By Andrew Court
You’ll never forget the first time you see a custom-built Carolina sportfish boat.
Primarily you’ll notice the line. They sweep forward with a long hull—almost like a cigarette boat—and a large tower to spot fish sticking up from the stern. Like a bug’s antenna, outriggers are attached to the tower.
While Carolina custom boats are impressive next to the dock, they are incredible out in the water doing what they were built for, catching fish. They quickly get out to sea and are perfectly set up to battle fish from their cockpits. If need be, they can stay out at sea overnight. Custom Carolina boats are incredibly popular on the big-game fishing circuit, and for good reason. The beautiful teak looks even better with sailfish blood streaked across it.
These boats, known for their distinctive hulls, come from a variety of builders, but certain aspects of the construction remain the same. Constraints breed creativity, and as you see over and over again, the devil is in the details.
Custom sportfishing boats are like fine wine.
Even a total novice knows a beautiful vessel when they see one, just like they can tell that a fine bottle of red tastes great with their steak. Regional nuances are the next level of appreciative knowledge. Carolina fishing boats are akin to Napa Valley. They are all-American, bold, and original. Once outsiders, they are now the establishment. Florida boat builders are the equivalent of French winemakers; they’re the OGs who set standards.
Beneath that, the initiated get into varietals. This is particularly true for Carolina builders. Those that know can tell the builder based on the boat’s hull just the way a wine aficionado can whiff a glass and know what he’s drinking. Other small details are important, such as the shape of the windows, the layout of the galley, and how the cockpit is configured. These are the flavors of pepper and jam and tobacco that make each boat so unique.
The Flavor of Florida
Living in Miami next to a marina, I see a lot of boats. The majority of which, to continue with the wine metaphor, are gas station chardonnay. These fiberglass appliances bob in the water, slowly fading towards decay and decline as new models roll off the assembly line.
To understand what makes hand-built boats different, I went to see one of the classic Florida builders, Michael Rybovich & Sons. While this article is about Carolina boats, you cannot understand them without the context of Florida builders in the same way you can’t get California wine culture without learning about the French.
Mike Rybovich is the patriarch and looks the part with a calm reassuring smile and eyes that communicate he knows what he’s talking about. Boats are his life, and he has strong opinions. Most people have, according to him, a floating “tennis shoe.” These fiberglass boats look the same and act the same. They are modern but not memorable, high tech but not highly emotive. They aren’t what he and his family business build.
They were putting the finishing touches on an 82-foot, $8 million teak-clad vessel which was flagged in Coral Gables but headed for Costa Rica. The gleaming boat sits elegantly in the water. Every bit of it is thought through.
From the deck up, a Rybovich looks more or less the same as a Carolina boat, but the real story is the hull.
According to John Olsen, Program Director at the Cape Fear Community College Boat Manufacturing Program, the Carolina style “is always thought of as the big flare in the bow and a lot of tumble home in the transfer, a lot of curvature in the back of the boat.” In other words, it has a voluptuous, sexy hull.
After taking a moment to consider how cool the name Cape Fear Community College sounds, one might ask: What’s the practical purpose of the flair? Seaworthiness is the answer. The first thing you notice about a Carolina boat is the long bow. The extra length up front helps take larger wave action and handle more green water. Then we get to the deep-V, which allows us to cut through the water with less bashing. And finally, the most iconic component, the flare. Carolinas’ freeboard starts as a deep V-shape, which then transitions to a noticeable flare toward the horizontal aspect as it reaches the gunwale. The uprise is to keep water from splashing into the boat in rough conditions.
According to Olsen, “Carolina boats had to basically work with inlets that weren’t very friendly.” This inspired a flare that “allows a lot of the spray to be knocked down and to get through these inlets and to manage some of these unreasonable seas.”
Carolina Style—Born of Necessity
What could be such a big deal about the Oregon Inlet? Field Ethos’ Pete Correale almost sunk his boat outside the inlet, and he told me to check out YouTube to see why. One click produced a video of a salty sea dog commercial fisherman offering that “it’s not that you’re scared but you respect it, and you want to come home to your family.” The inlet changes day to day, with constantly shifting sands making it incredibly unpredictable. Sand is picked up by waves and goes into the inlet, changing the depth by leaving many unexpected sandbars. Another fisherman said his “knees start knocking” when he goes through. Random 10-foot waves can swamp even experienced captains.
In North Carolina the boats evolved from the world of commercial fishing during the charter boom post World War II. Commercial fishermen need to be out in all weather because it’s their livelihood, which means they need a hull that works in challenging conditions.
As the 1970s arrived, the Carolina boat builders settled into their prime. At first, professional fishermen such as Warren O’Neal, Buddy Davis, Sunny Briggs, Ricky Scarborough Sr., Omie Tillett, Buddy Cannady, and others were fishermen with great ideas but a lack of funds. They wanted purpose-built fishing boats but couldn’t afford to buy them. Instead, they learned to be boat builders.
