The Boat Builder

William "Tinker" Wallace is one of a handful of men that have shaped the appearance and character of North Carolina's fisheries. With only his God given inquisitive nature and a head for numbers, Tinker Wallace has earned a reputation as a master boat builder.

(L) Tinker Wallace and the late  Billy Smith stand on the dock by one Tinker's creation, the William H Smith.

In the last 47 years Tinker has built more boats than even he can remember. Many of his creations are familiar names along the Carolina coast: the Leslie & William, the William H. Smith, the Barbara Ann and the Robby D.

I recently received an invitation to join Mr. Wallace, his wife, Carrie, and friends to talk and perhaps catch a glimpse into the life of a boat builder. Mrs. Janice Smith of the Luther Smith & Sons family had brought me to the Beaufort eatery, The Net House, so that I could meet with Tinker and she could treat us all to a dinner of local seafood.

"I like to call him Noah," says Mrs. Wallace with a broad smile. "He always reminds me of the Biblical story of the ark."

"If any man could build an ark, Tinker could," adds Mrs. Janice. "If Tinker built it, I'd be right there on it." She credits Tinker, now 72-years-old, with still keeping the mechanical side of Luther Smith & Sons in good repair. "I'll be honest with you, when I say my prayers every night I tell the Lord, 'If Tinker goes, Lord, take me next.' I don't know how I could go on without him."

From Humble Beginnings

Perhaps an unlikely candidate for boat builder, Tinker was raised on a farm. As a teen, he and a brother took to the water hard-crabbing to supplement the meager income provided by the family farm. Tinker became fascinated with net making and all aspects of fishing for a living. His education consisted of a 6-mile walk to school every day through the tenth grade. Although his education was cut short he took with him strong fundamentals in mathematics that would aid him in learning the essential practices of boat building.

After leaving school he became a carpenter. Tinker's career made a poetic shift as his skills as a carpenter and his love of the water landed him a job building pleasure boats on an assembly line in 1954. In the shipyard he had found his niche. From there he worked in a number of Eastern Carolina shipyards refurbishing World War II landing vessels, Army Corp of Engineer boats and eventually bidding on Military maintenance contracts himself. Although he lacked the benefit of a formal education, Tinker's reputation for excellent craftsmanship and unprecedented efficiency won him respect from area boat builders and inspectors alike.

His hard won education as a boat builder came from learning to interpret and eventually draw the plans used to map the construction of boats. Working for a number of master boat builders, Tinker immediately learned what he felt were the best traits of each builder and "combined the best of all of 'em."

"Tell him about Mr. [Carl] Bock, Tinker," Mrs. Janice urges.

Carl Bock was an established boat builder from Newport News, VA, who opened a yard in Beaufort nearby the yard where Tinker constructed steel boats for Luther Smith & Sons.

"He never understood how I could build boats just as big as his, finish them just as fast as he did and use half the labor," Tinker chuckles to himself. "I planned 'em better than he did. He'd go ahead and wrap the boat up, he'd put all the metal on it before he ever tried to weld anything out. And a man goes to welding in the hold, with all that smoke in there, he can't stay there. What I done, I kept the boys so they could stay there and work. I wrapped mine up as I went. I put the deck on early and kept the men out of the rain and if the sun was bad we could go from one side to the other to keep in the shade."

Tinker's boat planning was one example of the lessons he had learned from other builders.

"Years ago, I saw 'em at the New Bern Shipyard doing the same thing Mr. Bach was doing and I made up my mind right then that if I ever run a place like that stuff would be done a lot different," Tinker says.

Following A Dream

Tinker has performed maintenance on or constructed virtually every type of boat imaginable but all his life he had dreamed of building grand steel vessels that would turn even the hardiest captains green with envy. The late William Smith gave Tinker the opportunity to make that dream come true in the 1980s.

"That first one, the Leslie & Charles, was 95-foot. When we got ready to build it, William asked me if I could build a big one and I told him, 'I can build any size you want.'"

"That really made Tinker happy," Mrs. Carrie points out. "He got the chance to do what he'd always wanted to do."

I had always wanted to build boats like that," Tinker says. "William told me what he wanted then got out of the way. When I needed anything I'd tell him what I needed and he'd get it."

Launching Time

"You should have been around at launching time," Mrs. Janice exclaims. "It was always something to see."
Tinker's eyes seem to sparkle as he reminisces briefly before revealing a story. "That first one I built was the Leslie & Charles. It was 95-foot so when we got ready to launch it I talked to a man who moves houses. He fooled around with it for about a month before he told me he couldn't do it," Tinker says.

Never one to shrink from a challenge, Tinker told the man in no uncertain terms that if a house mover couldn't move this mammoth vessel then this boat builder could. And with the help of some scraps he found laying around the shipyard and a cradle he fashioned from timbers he did.

The Mind of an Engineer and the Soul of a Fisherman

Tinker completed his last, or should I say most recent steel boat in 1991, the 85 foot Kimberly & William. According to Tinker, new regulations essentially prevent him from building any boats larger than 80-feet. Plans for any new vessel must be submitted to a review board by mail while in Tinker's experience boats have always been built from plans etched to scale on long sheets of plywood.

But as Tinker talks about the possibility of building another boat I get the impression that its more the state of the fisheries than any technical hurtle that has prevented him from building boats of late. "If a person was to build one he couldn't get a permit for it," Tinker laments. "But I never know what's coming up. If somebody wants me to build one I won't turn it down."

The mind of an engineer and the soul of a fisherman have given Tinker Wallace the ability to follow his dream. He is able to design a seaworthy vessel from little more than an oral description. When parts or tools aren't available, like any good fisherman, Tinker can improvise using whatever resources are available to either do the job or make the tools.

The fishing boats that work our Eastern North Carolina waters are as much a part of our cultural landscape as any light house. The nimble crab boat, the majestic trawler, the hardy ocean-going longliner -- more than simply vehicles or compulsory equipment, fishing boats are near-mystical icons of the sea that help define the folks who run them as men of the sea, providers and fishermen. William "Tinker" Wallace has earned each of these titles in his lifetime plus a few more: husband, father, grandfather and boat builder.