WCHealey, Frogmore, SC

It has a mast. But Carl Hahn says he’s never used it as such. “It’s for show,” he smiles. But he adds that in the original Chesapeake Bay buy boats, the masts were used “to haul up the catch.”

Carl and his wife Debbie, of Beaufort, SC stopped at the Town Dock in late June on board their 46-foot wooden (covered in glass) boat.



Carl says he started out with a design for a Chesapeake Bay Buy boat. “They were work boats. Oyster carriers. Deck boats from the 1930’s.” And he liked the hull design “because it didn’t need a lot of power.”

He tinkered with the Chesapeake deck boat plans a bit, made the sides a bit higher so the cabin didn’t seem so top-heavy. It took 7 years to finish. Even with the adjustments, it still looks like a purposeful craft. And it’s true to its original plan in terms of its depth. Asked how much the 46 foot boat draws, Carl smiles. “You won’t believe this,” he pauses. “20 inches. 22 loaded.”


Carl and Debbie have named the boat twice. At first, the couple named the boat “Santa Elena” after St. Helena Island, which is near their home in Beaufort. (And the port of call was St. Helena Island's old name, Frogmore)



Then a few years ago, a boat builder and designer friend from Florida came to see the Hahns. His name was Bill Healey and he’d designed the hull of their boat. When Carl had first moved south to Florida from the Throggs Neck area of the Bronx, 36 years ago, he looked up the fellow Bronx native, Healey. They were friends ever since.

And then, Carl says, “He died visiting me.”

“I still miss him.” Carl says.

Debbie adds, “He was a true eccentric. And it wasn’t acting.”

“He never bought new clothes,” but opted for the thrift store, Carl says. “The best clothes he had, he got from his brother.”

They changed the name of the boat as a tribute.

The boat itself may be a tribute to the scrappiness of its namesake. Carl had run a marina for years and collected wood, all of which went in to the boat. He also bought ‘leftover stuff. That kept the costs down.” He had other sources, as well. “I was replacing a deck and stairs on Fripp Island, “ Carl says, “and took the red cedar.” It’s now inside the cabin, near the port lights, with a reddish satiny glow.



Though the boat is big enough to live on comfortably, Carl and Debbie have no plans to cast off and do extended cruising. Instead, they take vacations on board the WCHealey.

They were on a three-week trip when they stopped in Oriental.

Carl says that when he left NY for Florida in the late 60’s, they sailed on a wooden sailboat. He remembers passing thru NC, but couldn’t recall if he’d stopped in Oriental then.

When he and Debbie first arrived, they said they looked forward to a quiet night’s sleep as they’d been tied up to the dock in Beaufort the night before, and as Carl says, “a band played till midnight. The same three chords. Badly.”

We checked in after their first night in Oriental. Carl was smiling. "It was so quiet!" he said.

Carl said they were taken by the town. And now he was saying -- half-kiddingly - that he was thinking of buying some real estate. But then, unknowingly hitting on a subject of some debate in Oriental, he added that he was inclined not to make the move to Oriental because he felt that every place he moved (Ft. Lauderdale, Beaufort,SC) had gotten screwed up by development.

Instead, he and Debbie took off for Ocracoke.