| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 21 |
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San Sebastian River/and the St. Augustine trawler industry
The commercial maritime industry of St. Augustine was situated on the west side of the downtown along the banks of
the San Sebastian River.
The briny river flooded in from the ocean inlet past low dunes and oyster banks to Matanzas Bay. Then the river
twisted through tall salt marsh grasses abounding in aquatic marine life to the south side of the city then west and
north surrounding the city on three sides.
The San Sebastian River for all appearances could have easily been situated somewhere up in Georgia or the
Carolinas. Tall salt marsh grass, high tides and strong currents, huge bountiful oyster beds, pelagic sea birds,
abundant jumping mullet, playful porpoise, crab traps and lots of mom and pop down and out riverbank shade tree
fishing businesses. At low tide the pungent sulfurous aroma of the mud flats took some getting used to, but soon
became pleasantly addictive. The aromas were of pine planking, steamed oak, bottom paint, oakum packing,
fiberglass resins, solvents, and seasoned shrimp trawlers reeking of diesel fuel and the fish docks whose weathered
decks were scented with a malodorous putrid deceased fish fragrance wafting up under the hot Florida noon day
sun.
This 1950s map tells much of the times of the city of St. Augustine and reveals just how small a place it
was back then. The heart of the old city is in the center of this map with north being on the right. The
ocean inlet is at the bottom. If you follow the darkened area which depicts the water around to Matanzas
River you pass the Bridge of Lions leading to the downtown district. Then continue on around and up
the San Sebastian River to the King Street Bridge that leads to the Florida Normal College, (colored).
Note at the entrance to the San Sebastian River the St. Augustine Golf Course also denoted on this map
as (colored). Integration was just a dream back then when the map was printed.
All of St. Augustine’s marine related industry was located up the San Sebastian River and had to make a seven mile
trip plus open the Bridge of Lions in order to get out to the ocean waters.
Also on the map are many blank areas that were mostly salt marshes that flooded at high tide.
At high tide the river miraculously became a huge lake especially on exceptionally high spring tides that would flood
in and bury even the tops of the tall marsh grasses. This was the time when the locals would take to the river with
their motorized bateaus and shot guns to blast the little marsh hens that normally took refuge in the tall marsh grass,
but now had nowhere to hide.
I have eaten these diminutive birds but never hunted them and I can speak from my experience on the subject but
our good old friend George Tappin summed the marsh hens up the best when he said; “They are nutten but bones”.
The river was mostly a quiet place because the sea birds don’t sing and only the industry of the trawler building
business emitted audible sounds of occasional air hammers and wood saws. The many shrimp trawlers that docked
on the San Sebastian would glide in and out at just a little over idle speed so as not to leave a destructive wake.
On rare occasion you would hear a docked trawler with the unmistakable bap-bap-bap-bap…of a little one or two
cylinder air cooled Lister diesel engine being cranked off. All of the shrimp trawlers of that era used these little
auxiliary engines that were hand cranked to start and pulled a cone clutch coupled bilge pump plus an alternator to
charge up batteries and run lights on their 32 volt electrical systems.
These shrimpers navigated by the seat of the pants using a compass, depth-sounded, VHF radio and an auto-pilot.
The living condition on these early trawlers was very Spartan indeed. The crew of up to twelve would sleep in bunk-
beds with high sides to keep them from rolling out in heavy seas. There was no refrigeration and they kept any food
items down in the fish hold on ice. They cooked on a 20 inch apartment size gas stove equipped with fiddles, (stove-
top retainers to keep the pots and pans from sliding off.) A bucket with a rope served for their toilet and was dumped
directly overboard and rinsed, later to be used for retrieving sea water for washing.
One curious item I observed aboard the shrimp trawlers was their steel fresh water tanks
mounted on deck along side the cabin. The water from these tanks was delivered to the galley by a hand cranked
cast iron pitcher pump. This was the same kind of pump as was used for shallow water wells in country homes with
no electric service.
When I discovered the system that the shrimpers used for drinking water I went to the local marine supply company
and inquired about what these shrimpers put in their water tanks to keep them from becoming stagnant and putrid.
The reply I got was this; “You need to go down to the local health department and get yourself every shot that they
have got.”
The San Sebastian was the location of various enterprises that over the years included boat building yards and fish
docks that were first dominated by Minorcan and then Greek and then later the Portuguese.
The endless boom and bust cycles of Florida built up then brought down every facet of the State’s commerce and
touched everything from the mighty railroads all the way down to the smallest mom and pop back yard shade tree
river bank business.
Now a new cycle was ready to commence with fresh money and another wave of exuberance, but first here is a brief
look at some of the local forces that drove the undercurrents of this seemingly quiet back river industry.
This whole shrimp industry got started back in 1902 at Fernandina Beach, Florida when a man named Sallecito
Salvador started commercially trawling for shrimp with a motorized rig. The shrimp were so plentiful then that the
crude nets they used proved sufficiently efficient to land all the shrimp they wanted.
As the industry grew more efficient shrimp nets were developed and refined.
By 1922 these refinements led to enough production to make this into a real established industry and it began to
expand beyond Fernandina Beach and Mr. Salvador brought the business south to St. Augustine.
In 1949 a decline in production led to exploration of new shrimping grounds and the son John Salvador discovered
vast shrimping grounds offshore between Key West and the Dry Tortugas and made it the chief port for shrimping in
Florida.
Previously the shrimp fishermen only fished in the daytime.
While examining a daylight trawl at about dusk, John Salvador found many more shrimp than normal in his catch,
prompting him to put his nets back overboard. The second trawl was filled with shrimp and “pink gold”, the pink
shrimp of the Gulf of Mexico, had been discovered.
Key West had its own gold rush and the town went wild and would never be the same again…I was there and saw it
happen.
The major shrimp fishing areas of Florida had been; Pensacola, Apalachicola, Cedar Key, Tampa, Biscayne Bay
and the Indian River.
Now Key West would trump them all.
At the time John Salvador, the son of Sallecito Salvador, discovered shrimp in Key West that set off a stampede to
capitalize on the bountiful bonanza, a man named Ringhaver rode the wave as it crested. Buying out a small trawler
builder in St. Augustine Ringhaver quickly began booking orders for new trawlers at an unprecedented pace.
