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Its frame-and-plank
construction is steeped in tradition, but this Mann has not been left
behind on the evolutionary ladder.
"I’m an original
Mann from Mann’s Harbor," says the founder and namesake of Paul
Mann Custom Boats, located in–you guessed it–Mann’s Harbor,
North Carolina. "I started sportfishing offshore when I was 13, as
a mate. Beginning at 21, I ran a charter fishing boat for 15 years. Back
then we’d fish during the summer and then in the winter work in the
boat shops. That’s how I learned the traditional way of building
Carolina boats. There are not many true Carolina boatbuilders left."
Talking by telephone,
I could have been forgiven for picturing Paul Mann’s operation as
one of those quaint, sleepy yards out of WoodenBoat Magazine had I not
been aboard the 63-foot DeeLarryUs two days earlier. There wasn’t
anything quaint or sleepy about skimming over the St. Lucie River near
Stuart, Florida, at more than 45 mph. While there’s no doubt Mann
is a traditionalist, in the Outer Banks even purists can’t resist
performance.
"I define a true
Carolina boatbuilder as a frame-and-plank builder," Mann tells me.
"But we’ve taken the frame-and-plank technique to a whole other
level." To build boats that better withstand the adversities of offshore
fishing while making the most of ever-more-powerful engines, Mann has
adapted modern materials and methods to time-honored Outer Banks techniques.
The frames in the 63
were made from white cedar grown and milled in North Carolina. Mann planked
the hull with 3/4-inch white cedar under a 1/4-inch layer of okoume marine-grade
plywood, a many-plied tropical-hardwood sheath free of voids at the core.
Then the builder encapsulated the hull, inside and out, with hand-laid
fiberglass infused with WEST SYSTEM® epoxy. Bulkheads made from one-inch
okoume were also encapsulated in glass and glassed into the hull sides.
For stringers, Mann used stout clear fir and, beneath the engines, added
aluminum laminates before coating the stringers, too, in fiberglass. When
securing the engines, the bolt holes were drilled and tapped for extra
strength.
While the 63’s
hull is a fusion of the old and the new, construction of her deck is thoroughly
contemporary. Its backbone of aluminum box-beam framing was covered above
and below with layers of Decolite, lightweight balsa-cored glass. For
the superstructure, Mann once again used marine-grade okoume sheathed
in fiberglass.
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Paul Mann 63 continued > Page 1, 2,
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