• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

163 Years Later, Dad's Still in Charge

Posted on: Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

By Peter Dujardin, Daily Press, Newport News, Va.

Oct. 9--YORK -- Kirby Taylor "K.T." Smith sits in a chair at Smith's Marine Railway, the boat repair business his great grandfather founded in 1842, and takes it all in.

At 79, Smith watches the company's workers -- mostly his sons and nephews -- fixing the wooden fishing boats his family has been specializing in for more than a century and a half. "I don't do much anymore," he says, spitting some tobacco juice. "I answer the phone, maybe run some errands for them."

But make no mistake, said Tim Smith, K.T.'s son: Dad's still in charge. "We go to him whenever we need advice on how to do something."

K.T.'s wife, Lillian Smith, still does the books, working out of the family's big white home that union troops once occupied during the Civil War.

Smith's Marine Railway isn't a shipping company. Instead, "marine railway" refers to the method of getting boats out of the water: Sliding a wooden structure -- with blocks and rollers -- underneath the boat while it's in the water, and bringing the whole thing in.

The railway, on Chisman Creek, is one of the last such businesses around, handling about 20 boat repairs a year. But as big steel fishing boats have replaced wooden ones, more modern boatyards have pushed out marine railways. "But there will always be a need for one," Smith said. "There will always be boats around."

-----

To see more of the Daily Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dailypress.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Daily Press, Newport News, Va.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: Daily Press

More News in this Category