79
WBM
Leslie Anne BY Karen Fuller
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Joshua Curry
You know her by her tuna tower
— the high-in-the-sky platform
where fishermen perch to get the
best view of the catch of the day.
Sure, plenty of sportfish boats have
this lofty equipment, but at a
dizzying 48 feet (that’s 18 nervous
steps up the steep, narrow ladders),
the Leslie Anne’s is easily the tallest
currently visible at Crocker’s Landing
on the Intracoastal Waterway in
Wrightsville Beach.
B U T I T ’ S T H E
B O A T ’ S S O U L
T H A T S O L D
O W N E R S B A R R Y
A N D L E S L I E
A N N E H A L E S .
“We were looking for an old
sportfish boat when our broker
took us to see her as she was then
— known as the Tall Cotton and
sitting quietly behind some guy’s
house in Miami. He had gotten
her on a trade for a piece of land,”
Barry Hales recalls. “She had been
run down and neglected for about
five years by the time we saw her.
Her hull was a faded navy blue
and inside she was fair, but
outside needed lots of work.”
Hales was charmed by her quiet
dignity; he wanted to try to bring
the vessel back to life.
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