Julian Guthrie is a boatbuilding legend. 



East Bay Boat Works specializes in sportfishing boats and small yachts. 



Lewis Brothers is one of three full- 

 time boatbuilding businesses left on 

 Harkers Island, a small community 20 

 miles east of Beaufort. Dozens of other 

 islanders build their own boats in their 

 back yards. "There are a lot of people on 

 the island who can build boats but are 

 doing something else to make a living," 

 says Jamie Lewis. "Down the road on the 

 other side of the gray house, a man is 

 building a 55-foot shrimp trawler in his 

 back yard." 



Their metal boat shed is cluttered with 

 tools, rusted paint cans, a mounted squirrel, 

 a plastic duck decoy and pieces of juniper, 

 also called soft juniper or cedar. Phil 

 Lewis, a cousin, pounds a nail into a 

 wooden skiff while Jamie, Houston and 

 James swap boatbuilding stories during a 

 coffee break. 



"I've been helping my cousin at 

 night" says Jamie Lewis, who built his 

 first boat — a 1 7-foot flounder boat — 

 when he was 17. 



Jamie also passes on his secrets of the 

 trade to his son, who joined the business 



after high school. "I never took a carpentry 

 class," says James Lewis. "I just learned 

 from my father and uncle. It is all I grew up 

 around. Now, my 7-year-old son is helping 

 us paint boats in the summer." 



Outside the garage, a handful of boats 

 fill the yard, including an old wooden 

 workboat built in the 1970s by Burgess 

 Lewis, Jamie and Houston's father. "This is 

 a regular Harkers Island boat with a round 

 stem," says Houston Lewis. "Several years 

 ago, we reworked it with fiberglass." 



Although they don't keep records on 

 their boats, Jamie Lewis estimates they 

 have built between 100 and 200 work and 

 sportfishing boats. 



They charge an hourly rate, and the 

 customer furnishes the materials. "Just 

 make a living," says Jamie Lewis. "Just 

 make a week's work like someone on a 

 regular job." 



The Lewis family lives near the boat 

 shed on Harkers Island, which was bought 

 by Ebenezer Harker in 1730. Many 

 residents from the Shackleford Banks 

 whaling community of Diamond City 



moved to Harkers Island after their village 

 was hit by a hurricane in 1 899. These 

 skilled whalers brought with them a vast 

 knowledge of boatbuilding techniques. 



Brady Lewis — no relation to 

 Houston and Jamie — was considered the 

 island patriarch of boatbuilding. Developer 

 of the Harkers Island style, Brady Lewis 

 taught the craft to Julian Guthrie, who in 

 rum became a legend in the business. 



Guthrie, 84, is retired from the 

 business. At age 10, he built his first 

 sailboat out of rot-resistant juniper and oak 

 found in the nearby maritime forest. 



For more than 25 years, he owned Hi- 

 Tide Boatworks in Williston where he built 

 a variety of boats — from sailing skiffs to 

 luxury yachts. His customers came from as 

 far away as Maine and Florida. 



Guthrie, who stopped building boats 

 when he suffered a stroke, often used his 

 ingenuity in design. In 1982, he built a 65- 

 foot yacht around a piano. He also 

 constructed three-masted sharpie schoo- 

 ners and a ferry that still runs from Davis to 

 Core Banks. 



16 WINTER 1999 