This Gold Rush mentality had prospective buyers standing in line, putting down large deposits and then paying the
going price while they patiently waited for their new trawler to hit the water.
Ringhaver’s new business quickly became the largest employer in St. Augustine and soon sold so many trawlers
that they adopted the slogan; “The Sun Never Sets on a Desco Trawler”.
Ringhaver started his career with General Motors Detroit Diesel Division but for undisclosed reasons fell in with their
number one competitor Caterpillar, which he then installed in all of his new Desco Trawlers.
***
When Jane and I arrived in St. Augustine aboard our boat Dursmirg back in the fall of 1972, St. Augustine was the
trawler building capital of the world. The two biggest players in the industry were “Desco Marine”, (Diesel Engine
Sales Company) owned and operated by a man named Ringhaver who picked up the fledgling boat building
company back in 1949. St. Augustine Trawlers across the river was a distant competitor in size.
This is Desco Marine launching boats faster than they could be sailed away in 1972.
I took this photo from Xynides Boatyard looking upstream and across the river.
Here Desco trawlers are heading out to sea and on their way to their new owners in Campeche, Mexico.
The above photo is looking over the stern of a 67 foot fiberglass trawler as it passed through the Bridge
of Lions in downtown St. Augustine. This was one of three to be delivered to the same owner and I was
captain on this five day passage to Mexico. It would take two weeks before I would finally be back to St.
Augustine mostly because of the Mexican bureaucracy that kept us running around in circles signing
papers for at least three days. Next a bus trip to Merida, Yucatan to catch a flight home. There were only
three flights a week back in those days and the Mexican airlines required 72 hours prior confirmation on
out going flights so I got an opportunity to get to know the town that I eventually migrated to.
The number two player in the St. Augustine trawler building business came late to the party. Two partners,
Thompson and O’Neal jumped into the business in a big way and started with wooden trawlers but quickly moved to
cover every angle of the industry. Next they began to build welded steel and Terry Hopson set out to be the leader
in that industry.
They wanted to get into the fiberglass hulls also because their competition across the river, Desco was then building
the worlds largest mass produced fiberglass trawler hull, their 75 foot, 128 ton model that I delivered many of to
various clients in Mexico and other destinations.
At that time Desco’s motto was; “The Sun never sets on a Desco Trawler”. (Well I did see the day when the “Sun Set
on Desco”.)
Speaking of boat deliveries, I could easily expand upon this subject and generate a volume larger than this one just
on that subject…perhaps someday.
Above Jane and I are delivering this vessel as she takes the helm of the new 78 foot wooden Desco
trawler. We are headed for the port of Tampa that will take us south around Key West and then north up the Gulf
of Mexico. (The little cardboard clock hanging on the wheelhouse bulkhead is standard equipment on shrimp
trawlers and is used to keep track of trawl time.) Navigation equipment on these vessels consists of a compass and
depth recorder…we did have an auto-pilot.
I don’t know if this would exactly be qualified as industrial espionage but Hopson hit the road disguised as a
prospective buyer. He then went out to all of his major competitors to pick their brains and ferret out all of the mass
production techniques they employed to achieve high volume production. (One technique Thompson brought back
to St. Augustine was a pivotal building cradle that allowed low skilled welders to weld on a flat surface faster, neater
and simpler by rotating the entire hull completely through 360?.)
Terry Hopson was crafty in other ways too and paid his welders for the welding rods that they burnt.
Here is how he did that; at the end of each shift the welders turned in their burnt down welding rod stubs that had to
be one inch or less in length and then they were paid accordingly.
Terry Hopson also used to stand at the time clock at the change of each shift to insure promptness.
When a worker was the slightest bit late Hopson would snatch the time card and say, “sorry partner” and the
consequences of being late were docked pay or suspension. Scruples around St. Augustine Trawlers were in short
supply back in those days.
To me one of the all time capers was when Terry Hopson secretively taped a confidential conversation with his
partner, McNeal then used that tape to indict him when Hopson turned states evidence and walked away from a
shady deal with his pockets full. So much for the ex-partner… “Partner”!
Well, when a newcomer to the industry arrived on the scene in St. Augustine he had no problems hiring away most
of his staff from St. Augustine Trawlers and almost over night a new trawler building yard sprang into existence on
the banks of the San Sebastian River and went directly into production.
The greenhorn, Mr. Jim Evans, loaded with money, was now swimming with the sharks of the industry and he was
soon to be bitten.
Desco and St. Augustine Trawlers were the big-boys in the business for a number of reasons.
Desco knew how to buy politicians for cost plus business deals and St. Augustine Trawlers was the “bottom line
production builder” and knew how to put the financial screws to their workers and suppliers.
Numerous small mom and pop operations building wooden trawlers like Harry Xynides, Leonard Nix and Steve
Sarris were true high quality craftsmen and incredibly crafty. Steve Sarris for example would built a complete shrimp
trawler from stem to stern with a crew of six workers under the shade of an old oak tree that they also used to hoist
the bow stem into place. Every two months another new Sarris trawler was launched from a vacant lot with no
railway or sophisticated equipment, just the old oak tree and lots of Old School astuteness …and they were very
nice, well crafted expertly finished vessels.
Phil Mclansen and others had a hand in the industry to varying degrees. Mclansen built Ferro cement hulls and
brought a young man from England named Harry Walden to get the procedure right. This interesting process was
very good, the end product very serviceable, but it was just too labor intensive to be economically feasible.
Harry Walden became a good friend of Jane and I and we were proud to watch he and his lovely young wife Jane
build their own 35 foot Ferro cement sailboat. We helped them launch it and also take it on its maiden voyage to his
new position as manager of a steel trawler building operation at Cape Canaveral. (Later in this chapter read more
about this enterprising and resourceful pair who were a welcome addition to America.)
After we bought the Flamingo Apartments in October 1977 we needed a safe place to keep our floating home
Dursmirg.
We found a quiet and secure place to dock our boat Dursmirg at the San Sebastian Marine over on the west bank of
the San Sebastian River for approximately a year and a half in the late 1970s. I was the night watchman in exchange
for our dockage and electric which was an equitable arrangement.
The location was almost ideal. (We were away working on our Flamingo Apartment project while the boat yard was
noisily in full operation during the day.)
