Whenever I see old abandoned boats, the first thing I try to imagine is its launching as a new boat. I always wonder how or why a boat that  just might have many stories to tell would just be left to rot. Still there is a certain beauty to weathered wooden boats long forgotten by their owners. Someday, sooner rather than later, somebody will build houses or a strip mall on this now vacant lot on the Outer Banks. I can just see this boat heading out for a day’s catch. Waves crashing over the bow. And men in yellow slickers, their eyes cast towards the open sea.

10 thoughts on “old boat…”

  1. skiwaves

    I’m also drawn to these old relics.
    They’re scattered all over the outer banks, and were a chief means of transportation before the banks was paved over. My guess is that this particular derelict is what is known as a shad boat. They were built as work horses for the commercial fishing industry, and were capable of hauling large catches of fish.
    Some years ago, shad boats were officially designated as North Carolina’s state boat.

  2. tom hyde

    Michael, you may know this …

    A little more than thirty years ago, I remember seeing people out on boats at night in Bogue Sound. They would lean over the bow with a lantern in one hand and a flounder gig in the other. Does anyone do that anymore?

  5. skiwaves

    I remember some time ago, some of my local friends getting into it, sometimes catching what they called, doormats. They were whoppers.

  6. Ross Nolly

    Tom; have you got a link to the work you did one summer of your children etc in the river? I was trying to describe it to my partner who is painting a “summer” series for her exhibition later this year. I was trying to describe your essay to her but my words failed miserably! To me it is still the best representation of summer I’ve seen…… :-)

  7. tom hyde

    Michael and Michael, thanks for that info. Surprised I haven’t seen more photos on this, seems a natural. I always thought it was pretty cool when I was a kid to look out and see the gig boats working the shallow bays, old men with lanterns leaning over the bow of their wooden boats in the night. Very Hemingway.

    Ross, I don’t have those shots of my extended family on the net anymore. I’ve added to that collection quite a bit since then, though a bit less sentimental. I keep saying I’m going to put together a family book from summers on the farm … for Christmas. Now would be a good time to start that ;)) I’ll try to let you know if I post those again. In the meantime, may I suggest Towell’s The World from My Front Porch which may forever make anything similar merely snapshots for family.

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