot in Currituck County. Haywood coated it in fiberglass years ago which helps protect it. The timbers are still solid. Not long ago, a man from the Smithsonian Institution asked Haywood if he would donate it to the museum.
Haywood told the man: ``I've got $20 in her. You can have her for that.'' The man said he'd only take it as a donation and left. Haywood said he probably would have given it to the man had he not been so brash.
He plans to haul it back to Colington much closer to its birthplace - where she may skim the waters again.
Moth boats
The tiny moth boat gained international fame immediately after it was built nearly 70 years ago in Elizabeth City. Moth boats were, and still are, inexpensive to build and fun to sail.
``You can put one on the water yourself for $700 to $800,'' said Linwood ``Erky'' Gregory. ``It's a simple, quick little boat. Once you get it sailing, it becomes part of you. You can kind of do what you want to.''
In the fall of 1929, Capt. Joel Van Sant was on his way from Atlantic City to Florida when he stopped at the Elizabeth City Shipyard for repairs on his yacht. While he waited, he teamed with the shipyard's owner, Ernest Sanders, and built a one-man sailboat perfect for sailing through shallow creeks and rivers.
When people first saw the little sailboat bouncing over the Pasquotank River, it looked like a white moth flitting about - and so it was named.
Within three years, the moth boat's popularity soared. The National Moth Boat Association held annual races on the Pasquotank River that drew 75 to 100 racers. The moth boat's popularity continued to climb until the 1950s when interest waned and the races on the Pasquotank River ceased.
Then, eight years ago, the Museum of the Albemarle organized the first moth boat race on the Pasquotank River in more than 30 years. Only a handful of boats participated. But it was a beginning.
Old moth boats emerged from garages and barns. People like Gregory and his son Bryan began to build them again. Students in a construction class at Camden High School have built one every year for three years.
The moth boat design is flexible. But there are some restrictions. It must be no longer than 11 feet, no wider than five feet, and have a mast no taller than 16 feet, 6 inches.
About 25 boats will enter this year's race on Sept. 21. One of the participants will be Charles Higgins, 76, who raced and won in the moth boat's heyday during the 1930s and 1940s. Higgins, of Elizabeth City, was taught to sail the moth boat by Van Sant himself.
When he first started racing as a teen-ager, Higgins said, he always came in last. He worked and improved his boat every year and finally won the Junior National World Championships in the mid 1930s.
Higgins will be in the upcoming Moth Boat Regatta. Gregory has built him a new boat. And Higgins thinks it has a chance to win. He's already won preliminary races in the area.
``I've been doing it all my life. And to me, there's nothing like it,'' said Higgins.
To participate in the moth boat races, call Gregory at 335-4221.
Currituck Hunting Skiff
William R. ``Billy'' Beasley doesn't know exactly when or who made the first Currituck hunting skiff.
But he knows his grandfather built such boats before the turn of the century.
The small vessels, usually no more than 14 feet long, carried duck hunters and dozens of wood decoys snugly within the cut pine boughs of the blinds. They hauled commercial fishermen's heavy catches to the markets and transported families up and down the Currituck Sound to visit relatives. They were boats for all seasons and reasons.
``Most people who used the Currituck skiff would say they are more stable than fiberglass boats,'' said Beasley. ``It's not as noisy. It doesn't put out the sound like a fiberglass boat does.''
The juniper of a Currituck hunting skiff absorbs the blows from a shoving pole or the clang of a thermos. The same noises echo off the side of a fiberglass boat - sending ducks and fish to the other side of the sound. For
those reasons, many hunters and fishermen still like the flat-bottomed vessels, though they are not as popular as they once were.
Years ago, there were at least 30 men in Currituck County who could build skiffs, said Beasley, 67. Now, he is only one of a few who still construct them.
``I can build one in two or three days,'' Beasley said while rocking in a swing on his front porch. He lives on the water in Grandy and has built and used boats on the Currituck Sound all of his life. ``All of my family has been in the boat building business. I started building them when I was 14 years old.''
Beasley still has most of the hand tools his father used. A hand saw, a plane, a hammer and nails were the basic tools. They never used glue in the early days. And a piece of glass took the place of sandpaper.
``You could put what tools they used in a potato sack,'' said Beasley. ``Those men did some beautiful craftsmenship.''
He rattles off names of builders and their boats like they were pieces of artwork from the Renaissance period - a Johnny Guard or a Pat O'Neal. As all boat builders, each one had his own style.
``If you were to go down to the landing and look at the skiffs, you'll notice they all look a little different,'' said Beasley.
In the early part of the century, the skiffs were sailboats. They were more narrow models than later ones made to support outboard motors.
Beasley still has juniper boards that were cut and milled in 1947. He scraped a chisel down the edge of one board, peeling off a sliver of the weathered exterior. The wood was still as good as it was 50 years ago.
``I'm saving that wood,'' said Beasley, ``to build my last one when somebody wants it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by DREW C. WILSON
[Cover color
Masters of their crafts]
Carpenter David Mitchell, 33, of Wanchese, puts on a dust mask
befoire beginning sanding on a 47 Express Carolina hull at
Scarborough Boatworks at Wanchese.
Sonny Briggs of Briggs Boatworks at Wanchese checks the Awlgrip
finish on a cold-molded sportfishing that is nearly complete. ``That
(finish) gives it that real bright shine,`` Briggs said.
William R. ``Billy'' Beasley
of Grandy with
a Currituck skiff.
The small vessels,
usually no more
than 14 feet long,
carried duck hunters
and dozens of
wood decoys snugly
within the cut pine
boughs of the blinds.
They hauled commercial
fishermen's heavy
catches to the markets
and transported
families up and down
the Currituck Sound
to visit relatives.
They were boats for
all seasons and reasons.
KEYWORDS: BOAT BUILDING by CNB