It was almost always quiet and tranquil nights because of a tall chain link fence that kept out almost everybody
except the daytime workers that came after work at night to fish and party from the docks.
My biggest problem was with these boatyard workers that were mostly decent hard working men but when they had
a few beers became loud rowdy unruly and boisterous “red-necks”. The owner, Mr. Evans and his insurance
company didn’t want any non-business visitor’s period! That was that and it was then my responsibility to enforce
Mr. Evans rules.
I hated to be the bad guy in this situation because the workers had my full sympathy and if it had been up to me I
would have opened the gate for them. Nonetheless a stand-off occurred and the responsibility rested on my
shoulders, the orders were from the office and Mr. Evans so, do not shoot the messenger!
San Sebastian boatyard fabricated wooden shrimp trawlers and its new owner named Jim Evans had more money
than sense.
What prompted Jim Evans into purchasing the boatyard in the first place was the fact that he had approached all of
the other boat builders in St. Augustine and tried to have them custom build a large wooden sailboat for him that
was 2/3 fantasy and 1/3 reality. They weren't interested and so rich and belligerent Jim Evans was going to have his
own way no matter what it cost.
Evans began by hiring away employees from competitors; several of their managers including Jim R. and Roger K.
In the end, he poured a large portion of his fortune into a 65-foot wooden hull that turned out to be a complete
fiasco that was unusable for any type of boating...a very, very expensive and decadent “White Elephant”.
(This was the hole in the water into which Mr. Evans poured his huge stack of loot.)
Across the river from San Sebastian Marine was located Marine Supply and Oil Company the only nautical hardware
supplier in town catering primarily to the commercial fishing industry known as.
Jerry Poli and Joe Oliver two seasoned veterans of the fishing industry and both of Portuguese descent, took
care of all the business.
Marine Supply and Oil Company had cheap diesel fuel but stratospherically high priced marine fittings but a big
inventory.
They also had a net shop that made very few nets but did do repairs and also dip trawl nets in a preservative that
also helped to extend the life of the nets. The procedure was required nearly every season.
Carolina shrimp boats would crowd the docks in the fall to work the white shrimp season before moving on south to
Key West for the winter.
These fall invaders were known locally as the “Carolina Hogs”.
The old-timers hated to see the Carolina bunch coming and maintained that they just crowded out the St. Augustine
fishermen and when they had rounded up the last shrimp left town.
James “Eddie” Long was a southern gentleman of medium height, well groomed, neat, friendly smile, soft spoken,
easy going, punctual and was regularly referred to as Mr. Clean and Mr. Neat.
Eddie’s main pastime was the local history and he positively loved reflecting back to his younger years in and
around St. Augustine reminiscing about the controversial characters.
Marine history perked Eddie’s interest and he went to great lengths to collect and preserve local artifacts and old
photos relating to the areas maritime past.
Eddie had an impressive collection of 8 by 10 glossy photos of every fishing trawler that Desco Marine had built
starting back to their very first in 1948.
Eddie worked over at Desco Marine, with our friend Bob Baker way back in 1972 when we first met.
In those days Desco Marine was in a big way into government backed, cost-plus programs that guaranteed a
percentage of profit no matter how much a project cost.
Desco was going to get paid on a cost plus basis so the employees were encouraged to consume lavish amounts of
materials. The net result was that huge quantities of stuff went over the fence and out the door to the Desco land fill.
This was management’s way to run up the cost-plus tab and raise the bottom line of profits.
Desco had a land fill that was so full of good usable stuff that our friend Big Bob Baker actually collected enough
fiberglass materials to build himself a 55 foot sailboat.
We went with Big Bob several times over to Desco’s landfill dump and were able to get enough marine grade
plywood and mahogany lumber to do a number of boat renovation projects to our Dursmirg.
Ironically Desco’s competition, St. Augustine Trawler’s put a stop to the land fill that was being dumped directly into
the salt marsh.
Later Eddie became one of the top department heads over at Desco working his way up from the bottom.
Eddie was highly respected for his knowledgeable marine related aptitudes and abilities. Being a certified marine
surveyor fit right in with his love of all things nautical and his Coast Guard duty.
Jim Roarty; A very friendly jolly little Irishman with a gigantic perpetually profound infectious smile who loved to take
a nip or two and was frugally an Irish social misfit to the bone.
I first met this bundle of beaming exuberance when he and Roger Kenzor headed up the management team for St.
Augustine Trawlers for their boss the rogue of the boat building business in St. Augustine.
It wasn’t long and Jumping-Jim Roarty and Roger-Dodger Kenzor both jumped ship from St. Augustine Trawlers and
went across the river to a new upstart called San Sebastian Marine owned by a new comer to town, Jim Evans who
happened to have more money than brains.
This defection made Kenzor and Roarty renegades in the trawler building industry.
This was just about the point in time when Jane and I purchased the Flamingo Apartments over on Dufferin Street in
the North City and inherited Jim Roarty as our tenant.
We found it impossible not to like this enthusiastically cheerful bundle of hyperactive go-getter energy.
It turned out that Jim’s residence was the darkest dingiest dungeon of an apartment of the 26 units at the Flamingo
Apartments, something that Jane and I sadly didn’t get to rectify until after Jim had moved out.
We never ever got any kind of a complaint out this congenially easy going Irishman.
Jim was by his nature a very conservative person and frugal with his money and possessions.
Though Jim was a manager of the boatyard, he dressed casually and drove an old no-frills VW beetle.
Jim got lucky and married a sweet gentle and lovely woman named Beverly who was a blue-eyed blond Swedish lady
that also happened to be a French teacher at Flagler College.
Boisterous Jim and meek and mild Beverly had two adorable little children that were positively reincarnations of
“Dennis the Menace”. When they were tuned loose for a split second all hell would break loose.
Every time they came to visit both Jim and Beverly seemed to be totally blindly oblivious to the devastating
destruction that their two pious faced little speed demon-devil-brats would inflict on all of our possessions.
All of the TV and sound system knobs would be missing, anything that could be bent was and anything that could be
dumped got dumped. This would all be accomplished in a matter of seconds.
When Jim’s young son Jamie wasn’t terrorizing people his idle mind would lead him to anything in sight.
