A Family Affair
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On my way south from Annapolis to visit
a couple of boats on the lower half of
the East Coast, I wandered over to see
our friends at Custom Steel Boats in Merritt, North
Carolina. We have
visited this custom
builder’s yard
several times over
the years, checking
out the company’s
latest projects, each
a custom creation
in steel and
aluminum, built to a
number of designs—
and from many
different designers.
From Buehler to
Benford, Sponberg
to Johnston, the
family-run
operation has a
history of producing
metal boats in many shapes and sizes. Siblings
Rodney and Theresa Flowers carry on the tradition
started by their parents, and now with Rodney’s two
children, Sean and Kait, on the company payroll, the
Flowers family has taken the company beyond its
historical roots.
The yard used to create a partially completed
vessel that would then be moved to other locations
to be painted and have its furniture and systems
installed. But now the yard builds a fully finished
yacht—a major step forward for the boatbuilder. All
electronics, furniture, and painting are done at
Custom Steel Boats’ 17-acre yard, which features
20,000 square feet of enclosed facilities.
And now the family business is stepping even
farther into new territory, with the introduction of
its own line of production boats to complement its
custom-yacht business. The new line of fulldisplacement
trawlers comes from the design desk
of Charles Neville Associates, of Centreville,
Maryland. Three boats are planned for the line,
ranging in size from 39 to 56 feet LOA. The first 47-footer, Carol Marie, was launched just prior to my
visit, so I got a chance to go aboard for a quick tour
of the boat before she headed south to her new
home port.
The mix of a
production line
with custom
projects means that
the builder has
capacity to have
three boats under
construction at any
one time, and the
yard typically
launches three
boats a year. Unlike
my previous tours
of the yard, when I
had seen metal
workers and
welders buzzing
around the boats in
various stages of
metal work, there are now carpenters, painters,
electricians, and systems installers as well. Using
experienced subcontractors to build an integrated
and complete yacht has changed the personality of
the yard—and definitely for the better.
THE NEVILLE 47
I went aboard the new trawler as we put a few
more miles under her keel to test her systems. The
chined steel hull, painted in “Marlin Blue” Awlgrip,
looks serious enough, the bow 8 feet off the water.
This little ship is clearly capable of shrugging off
logs, debris, or just about anything one is likely to
encounter under way—including shipping containers.
Yet the hull is smooth and fair. The yard is known
for its expertise in metal work—my eyes were drawn
to the flawless aluminum handrails.
Cruising along at 8 knots, in calm conditions, the
Deere 6081 turning at 2000 rpm (76 percent load),
I measured sound levels throughout the boat. In the
pilothouse, with both doors open, the readings were
64dBA; 68dBA in the saloon; 77dBA in the midship guest cabin; and only 61dBA in the
forward master stateroom with the
door shut. The objective was to
build a quiet boat, and it seems they
achieved that goal.
The 18-inch-wide side decks
allow easy movement around the
boat, and there are handholds
placed strategically around both
exterior and interior. I found a
minimum of 6 feet 7 inches of
headroom throughout the boat,
from the 8-foot-long aft cockpit to
the curly maple–trimmed saloon
and staterooms.
Running along at displacement
speed, I was reminded of how
comfortable it is to be under way on
a small ship. While this boat will not be a full-time
home for its owners, it will easily take them
comfortably and safely to the islands and beyond
with well-appointed spaces and top quality
equipment and systems.
The boat has a single large head with an enclosed
shower, both of which are unusually spacious, taking
advantage of one large space rather than attempting
to fit two smaller heads in a boat that seems built for
one couple. The guest cabin has two single bunks
and an access door into the engine room, and
enough storage for infrequent guests.
The master stateroom is in the bow, with an
island queen, matching bureaus, and two cedar-lined
hanging lockers. The obvious layout preference is
to offer maximum owner spaces at the expense of
guest accommodations—a real-world decision that
makes sense.
I found standing headroom just inside the engine
room access door. While headroom diminishes as
one moves aft in the engine room, I still measured
55 inches of headroom on either side of the
centerline Deere power plant. Surrounding
machinery, fuel system plumbing, and other
equipment appear easily accessed without the need
for gymnastics.
As I made a quick walk around the galley and
forward accommodations, I noted a consideration worth mentioning. We often discuss the compromises
and tradeoffs that are required when building a boat.
It all has to do with determining the intended use of the boat. This Neville 47 is bound for extended
waterway and coastal cruising. As such, all cabinets
and drawers have standard domestic hardware and catches. This speaks
to the convenience
of simple access,
although it would
not do at all if the
trawler were instead
headed offshore.
In any sort of
rough seas—and
I’m not talking the
perfect storm here,
just normal stuff—I
can easily imagine
the havoc of
cabinets unloading
their contents with
the violent fury of
cascading cans,
bottles, and other
lethal projectiles.
For that sort of
cruising, positivelocking
marine
hardware would be required. Domestic magnetic
and spring latches have no place on an offshore
passagemaker.
But as offshore is not on the program for
Carol Marie, the additional inconvenience of positivelocking
hardware is simply not worth the trouble.
This is a clear case of the inevitable decisions one must make, and why it is so vital to honestly assess
what kind of cruising one realistically plans to do.
But that is not to say the outfitting of this boat is
cheap and substandard. In fact, quite the opposite—
fit and finish were definitely upscale, and the
equipment list is first class: Wagner steering, John
Deere engine, Freeman ports and windows, Maxwell
windlass, Michigan Wheel propeller, MarQuipt
crane, Northern Lights genset, Awlgrip finish, Sub-
Zero fridge, Force 10 stove and oven, Surrette
batteries, Fernstrum keel cooler, Exalto wipers…the
list is long and impressive.
My visit to Custom Steel Boats was brief. I had to
continue south, so I didn’t get a chance to really
climb around the boat. But from what I saw,
Carol Marie should prove a wonderful companion to
fulfill the dreams of her owners. And she marks the beginning of a new chapter in the story of Custom
Steel Boats.
If you want a production steel full-displacement
trawler, there are not many choices out there, at
least not in this country. The advantages of steel are
well known, and with today’s coating systems,
maintenance is not the worry it was years ago.
If a steel trawler is on your wish list, perhaps one
of these Chuck Neville–designed trawlers, built by
the experienced hands of the folks at Custom Steel
Boats, is worth consideration. Now in its third
generation, the yard remains a family affair. The
Flowers family invites you to come to the Tarheel
state and see for yourself.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2005 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com
You are reading the text-only copy of this article. To access the article as it appeared in PassageMaker Magazine, please log in to purchase and download the PDF version of this article.