I walked in and closed the door behind me. Bob sat on an old bar stool over against the far wall, chewing on a toothpick and contemplating a long wooden boat that lay perched between us on a series of sawhorses. Bob pushed his hat to the back of his head and pointed to the center of the boat.

“Hardest part is now. Where exactly to position the mast step? If I don’t get it just right, she’ll sail like a dead cow, and I’ll have to haul her out and try again.”

“Don’t you have any plans to go by?” I asked.

“There are no plans, never were. These were always built by eye—and this will be the first one launched in more than fifty years,” he replied. “I’ve been going by my memory and the advice of some old-timers from up and down the coast.”

I cast my eyes the length and breadth of the boat. She was maybe twenty feet long and perhaps six feet wide, at her widest. It was an open boat with four plank seats. A rudder with attached tiller was hung in place on the squared transom. The sides of the boat, I noted, were made of a single, very wide plank of wood. As I stepped closer and looked inside I saw the bottom was made of just two planks. Bob anticipated my questions and answered before I could speak.

“She’s an old style sailing bateau. Only four planks of wood went into making her hull. And I can tell you, I had the devil of a time finding the cypress to build her of. There’re precious few of the old big trees ever timbered anymore. I found this one down on the Ogeechee River where the state was widening a bridge. If I hadn’t hauled her to the sawmill, they would have chipped her up for mulch.” Bob shook his head at the thought of such a travesty.

“I’ve seen one or two of these in old photos,” I remarked as I admired the simple lines of the boat.

Bob nodded and replied, “People out here on the islands, and up and down the rivers and creeks, have built and sailed this type of boat since the white man landed on this coast. This was how people got about until decent roads were finally built. I remember seeing them when I was a boy. The Geechee women from out on the islands used to bring their produce and handicrafts in to Savannah on these bateaus.