One evening on the 4th of July we had our annual party at our waterfront home in St. Augustine with live music, lots
of food and a big crowd.
Jim’s son Jamie got into our large cactus garden and promptly got stabbed by one of our many prickly pear cactus
plants with its extra long and painfully prickly spines. Little Jamie instantly got super pissed-off at the cactus plant
and went into a positive stomping-screaming rage and attempted to beat the cactus plant into submission with his
bare hands…the cactus plant won.
Roger Kenzor and Jim Roarty were the managers at the San Sebastian Marine and they had been hired away from
one of the competitors in town, the second largest trawler manufacturer in the world, St. Augustine Trawlers, then
owned by the unscrupulous Terry Hopson and his soon to be screwed side-kick McNeal.
(The joke going around the San Sebastian River waterfront about Terry Hopson was that if he ever got murdered
there would be a thousand suspects.)
I got to know Roger from a boat delivery I had made with him and his father.
We took Terry Hopson’s, (the owner of St. Augustine Trawlers); 34 foot custom built all aluminum Norwegian Striker
sport fishing boat to Tampa.
Our route was via the Intracoastal Waterway and then across the state passing through the Lake Okeechobee
Waterway. Next we turned north up to Tampa Bay to tow back a 64 foot brand new bare fiberglass hull to St.
Augustine.
On the trip over it was a lark with the exception of a couple of horrendous thunderstorms we experienced in the
dead of night that pressed our vessel and our seamanship abilities to the limit. The two German made Mann Diesel
engines had us up to planing speed for the trip over but our return was slow, tedious, treacherous and
tremendously labor intensive.
Returning to St. Augustine with the tow, five knots with no wind was just about our top speed.
We even encountered a perverse screaming headwind blowing a gale north of Stuart entering the Indian River that
totally overpowered our two diesel engines and drove us backwards. I actually had to kick the anchor over to
preserve our position.
This trip turned out to be an epic voyage and we proved that it was actually possible though highly impractical,
especially with our make-shift high priced Norwegian sport fisher turned tug boat that was dwarfed by our 64 foot tow
and was nearly twice our size. The tow being light was a towering unruly monstrosity easily driven downwind. As a
dear old friend used to say; “anything that floats will sail downwind”.
I think that we all had a very good time but that it turned out to be far more work than either office manager Roger or
his softened by age old father were ever accustomed to doing. They had never been exposed to this kind of
physical exertion or stints of up to 20 hour full active duty before and were clearly not happy with the long hours and
the many discomforts of a sailor’s life.
We had to anchor out every night because docking this unwieldy mess was too dangerous and no marina or
commercial dock could accommodate us, so there was no marina scene with drinks and restaurant dining.
I think that Roger killed the possibility of any more of these trips when he related the details of his unacceptable
hardships to his boss Terry Hopson.
SHRIMP BOATS/BUILDERS/ besides the three big boys in St. Augustine there were the little guys…the Mom and
Pops that built some of the finest vessels to ever be produced here in the world’s trawler building capital.
This is a list of the St. Augustine shrimp boat builders in the 1960s and 1970s;
Phil Melanson, cement shrimp boat and boatyard with Harry Walden, managing engineer.
Steve Sarris, wood boats and his shade-tree river-bank no-frills boat yard
Leonard Nick, was an old time builder that worked under a pole-shed with bare-bones equipment.
Lekus (Likus)? Another old-time Greek river-bank shade-tree trawler builder
Xynides Boatyard; Owner and operator Harry Xynides aka “Uncle Harry” Harry had the most sophisticated mom and
pop boatyard in town. Harry had a fully functioning marine railway system with a winch to do in and out repairs to
vessels up to 80 feet. Harry also had a real enclosed fabricating building with the proper tools and equipment and it
is said that Harry built some of the very finest vessels to ever leave St. Augustine.
Here is a list of the shrimp boats that used St. Augustine as their home port in the1960s and 1970s:
Venus owned and operated by Angelo who was the proud owner of this specially distinctive vessel with its uniquely
elegant paint job.
The Venus was the last trawler ever built by Harry Xynides and it was a real classic beauty.
The Venus had the distinction of often being featured in publicity photos and movies of St. Augustine.
Terry owned and operated by Captain George Tappin. Captain George and his wife Mary lived aboard the Terry
with their little dog Bimbo and called it home. When we met them George couldn’t get his wife Mary to go offshore
fishing with him and either fished all by himself or tried to get crew.
(This is where Jane and I got our first taste of the real offshore fishing industry.)
You can read more about Captain George Tappin in this volume and also in volume 1 of The Travels of Dursmirg.
Miss Joan owned and operated by Dominic Tringali was one of two 68 foot fiberglass Desco Marine trawlers in town.
Dominic docked his Desco trawler at the same dock next to the only other Desco 68 footer the Bread Winner. Of all
of the St. Augustine shrimp fishermen Dominic Tringali was in my estimation and of my experience the most friendly
and helpful. If ever there was even the hint that you might need assistance he was right there to help no matter how
good the fishing was. So here is a special salute and thank you to Dominic and his Miss Joan.
Bread Winner owned and operated by the Fazio family. This was the second 68 foot fiberglass Desco Marine trawler
in town.(The Fazio family also owned and operated the Fazio Fish Docks and they were an old-time business in St.
Augustine.)
Inger and Edith was a 70 foot wooden trawler home made by Inger. Inger was a bull-headed big Danish guy who
could be more stubborn than was good for him but in the end he was honest and fair and even reluctantly
reasonable.
Bachman Brothers; Home based in South Carolina this family owned and operated business had a fleet of very well
maintained and professionally managed shrimp trawlers that regularly came to St. Augustine to work the fall shrimp
season. These ironically were the only vessels in the St. Augustine fishing fleet owned and operated by black
people.
Secotan; owned and operated by John and Jane Grimsrud; the Secotan was a 42 foot classic trawler built at Mann’s
Harbor, North Carolina in 1947, that spent it’s first years fishing in and out of Oregon Inlet at Cape Hatteras, the
most treacherous inlet on the east coast of United States. (Click this link for the Secotan story on this website.
The following were only one season shrimpers and I write about them more extensively in the San Sebastian River
section of this volume;
Eddie Long;
Steve Stefano
Rick James
The San Sebastian River at King Street looking south with several of the old time shrimp boats with their vintage
trawl rigs that are stepped at mid-ships.
