web of connections links today’s builders and those credited with launching the industry decades ago. The son of the founder of the state’s biggest yacht builder, Hatteras Yachts, owns a yard in High Point that is currently building its own boat for the first time. Likewise, Gunboat, an internationally acclaimed builder of high-performance catamaran sailboats, chose North Carolina as a production site. Gunboat moved into the facility in Wanchese that formerly housed the boat works of Buddy Davis, who is credited with putting North Carolina sport fish-ing boats on the map. Another forefather of the sport fishing boat industry, Omie Tillett, influenced and lent a helping hand with the early boats of another of today’s builders, Randy Ramsey of Jarrett Bay in Beaufort. Early on, boats were built on and near Roanoke Island for sport fishing off of the Outer Banks, and their designs were honed through trial and error. These boats had to navigate the chop of Oregon Inlet and cut through the ocean swell to reach the Gulf Stream, where marlin and other game fish were most likely to be found. Warren O’Neal designed a deep-V fishing boat for himself in 1959, and those who learned from him, including Omie Tillett, Sheldon Midgett and Buddy Davis, began building boats in earnest in the ’60s. Hatteras got its start in an unlikely place — hours from the ocean. Its boats were built to fish. The first Hatteras, a 41-footer named Knit Wits, was designed in 1959 and launched in Morehead in 1960 by Willis Slane. He figured the reduced overhead from not being on water-front property, along with the ready availability of talented wood-working 36 WBM may 2015 craftsmen from the furniture industry, would offset the cost of transporting fin-ished boats to the coast, says his son, Tom Slane. “They had to take out a wall to get that first boat out of the building,” Slane says. “My mom was there in Morehead to break the bottle of champagne over the bow.” Randy Ramsey, left, of Beaufort’s Jarrett Bay learned the craft of boatbuilding from the legendary Wanchese game fisher, Omie Tillett, pictured here in 1994. Naval architect Jack Hargrave, left, and Willis Slane, founder of Hatteras Yachts, circa 1965. Tom Slane, left, and Thomas Slane Jr. with the first Slane Marine 62-foot convertible hull prepped to come out of the mold in October 2014. PHOTO COURTESY OF JARRETT BAY BOATWORKS PHOTO COURTESY OF SLANE MARINE PHOTO COURTESY OF SLANE FAMILY ARCHIVES The Ties A
Wrightsville Beach Magazine May 2015
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