Carolinian Boatworks
North Carolina boat builders have been earning renown for producing some of the most beautiful and seaworthy boats available for decades. The flared bows and smooth curves of Carolina boats at sportfishing marinas all over the world reveal that the vessels’ popularity extends far beyond state waters, and one local man’s reverence for the design led him to start his own boatworks.
“I’ve owned, run, and fished boats virtually all my life,” Reggie Holderfield, the man behind Wilmington’s Carolinian Boatworks, explained, “and I’ve always been such a fan of the Carolina boats. I retired from the construction equipment business in 2004, and myself and a good friend of mine in Atlanta got this thing started two years ago this March.”
The “thing” began with a 28′ outboard express boat that Carolinian completed earlier this year.
“One thing that’s always aggravated me on boats is that you can’t get to anything,” Holderfield continued. “On a lot of them, it would take a trained monkey to do something simple like replacing a pump. On a boat, things are going to break, and you need to be able to get to them. For the 28′, we started with a blank sheet of paper and said we’re going to make everything accessible.”
Aside from accessibility, storage and finish were two other areas Holderfield thought his company could improve upon. He explained, “You can never have too much storage in a boat, and some boats are finished so bad that you’d need welding gloves just to run your hands under the gunnel. Everything on our boats is finished exactly the same in the places you can’t see as the ones you can.”
Holderfield knew he wanted a Carolina style hull in wood and decided to use plank on frame construction, a method of building the boat from the keel up with strips of wood attached to wooden guide frames in the hull.
“The Carolina hull has been proven time and time again,” he said, gesturing to the 42′ hull now under construction in his Wilmington shop. “And plank on frame is bulletproof and it’s time proven, too, so I’m sticking with it.”
Jim Luxton, who got Jarrett Bay Boatworks off the ground, consulted Carolinian extensively in building their 28′, and Holderfield chose him to draw up the plans for his larger hull.
Holderfield selected Douglas fir for its strength in the keel, transom, engine beds, and frames, and he decided on strips of Juniper for the planks that make up the hull sides of the 42′. Top-notch materials are vital to building a boat, and he gets all his lumber from another Wilmington business, Yacht Craft.
The company supplies top quality wood and other materials to boat builders around the world, often selecting individual trees specifically for the needs of a given project.
“If you’re building a boat and going out to sea, you better have a good hull underneath you,” Yacht Craft’s Churchill Hornstein said. “You need to use good materials, and since wood only amounts to 3-4% of the total cost of the boat, buy good wood.”
A layer of 1/4″ Okume marine plywood and a layer of fiberglass will complete the exterior of the hull.
“We’ll deck her next week,” Holderfield said, “then flip her over, start putting plywood on the sides, glass it, and then we’ll be fairing for about a month.”
Fairing is the process of smoothing and removing imperfections on the outside of the hull, and a well-faired boat runs faster and gets better fuel economy than one poorly done. Carolinian invested a substantial amount of time and effort fairing their 28′, and Holderfield credits it with greatly enhancing the boat’s performance.
Attention to detail on the boat’s interior is something Carolinian puts at the forefront, and like the 28′, which has a highly finished all teak cabin, Holderfield has big plans for the 42′.
“We’ve molded a lot of our own stuff, like this fish box, bait prep station, and console,” he explained, showing off several custom items destined for the big hull in his shop.
“The console’s going to have a mahogany helm pod with Palm Beach style controls and room for 14″ screens up here,” he continued, pointing at an enormous console about to receive another layer of fiberglass.
Construction of the Carolinian 28′ took slightly over a year from drawing board to completion, and Holderfield estimated the 42′ would take a bit longer.
“Mike (Knott, one of Carolinians’ senior builders) started planking the boat about six or eight months ago,” Holderfield explains. “It will probably take 15-16 months to get this one done.”
It didn’t take long for Carolinian to find a buyer for their first boat, and the 28′ will be delivered to a new owner on the Gulf Coast after Holderfield takes it to the Atlanta and Miami boat shows this winter. After the 42′ is sold, he’ll build another custom boat to a buyer’s specifications, although he’d like to keep it under 50′.
“We’re trying to build a boat that not only looks great, but is finished great,” Holderfield explained. “There are some guys doing that, like Scully, Bayliss, Paul Mann, and Spencer, but they’re all building 60-70′ boats right now. I like that we’re a custom builder who accommodates the buyer’s needs and interests in a smaller boat.”
If a custom Carolina sportfishing boat seems like a good Christmas gift to yourself or another, or you’d just like more information on a builder producing beautiful, unique boats in the Wilmington area, check out the Carolinian Boatworks website at www.carolinianboatworks.com.