As you can see the pristine Venus with its meticulously painted hull was the most photographed vessel of the local
fleet.
A secret of the shrimp boat captains; always hold your shrimp over night on ice because the next day the count of
the shrimp will go up by one full size. Example; a 31-35 becomes a 26-30. Shrimp size is determined by the number o
next chapter
The commercial maritime industry of St. Augustine was situated on the west side of the downtown along the banks of
the San Sebastian River.
The briny river flooded in from the ocean inlet past low dunes and oyster banks to Matanzas Bay. Then the river
twisted through tall salt marsh grasses abounding in aquatic marine life to the south side of the city then west and
north surrounding the city on three sides.
The San Sebastian River for all appearances could have easily been situated somewhere up in Georgia or the
Carolinas. Tall salt marsh grass, high tides and strong currents, huge bountiful oyster beds, pelagic sea birds,
abundant jumping mullet, playful porpoise, crab traps and lots of mom and pop down and out riverbank shade tree
fishing businesses. At low tide the pungent sulfurous aroma of the mud flats took some getting used to, but soon
became pleasantly addictive. The aromas were of pine planking, steamed oak, bottom paint, oakum packing,
fiberglass resins, solvents, and seasoned shrimp trawlers reeking of diesel fuel and the fish docks whose weathered
decks were scented with a malodorous putrid deceased fish fragrance wafting up under the hot Florida noon day
sun.
This 1950s map tells much of the times of the city of St. Augustine and reveals just how small a place it
was back then. The heart of the old city is in the center of this map with north being on the right. The
ocean inlet is at the bottom. If you follow the darkened area which depicts the water around to Matanzas
River you pass the Bridge of Lions leading to the downtown district. Then continue on around and up
the San Sebastian River to the King Street Bridge that leads to the Florida Normal College, (colored).
Note at the entrance to the San Sebastian River the St. Augustine Golf Course also denoted on this map
as (colored). Integration was just a dream back then when the map was printed.
All of St. Augustine’s marine related industry was located up the San Sebastian River and had to make a seven mile
trip plus open the Bridge of Lions in order to get out to the ocean waters.
Also on the map are many blank areas that were mostly salt marshes that flooded at high tide.
At high tide the river miraculously became a huge lake especially on exceptionally high spring tides that would flood
in and bury even the tops of the tall marsh grasses. This was the time when the locals would take to the river with
their motorized bateaus and shot guns to blast the little marsh hens that normally took refuge in the tall marsh grass,
but now had nowhere to hide.
I have eaten these diminutive birds but never hunted them and I can speak from my experience on the subject but
our good old friend George Tappin summed the marsh hens up the best when he said; “They are nutten but bones”.
The river was mostly a quiet place because the sea birds don’t sing and only the industry of the trawler building
business emitted audible sounds of occasional air hammers and wood saws. The many shrimp trawlers that docked
on the San Sebastian would glide in and out at just a little over idle speed so as not to leave a destructive wake.
On rare occasion you would hear a docked trawler with the unmistakable bap-bap-bap-bap…of a little one or two
cylinder air cooled Lister diesel engine being cranked off. All of the shrimp trawlers of that era used these little
auxiliary engines that were hand cranked to start and pulled a cone clutch coupled bilge pump plus an alternator to
charge up batteries and run lights on their 32 volt electrical systems.
These shrimpers navigated by the seat of the pants using a compass, depth-sounded, VHF radio and an auto-pilot.
The living condition on these early trawlers was very Spartan indeed. The crew of up to twelve would sleep in bunk-
beds with high sides to keep them from rolling out in heavy seas. There was no refrigeration and they kept any food
items down in the fish hold on ice. They cooked on a 20 inch apartment size gas stove equipped with fiddles, (stove-
top retainers to keep the pots and pans from sliding off.) A bucket with a rope served for their toilet and was dumped
directly overboard and rinsed, later to be used for retrieving sea water for washing.
One curious item I observed aboard the shrimp trawlers was their steel fresh water tanks
mounted on deck along side the cabin. The water from these tanks was delivered to the galley by a hand cranked
cast iron pitcher pump. This was the same kind of pump as was used for shallow water wells in country homes with
no electric service.
When I discovered the system that the shrimpers used for drinking water I went to the local marine supply company
and inquired about what these shrimpers put in their water tanks to keep them from becoming stagnant and putrid.
The reply I got was this; “You need to go down to the local health department and get yourself every shot that they
have got.”
The San Sebastian was the location of various enterprises that over the years included boat building yards and fish
docks that were first dominated by Minorcan and then Greek and then later the Portuguese.
The endless boom and bust cycles of Florida built up then brought down every facet of the State’s commerce and
touched everything from the mighty railroads all the way down to the smallest mom and pop back yard shade tree
river bank business.
Now a new cycle was ready to commence with fresh money and another wave of exuberance, but first here is a brief
look at some of the local forces that drove the undercurrents of this seemingly quiet back river industry.
This whole shrimp industry got started back in 1902 at Fernandina Beach, Florida when a man named Sallecito
Salvador started commercially trawling for shrimp with a motorized rig. The shrimp were so plentiful then that the
crude nets they used proved sufficiently efficient to land all the shrimp they wanted.
As the industry grew more efficient shrimp nets were developed and refined.
By 1922 these refinements led to enough production to make this into a real established industry and it began to
expand beyond Fernandina Beach and Mr. Salvador brought the business south to St. Augustine.
In 1949 a decline in production led to exploration of new shrimping grounds and the son John Salvador discovered
vast shrimping grounds offshore between Key West and the Dry Tortugas and made it the chief port for shrimping in
Florida.
Previously the shrimp fishermen only fished in the daytime.
While examining a daylight trawl at about dusk, John Salvador found many more shrimp than normal in his catch,
prompting him to put his nets back overboard. The second trawl was filled with shrimp and “pink gold”, the pink
shrimp of the Gulf of Mexico, had been discovered.
Key West had its own gold rush and the town went wild and would never be the same again…I was there and saw it
happen.
The major shrimp fishing areas of Florida had been; Pensacola, Apalachicola, Cedar Key, Tampa, Biscayne Bay
and the Indian River.
