Column: East End wooden boat building

Not long ago I attended a Times-Review forum on wooden boat building on the North Fork. Held in Southold, it was much like the forums we have had on Shelter Island — an opportunity to illuminate some aspect of life here. 

Well attended, with roughly 100 people, including a fair number of Shelter Islanders, the forum brought together a panel to discuss the craft of wooden boat building, maintenance, and repair. Among the panelists was local resident and business-owner John Needham of Coecles Harbor Marina and Boatyard.

Wooden boat building and servicing honors the East End’s boating traditions, but it cannot, by itself, be expected to produce a “sustainable” maritime environment. It sustains the maritime environment I’ve loved since childhood, but it does little to address where East End boating is headed.

The choice of Hinckley to establish a foothold here, along with Blackstone’s acquisition of Safe Harbor facilities in Greenport, signals the increasing presence of “superyachts,” whether measured by size or performance. I speak from personal observation, having kept and still maintain a sailboat in one of Safe Harbor’s Greenport marinas since 1976. The presence of Barton & Gray is another acknowledgment that boating on eastern Long Island is being redefined into something approaching an “Uber” boating environment for the well-heeled.

After sailing these waters since I was 9, I can say with some certainty that this is not the boating destination I knew as a child, or even as a young adult.

Coecles Harbor Marina and Boatyard, along with Coecles Harbor Marine and the efforts of John and Peter Needham, have moved somewhat closer to serving this emerging market through boat building and servicing at the luxury-performance end of the spectrum, while remaining, remarkably, a small, locally-owned business. But a facility operated strictly by locals is increasingly an anomaly.

The recent sale of Steve Clark’s Greenport Shipyard, coupled with the new owner’s desire to maintain its marine connection, may well result in another facility oriented toward superyachts rather than the low- and middle-economic segments of boat ownership. The uncomfortable truth is that this latter segment is simply fading away here.

It’s wonderful to celebrate the continued presence of wooden boat shipwrights. But the future demand for marine services is likely to be driven increasingly by American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC)-certified marine technicians qualified in the many specialized categories of recreational marine expertise.

Peter Brennan, as well as the other forum participants, approaches his work at wooden-boat craft as helping preserve the East End’s maritime heritage. I identify deeply with that heritage. But there is a parallel here with agriculture.

My wife was raised on the North Fork amid acres and acres of potato fields. Her father chose not to continue in the family’s farming tradition, just as his daughter — my wife — went off to college and became a teacher. Yet respect for that farming work ethic ran deep in their family. Eventually, many of those potato fields became vineyards, and agriculture evolved into agritourism.

Mr. Brennan spoke mournfully of how past agricultural activities are now often scorned despite being permitted under current zoning in many locations. One could conclude from his remarks that wooden-boat activities might similarly become obstructed, even when they represent a legitimate and historically important part of life here.

We are experiencing a population shift toward people who may appreciate the novelty of working on wooden boats, growing oysters, dredging for scallops, or shucking clams, but who do not necessarily want those activities in their own backyards. How that conflict is addressed and resolved will be a significant challenge if the East End is to retain more than a museum-like version of its maritime history.

Perhaps one role of a local newspaper is to bring these cultural conflicts into the open. One might argue that the audience served by local newspapers has little interest in such societal questions. Perhaps so. But isn’t that precisely why they need to be placed squarely before an evolving East End population?

The East End’s long agricultural and maritime history should not be relegated to a kind of living museum. That history is, in fact, part of what drew so many people to live here, whether part time or full time.

Twenty years ago, I served two terms as one of Shelter Island’s elected property assessors. Our office undertook a revaluation of commercial property on Shelter Island. During that process, John and Peter Needham met with me to discuss the newly assessed value of their family business, Coecles Harbor Marina and Boatyard.

The meeting was cordial, but they were understandably concerned about what the new assessment might mean for their business. I suggested — certainly not as a serious recommendation, but to underscore the considerable value of their property — that they could sell the site to a developer, retire, and both be extremely comfortable for the rest of their lives.

They looked at me in astonishment and, almost rhetorically, asked, “This is what we love.”

That response has stayed with me for more than two decades because it says, better than anything else, what really matters.

The challenge for the East End is not simply preserving wooden boats, shipwrights, farms, or fishermen as relics of another time. It is finding a way for people who love these things — and the work that sustains them — to continue doing them here.