There’s also no question that they were deeply inspired by the established Florida boat builders. In an interview with “Marlin Magazine,” Ricky Scarborough of Scarborough Boat Works says that his dad “idolized the Ryboviches,” but he also added that, “most people would recognize a classic Carolina boat for its seaworthiness and, of course, its flare.”
We are getting to the meat of the debate between Carolina and Florida boat builders.
Back down in Palm Beach, Rybovich has been around as a family boat maker since 1910. Like the Carolina builders, they started making commercial boats, but by the 1930s, they were already outfitting the cruisers of local aristocrats to target sailfish outside the Lake Worth Inlet.
In 1947 they created the Miss Chevy II, their first purpose-built sport fishing boat. In 1952, Miss Chevy IV launched with what would become the “Rybovich signature” broken sheer—an aluminum tuna tower, and a transom tuna door, that redefined sportfishing. This family has been in the game a long time.
Aboard the recently completed 82-footer, Dusty Rybovich, son of Mike, showed me exactly what can be done with the interior space. Because the boat was hand-constructed with wood, there wasn’t an interior cube, but instead, an elegant arc of windows. He had the galley and head unconventionally situated further aft, “when you’re fishing the only things you really need are to drink and take a piss.” The workmanship was beautiful, down to a custom coffee table made by their fighting-chair craftsman. The woodworker himself showed up to check out exactly how the piece fit with the boat.
Calling bullshit might be too extreme, but let’s say that Dusty didn’t exactly buy the premise of the Carolina flare. It was a hot day up at his family boat yard as he showed me around under a tarp-covered Carolina boat from another builder waiting to be painted. He didn’t see a big reduction in spray from the hull, only a reduction in interior cabin space. In their eyes it was more of an affection, a signature to set the Carolina boats apart.
This was around the time that Mike arrived, and we started talking about family. Three generations are currently employed at the company. When asked why this is important, Mike explained, “Because family leads to commitment to detail.” That commitment to detail is evident and makes these non-mass-produced boats stand out.
Mike also emphasized their collegial relationship with other boat builders. They like to talk and hang out with the Carolina builders and the other customs guys around Palm Beach. It’s not a zero-sum game like you see with more commercial, mass-production boat builders, he said with a slightly darker tone.
The Carolina Way
Sport fishing is a way of life in North Carolina. Of the local kids, Olsen said, “it’s pretty amazing, these folks come into my classroom, and they’re so connected to what’s going on in the industry already, without being part of it.” I pushed Olsen on what he thought had changed, because the boomer wisdom is that kids these days are less likely to spend time outside than ever. He responded: “Because of YouTube and going to fishing tournaments, like the Big Rock tournament, [local kids] can go see these boats and there is a lot of notoriety around them.”
The Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament is held annually in Morehead City, North Carolina. This is one of the most prestigious and storied sportfishing tournaments in the United States. Established in 1957, it began, much like the local boat building industry, as a small gathering of local fishermen vying to catch the biggest marlin. The name comes from the “Big Rock,” a prominent underwater plateau off the North Carolina coast that is a gathering area for large pelagic fish. Over the decades, it has grown into a premier event attracting anglers and enthusiasts from around the world, offering millions of dollars in prize money. These big-dollar—and big-ego—prize fishermen are exactly the guys buying Carolina customs.
It takes a long time to learn how to build these boats. Carolina boats are almost always cold-molded or plank-on-frame, which keeps the pounds off in comparison to a solid fiberglass hull. The low weight raises the top speed and allows for less draft. These techniques make them more expensive to build and require many more man hours than a typical hull that gets popped out of a mold. Olsen directs a program that teaches boat building, but he admits that most guys learn these skills starting off “sweeping the shop floor.”
Beyond excitement, it brings dollars and cents to the Carolina coastal communities. According to Olson the industry supports over 2,000 jobs and 204 businesses. The total impact on the state of North Carolina is $382 million a year.
Economics are on the mind of Dusty Rybovich, in both good and bad ways. COVID onward has been a period of huge demand. If you slap down a deposit for a boat today, you might see it in four years. The company is trying to make hay while the sun shines because they recall that times aren’t always so good. Bad years included the 2008 financial crisis and the era of 1990s luxury taxes.
The Tao of Custom Fishing Boats
Then we get to the issues all Americans are dealing with: inflation and good help. Material has shot up to the point where projecting the final price of a boat has become extremely difficult. Now they run on a model of cost of materials plus 15 percent; the handshake days of a fixed price are well and truly gone. Arriving at the Rybovich boat yard it was striking to see “tradesmen wanted” signs posted everywhere. Dusty explains it’s almost impossible to recruit, and craftsmen will leave for an extra dollar an hour. With the sky-high Palm Beach County home prices, who can blame them? Even Dusty has to commute over an hour to his ancestral business. The family constantly gets offers to sell out to real estate developers but has no plans to go anywhere.
These boats are costly, but after spending some time on one it’s hard to say they aren’t worth it. The design is timeless, a place you could imagine fishing with your kids decades after the maiden voyage. Hemingway’s Old Man, who risked his life in the Sisyphean struggle to land a Marlin, could only dream of crafts like these.