Now Key West would trump them all.
At the time John Salvador, the son of Sallecito Salvador, discovered shrimp in Key West that set off a stampede to
capitalize on the bountiful bonanza, a man named Ringhaver rode the wave as it crested. Buying out a small trawler
builder in St. Augustine Ringhaver quickly began booking orders for new trawlers at an unprecedented pace.
This Gold Rush mentality had prospective buyers standing in line, putting down large deposits and then paying the
going price while they patiently waited for their new trawler to hit the water.
Ringhaver’s new business quickly became the largest employer in St. Augustine and soon sold so many trawlers
that they adopted the slogan; “The Sun Never Sets on a Desco Trawler”.
Ringhaver started his career with General Motors Detroit Diesel Division but for undisclosed reasons fell in with their
number one competitor Caterpillar, which he then installed in all of his new Desco Trawlers.
***
When Jane and I arrived in St. Augustine aboard our boat Dursmirg back in the fall of 1972, St. Augustine was the
trawler building capital of the world. The two biggest players in the industry were “Desco Marine”, (Diesel Engine
Sales Company) owned and operated by a man named Ringhaver who picked up the fledgling boat building
company back in 1949. St. Augustine Trawlers across the river was a distant competitor in size.
This is Desco Marine launching boats faster than they could be sailed away in 1972.
I took this photo from Xynides Boatyard looking upstream and across the river.
Here Desco trawlers are heading out to sea and on their way to their new owners in Campeche, Mexico.
The above photo is looking over the stern of a 67 foot fiberglass trawler as it passed through the Bridge
of Lions in downtown St. Augustine. This was one of three to be delivered to the same owner and I was
captain on this five day passage to Mexico. It would take two weeks before I would finally be back to St.
Augustine mostly because of the Mexican bureaucracy that kept us running around in circles signing
papers for at least three days. Next a bus trip to Merida, Yucatan to catch a flight home. There were only
three flights a week back in those days and the Mexican airlines required 72 hours prior confirmation on
out going flights so I got an opportunity to get to know the town that I eventually migrated to.
The number two player in the St. Augustine trawler building business came late to the party. Two partners,
Thompson and O’Neal jumped into the business in a big way and started with wooden trawlers but quickly moved to
cover every angle of the industry. Next they began to build welded steel and Terry Hopson set out to be the leader
in that industry.
They wanted to get into the fiberglass hulls also because their competition across the river, Desco was then building
the worlds largest mass produced fiberglass trawler hull, their 75 foot, 128 ton model that I delivered many of to
various clients in Mexico and other destinations.
At that time Desco’s motto was; “The Sun never sets on a Desco Trawler”. (Well I did see the day when the “Sun Set
on Desco”.)
Speaking of boat deliveries, I could easily expand upon this subject and generate a volume larger than this one just
on that subject…perhaps someday.
Above Jane and I are delivering this vessel as she takes the helm of the new 78 foot wooden Desco
trawler. We are headed for the port of Tampa that will take us south around Key West and then north up the Gulf
of Mexico. (The little cardboard clock hanging on the wheelhouse bulkhead is standard equipment on shrimp
trawlers and is used to keep track of trawl time.) Navigation equipment on these vessels consists of a compass and
depth recorder…we did have an auto-pilot.
I don’t know if this would exactly be qualified as industrial espionage but Hopson hit the road disguised as a
prospective buyer. He then went out to all of his major competitors to pick their brains and ferret out all of the mass
production techniques they employed to achieve high volume production. (One technique Thompson brought back
to St. Augustine was a pivotal building cradle that allowed low skilled welders to weld on a flat surface faster, neater
and simpler by rotating the entire hull completely through 360?.)
Terry Hopson was crafty in other ways too and paid his welders for the welding rods that they burnt.
Here is how he did that; at the end of each shift the welders turned in their burnt down welding rod stubs that had to
be one inch or less in length and then they were paid accordingly.
Terry Hopson also used to stand at the time clock at the change of each shift to insure promptness.
When a worker was the slightest bit late Hopson would snatch the time card and say, “sorry partner” and the
consequences of being late were docked pay or suspension. Scruples around St. Augustine Trawlers were in short
supply back in those days.
To me one of the all time capers was when Terry Hopson secretively taped a confidential conversation with his
partner, McNeal then used that tape to indict him when Hopson turned states evidence and walked away from a
shady deal with his pockets full. So much for the ex-partner… “Partner”!
Well, when a newcomer to the industry arrived on the scene in St. Augustine he had no problems hiring away most
of his staff from St. Augustine Trawlers and almost over night a new trawler building yard sprang into existence on
the banks of the San Sebastian River and went directly into production.
The greenhorn, Mr. Jim Evans, loaded with money, was now swimming with the sharks of the industry and he was
soon to be bitten.
Desco and St. Augustine Trawlers were the big-boys in the business for a number of reasons.
Desco knew how to buy politicians for cost plus business deals and St. Augustine Trawlers was the “bottom line
production builder” and knew how to put the financial screws to their workers and suppliers.
Numerous small mom and pop operations building wooden trawlers like Harry Xynides, Leonard Nix and Steve
Sarris were true high quality craftsmen and incredibly crafty. Steve Sarris for example would built a complete shrimp
trawler from stem to stern with a crew of six workers under the shade of an old oak tree that they also used to hoist
the bow stem into place. Every two months another new Sarris trawler was launched from a vacant lot with no
railway or sophisticated equipment, just the old oak tree and lots of Old School astuteness …and they were very
nice, well crafted expertly finished vessels.
Phil Mclansen and others had a hand in the industry to varying degrees. Mclansen built Ferro cement hulls and
brought a young man from England named Harry Walden to get the procedure right. This interesting process was
very good, the end product very serviceable, but it was just too labor intensive to be economically feasible.
Harry Walden became a good friend of Jane and I and we were proud to watch he and his lovely young wife Jane
build their own 35 foot Ferro cement sailboat. We helped them launch it and also take it on its maiden voyage to his
new position as manager of a steel trawler building operation at Cape Canaveral. (Later in this chapter read more
about this enterprising and resourceful pair who were a welcome addition to America.)
After we bought the Flamingo Apartments in October 1977 we needed a safe place to keep our floating home
Dursmirg.
