ouston Lewis stoops over an 

 unfinished wooden boat in a high- 

 ceilinged garage. With his weathered 

 hands, he sands each side, inch by inch, 

 for almost an hour. 



Nearby, his brother Jamie Lewis 

 uses a small hand plane to smooth a 

 piece of wood. 



Inside the hollow hull of the 

 sportfishing boat, James Lewis Jr., 

 Jamie's son, tinkers with a sensor that 

 will be installed on the boat's bottom to 

 detect fish. 



Each day, members of the Lewis 

 family work side by side sculpting their 

 prized boats. By fastening planks and 

 frames one piece at a time, they are 

 keeping alive a Harkers Island tradition 

 that has survived for generations. 



When crafting boats, the Lewis 

 brothers rely on skill and materials at 

 hand. Lots of white juniper. Ingenious 

 tools. Precise measurements. Intensive 

 hand work. No telephone or fax 

 machine. 



The Lewis brothers build most 

 boats by a time-honored technique 

 called "rack of eye." It takes the eyes of 

 master craftsmen like Jamie and 

 Houston Lewis to see that a boat has the 

 right dimensions and design, says Roger 

 Allen, curator of boatbuilding technol- 

 ogy at the N.C. Maritime Museum in 

 Beaufort. "Generally, if it looks right to 

 an experienced eye, it will be right in the 

 water," he says. 



For wooden workboats used by 

 shrimpers and fishers, the Lewis family 

 uses the Harkers Island or Carolina 

 design, recognized along the East Coast 

 for its wooden hull and flared bow. 



"When we first started, all of our 

 boats were workboats for people in the 

 boating community," says Houston 

 Lewis, who carves decoys as a hobby. 

 "Now, fishermen are struggling. We 

 hardly ever build fishing boats. We 

 build more pleasure boats." 



The pleasure boats are usually 

 sportfishing vessels, also called "sports- 



wkef&Mlw& Boatbuilders Keep Tradition Alive 



"Building boats is a craft," says 

 Jamie Lewis, who has been building 

 boats for more than 40 years. "Not 

 everybody can do it. You have to have 

 in mind what you want to do. I don't use 

 blueprints. For big boats, we sketch 

 something out." 



fishermen." The boats are made out of 

 juniper wood and coated with fiberglass 

 on the sides and bottom. "Fiberglass 

 seals the boat better, but it requires more 

 work," says Houston Lewis. "You have 

 to do a lot of hand sanding and rubbing 

 to make it sleek and shiny." 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 15 



