My Beginnings to Date
Hello Mate... Terry Stewart here. A child of the early 1960's, and raised on Mobile Bay’s western shore, I started my boating days on a small wooden shrimp boat with my mother and dad. The boat was an old wood Louisiana Lugger style, single rig, bow worker shrimp boat. The vessel had a small wheel house aft with a top and bottom bunk which served as my crib at 7 days of age. From that point the boat was my safe place cradling us in her arms and lulling me to sleep with the rolling of waves and the drone of the engine. I was hooked from that point, and for the rest of my life I have always felt secure and safe while offshore in a wooden boat. My grandpa Stewart was a boat builder and a merchant mariner. He shipped out for months at a time while my uncle Barry also worked as a boat builder in my grandpa’s boat yard. My dad, also a boat builder, started at the age of 14 working for Jerry Finley, a prominent boat builder in the Mobile area . Upon completing high school, my dad went into the service for his 4 year hitch. When returning home he worked at several jobs before taking a position in the Mobile fire department where he finally retired. During the years of fire fighting, he worked building boats and doing repairs on the side. When I was about 6, my mom, my younger brother and I would take him lunch to the boat docks where he would be working. Dad would have me on the boat hand sanding or doing something that I was capable of as a "youngn" (that is what we were called in the south). I enjoyed being with my dad and helping him. As I grew older he would take me to help him during the summer vacations from school and taught me how to really do the work properly. We worked like this for many years not only on boats; we also built a pile driving barge and driver from scratch. We had a knack of designing and building what was needed to get the job done. I feel this is where I developed the ability to design and build almost anything. After hurricane Fredrick, we contacted marine insurance companies to salvage storm damaged boats that were displaced by the wind and water. After the salvaging of all the boats was completed we went back to pile driving. When I graduated high school with the mechanical drawing award, I was ready to follow my other interests in drafting. My dad’s youngest brother Mickey owned a drafting service where I went to work. During the next 20 years I worked at this profession of drafting and design in different companies in Mobile where I gained invaluable experience. I had an opportunity to design and build my own home, and I found that I really enjoyed the challenge. After some prodding from friends, I decided to quit the drafting and design companies and start my own home building company, and we moved to Gulf Shores, Alabama. I found I had the ability to design different floor plans and elevations that were functional and very saleable. After 7 successful years of home building, the real estate market collapsed, and as much as I loved building houses, it was time to retire. I bought a small home back in Mobile, near my childhood home site. With over an acre of fenced land to work with, I grew a small garden, planted fruit trees and tried to relax ..... but I was too restless to retire. Noticing that there were fewer wooden fishing boats on the water started me thinking about whether there was a need for new wooden fishing skiffs. After researching the Gulf Coast, I found there were no wood boat builders left. I had found the answer to my restlessness ........ building wooden fishing skiffs. My goal was to design and build 16' to 20’ light weight wood vessels that could be easily powered by a small horsepower engine. These open skiffs would be inexpensive and very strong. After building a new workshop and upgrading my woodworking tools, I was ready to start a new design. After taking several cruises to the western Caribbean and observing the fishing skiff designs that are common there, I came up with my own hull design. This hull would, at slower speeds, cut through rough water to give a smooth ride. On calm waters you could speed up and plane easily on the flat aft section of the hull using minimal engine power. I built my first boat with this new design and called it a Tortuga 16'.
After dealing with State registration officials and the Marine Police to get my boat registered, I had to have my boat and my workshop inspected by the Coast Guard to make sure I was building to current marine safety specifications. After completing this inspection and certification process, I can now create my own hull numbers (HIN) for my boats, and am approved to build and register new boats.
A number of successful boats later, I have "tweaked" my design and construction techniques so that I can build an affordable and beautiful wood fishing skiff. There are advantages to plastic or fiberglass mass produced boats..... but...... a light weight wood boat has a sound, solid feel, and beauty that a production boat will never have.