We found a quiet and secure place to dock our boat Dursmirg at the San Sebastian Marine over on the west bank of
the San Sebastian River for approximately a year and a half in the late 1970s. I was the night watchman in exchange
for our dockage and electric which was an equitable arrangement.
The location was almost ideal. (We were away working on our Flamingo Apartment project while the boat yard was
noisily in full operation during the day.)
It was almost always quiet and tranquil nights because of a tall chain link fence that kept out almost everybody
except the daytime workers that came after work at night to fish and party from the docks.
My biggest problem was with these boatyard workers that were mostly decent hard working men but when they had
a few beers became loud rowdy unruly and boisterous “red-necks”. The owner, Mr. Evans and his insurance
company didn’t want any non-business visitor’s period! That was that and it was then my responsibility to enforce
Mr. Evans rules.
I hated to be the bad guy in this situation because the workers had my full sympathy and if it had been up to me I
would have opened the gate for them. Nonetheless a stand-off occurred and the responsibility rested on my
shoulders, the orders were from the office and Mr. Evans so, do not shoot the messenger!
San Sebastian boatyard fabricated wooden shrimp trawlers and its new owner named Jim Evans had more money
than sense.
What prompted Jim Evans into purchasing the boatyard in the first place was the fact that he had approached all of
the other boat builders in St. Augustine and tried to have them custom build a large wooden sailboat for him that
was 2/3 fantasy and 1/3 reality. They weren't interested and so rich and belligerent Jim Evans was going to have his
own way no matter what it cost.
Evans began by hiring away employees from competitors; several of their managers including Jim R. and Roger K.
In the end, he poured a large portion of his fortune into a 65-foot wooden hull that turned out to be a complete
fiasco that was unusable for any type of boating...a very, very expensive and decadent “White Elephant”.
(This was the hole in the water into which Mr. Evans poured his huge stack of loot.)
Across the river from San Sebastian Marine was located Marine Supply and Oil Company the only nautical hardware
supplier in town catering primarily to the commercial fishing industry known as.
Jerry Poli and Joe Oliver two seasoned veterans of the fishing industry and both of Portuguese descent, took
care of all the business.
Marine Supply and Oil Company had cheap diesel fuel but stratospherically high priced marine fittings but a big
inventory.
They also had a net shop that made very few nets but did do repairs and also dip trawl nets in a preservative that
also helped to extend the life of the nets. The procedure was required nearly every season.
Carolina shrimp boats would crowd the docks in the fall to work the white shrimp season before moving on south to
Key West for the winter.
These fall invaders were known locally as the “Carolina Hogs”.
The old-timers hated to see the Carolina bunch coming and maintained that they just crowded out the St. Augustine
fishermen and when they had rounded up the last shrimp left town.
James “Eddie” Long was a southern gentleman of medium height, well groomed, neat, friendly smile, soft spoken,
easy going, punctual and was regularly referred to as Mr. Clean and Mr. Neat.
Eddie’s main pastime was the local history and he positively loved reflecting back to his younger years in and
around St. Augustine reminiscing about the controversial characters.
Marine history perked Eddie’s interest and he went to great lengths to collect and preserve local artifacts and old
photos relating to the areas maritime past.
Eddie had an impressive collection of 8 by 10 glossy photos of every fishing trawler that Desco Marine had built
starting back to their very first in 1948.
Eddie worked over at Desco Marine, with our friend Bob Baker way back in 1972 when we first met.
In those days Desco Marine was in a big way into government backed, cost-plus programs that guaranteed a
percentage of profit no matter how much a project cost.
Desco was going to get paid on a cost plus basis so the employees were encouraged to consume lavish amounts of
materials. The net result was that huge quantities of stuff went over the fence and out the door to the Desco land fill.
This was management’s way to run up the cost-plus tab and raise the bottom line of profits.
Desco had a land fill that was so full of good usable stuff that our friend Big Bob Baker actually collected enough
fiberglass materials to build himself a 55 foot sailboat.
We went with Big Bob several times over to Desco’s landfill dump and were able to get enough marine grade
plywood and mahogany lumber to do a number of boat renovation projects to our Dursmirg.
Ironically Desco’s competition, St. Augustine Trawler’s put a stop to the land fill that was being dumped directly into
the salt marsh.
Later Eddie became one of the top department heads over at Desco working his way up from the bottom.
Eddie was highly respected for his knowledgeable marine related aptitudes and abilities. Being a certified marine
surveyor fit right in with his love of all things nautical and his Coast Guard duty.
Jim Roarty; A very friendly jolly little Irishman with a gigantic perpetually profound infectious smile who loved to take
a nip or two and was frugally an Irish social misfit to the bone.
I first met this bundle of beaming exuberance when he and Roger Kenzor headed up the management team for St.
Augustine Trawlers for their boss the rogue of the boat building business in St. Augustine.
It wasn’t long and Jumping-Jim Roarty and Roger-Dodger Kenzor both jumped ship from St. Augustine Trawlers and
went across the river to a new upstart called San Sebastian Marine owned by a new comer to town, Jim Evans who
happened to have more money than brains.
This defection made Kenzor and Roarty renegades in the trawler building industry.
This was just about the point in time when Jane and I purchased the Flamingo Apartments over on Dufferin Street in
the North City and inherited Jim Roarty as our tenant.
We found it impossible not to like this enthusiastically cheerful bundle of hyperactive go-getter energy.
It turned out that Jim’s residence was the darkest dingiest dungeon of an apartment of the 26 units at the Flamingo
Apartments, something that Jane and I sadly didn’t get to rectify until after Jim had moved out.
We never ever got any kind of a complaint out this congenially easy going Irishman.
Jim was by his nature a very conservative person and frugal with his money and possessions.
Though Jim was a manager of the boatyard, he dressed casually and drove an old no-frills VW beetle.
Jim got lucky and married a sweet gentle and lovely woman named Beverly who was a blue-eyed blond Swedish lady
that also happened to be a French teacher at Flagler College.
Boisterous Jim and meek and mild Beverly had two adorable little children that were positively reincarnations of
“Dennis the Menace”. When they were tuned loose for a split second all hell would break loose.
