A desire for a bigger boat led to Donnie Caison’s custom yacht business
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BY SIMON GONZALEZ | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLISON POTTER
His friend’s skepticism was understandable. Caison had
experience working with wood from evenings and week-ends
spent at his father’s millwork company back when
he attended Laney High School, but had no background
in boat design or building.
“I taught myself how to do it,” he says. “I started
researching. I read everything I could, and started draw-ing
boats. I drew 100 boats before I got what I wanted. I
built a scale model of the hull and carried my model and
my plans up to Jarrett Bay Boatworks in Beaufort. I
introduced myself to Randy Ramsey and said, ‘What do
you think?’ They looked at the plan and said, ‘It looks
like a good boat to us. You ought to build it.’”
And Caison did. In a shed behind his house, he built
the 38-foot Pirate’s Pride in 1999.
It was his first boat, but far from his last. Someone else
asked Caison to build a boat during a year he spent fish-ing
as a charter boat captain. Today Caison Yachts, in
Hampstead, is regarded as one of the premier builders of
custom fishing yachts in the Carolinas.
“He’ll work with anybody and give them what they
want,” Richard Johnson says. “That’s what he did with
me.”
Johnson contracted Caison 11 years ago to build him a
boat he could get in and out from his waterfront home off
Masonboro Sound Road.
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Three of Donnie Caison’s boats line up off Wrightsville Beach Marina: a Caison 38 Center Console owned by the builder;
Pirate’s Pride, a Caison 37 Express Sportfish with Tuna Tower owned by Bill Douglas; and Pig Rig, a Caison 60 Flying Bridge
Sportfish owned by Tommy Harris.
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