By Paul Molyneaux.
In Bayou La Batre, Alabama, older boatbuilders pass on skills to the next generation.
When cotton was king in the South, wooden boats built in Maine carried the crop to the mills of England. Now that scallops and lobsters are the kings of New England and Mid-Atlantic fisheries, many of the boats for these fisheries are being built of steel in the South.
When it comes to steel boat building in the south, Bayou La Batre, Alabama, is ground zero. Fed by Bishop Manor and Hammer Creeks, the waters of the bayou are lined with fish houses and boat yards.
Among them, Williams Fabrication sits at the end of Seafood House Road, six acres of steel boats in various stages of construction. In a building next to a trailer that house the company office, Lane Williams is working on getting a forklift going. “It’s the holidays, and here we are,” he says.
Lane oversaw the building of the New Bedford scalloper Viking Power for Lars Vinjerud II in 2019 (NF December 2019), and has two more boats for Vinjerud rising alongside the bayou. The Viking Power, with its version of an X-type bow, was a unique project for the yard. “Daddy designed the Viking Power,” he says. “He’s not a naval architect, but he drew it up and took it to an architect, and they did the calculations. We didn’t want to build a submarine.”
The boat has been fishing for three years now, and Williams reports that it is working well. “Nobody’s ordered another one,” he says. “But it’s doing okay. We just launched another one for Lars, the American Viking, but that one had a regular bow.”
Read more at nationalfisherman.com.