Every time they came to visit both Jim and Beverly seemed to be totally blindly oblivious to the devastating
destruction that their two pious faced little speed demon-devil-brats would inflict on all of our possessions.
All of the TV and sound system knobs would be missing, anything that could be bent was and anything that could be
dumped got dumped. This would all be accomplished in a matter of seconds.
When Jim’s young son Jamie wasn’t terrorizing people his idle mind would lead him to anything in sight.
One evening on the 4th of July we had our annual party at our waterfront home in St. Augustine with live music, lots
of food and a big crowd.
Jim’s son Jamie got into our large cactus garden and promptly got stabbed by one of our many prickly pear cactus
plants with its extra long and painfully prickly spines. Little Jamie instantly got super pissed-off at the cactus plant
and went into a positive stomping-screaming rage and attempted to beat the cactus plant into submission with his
bare hands…the cactus plant won.
Roger Kenzor and Jim Roarty were the managers at the San Sebastian Marine and they had been hired away from
one of the competitors in town, the second largest trawler manufacturer in the world, St. Augustine Trawlers, then
owned by the unscrupulous Terry Hopson and his soon to be screwed side-kick McNeal.
(The joke going around the San Sebastian River waterfront about Terry Hopson was that if he ever got murdered
there would be a thousand suspects.)
I got to know Roger from a boat delivery I had made with him and his father.
We took Terry Hopson’s, (the owner of St. Augustine Trawlers); 34 foot custom built all aluminum Norwegian Striker
sport fishing boat to Tampa.
Our route was via the Intracoastal Waterway and then across the state passing through the Lake Okeechobee
Waterway. Next we turned north up to Tampa Bay to tow back a 64 foot brand new bare fiberglass hull to St.
Augustine.
On the trip over it was a lark with the exception of a couple of horrendous thunderstorms we experienced in the
dead of night that pressed our vessel and our seamanship abilities to the limit. The two German made Mann Diesel
engines had us up to planing speed for the trip over but our return was slow, tedious, treacherous and
tremendously labor intensive.
Returning to St. Augustine with the tow, five knots with no wind was just about our top speed.
We even encountered a perverse screaming headwind blowing a gale north of Stuart entering the Indian River that
totally overpowered our two diesel engines and drove us backwards. I actually had to kick the anchor over to
preserve our position.
This trip turned out to be an epic voyage and we proved that it was actually possible though highly impractical,
especially with our make-shift high priced Norwegian sport fisher turned tug boat that was dwarfed by our 64 foot tow
and was nearly twice our size. The tow being light was a towering unruly monstrosity easily driven downwind. As a
dear old friend used to say; “anything that floats will sail downwind”.
I think that we all had a very good time but that it turned out to be far more work than either office manager Roger or
his softened by age old father were ever accustomed to doing. They had never been exposed to this kind of
physical exertion or stints of up to 20 hour full active duty before and were clearly not happy with the long hours and
the many discomforts of a sailor’s life.
We had to anchor out every night because docking this unwieldy mess was too dangerous and no marina or
commercial dock could accommodate us, so there was no marina scene with drinks and restaurant dining.
I think that Roger killed the possibility of any more of these trips when he related the details of his unacceptable
hardships to his boss Terry Hopson.
SHRIMP BOATS/BUILDERS/ besides the three big boys in St. Augustine there were the little guys…the Mom and
Pops that built some of the finest vessels to ever be produced here in the world’s trawler building capital.
This is a list of the St. Augustine shrimp boat builders in the 1960s and 1970s;
Phil Melanson, cement shrimp boat and boatyard with Harry Walden, managing engineer.
Steve Sarris, wood boats and his shade-tree river-bank no-frills boat yard
Leonard Nick, was an old time builder that worked under a pole-shed with bare-bones equipment.
Lekus (Likus)? Another old-time Greek river-bank shade-tree trawler builder
Xynides Boatyard; Owner and operator Harry Xynides aka “Uncle Harry” Harry had the most sophisticated mom and
pop boatyard in town. Harry had a fully functioning marine railway system with a winch to do in and out repairs to
vessels up to 80 feet. Harry also had a real enclosed fabricating building with the proper tools and equipment and it
is said that Harry built some of the very finest vessels to ever leave St. Augustine.
Here is a list of the shrimp boats that used St. Augustine as their home port in the1960s and 1970s:
Venus owned and operated by Angelo who was the proud owner of this specially distinctive vessel with its uniquely
elegant paint job.
The Venus was the last trawler ever built by Harry Xynides and it was a real classic beauty.
The Venus had the distinction of often being featured in publicity photos and movies of St. Augustine.
Terry owned and operated by Captain George Tappin. Captain George and his wife Mary lived aboard the Terry
with their little dog Bimbo and called it home. When we met them George couldn’t get his wife Mary to go offshore
fishing with him and either fished all by himself or tried to get crew.
(This is where Jane and I got our first taste of the real offshore fishing industry.)
You can read more about Captain George Tappin in this volume and also in volume 1 of The Travels of Dursmirg.
Miss Joan owned and operated by Dominic Tringali was one of two 68 foot fiberglass Desco Marine trawlers in town.
Dominic docked his Desco trawler at the same dock next to the only other Desco 68 footer the Bread Winner. Of all
of the St. Augustine shrimp fishermen Dominic Tringali was in my estimation and of my experience the most friendly
and helpful. If ever there was even the hint that you might need assistance he was right there to help no matter how
good the fishing was. So here is a special salute and thank you to Dominic and his Miss Joan.
Bread Winner owned and operated by the Fazio family. This was the second 68 foot fiberglass Desco Marine trawler
in town.(The Fazio family also owned and operated the Fazio Fish Docks and they were an old-time business in St.
Augustine.)
Inger and Edith was a 70 foot wooden trawler home made by Inger. Inger was a bull-headed big Danish guy who
could be more stubborn than was good for him but in the end he was honest and fair and even reluctantly
reasonable.
Bachman Brothers; Home based in South Carolina this family owned and operated business had a fleet of very well
maintained and professionally managed shrimp trawlers that regularly came to St. Augustine to work the fall shrimp
season. These ironically were the only vessels in the St. Augustine fishing fleet owned and operated by black
people.
Secotan; owned and operated by John and Jane Grimsrud; the Secotan was a 42 foot classic trawler built at Mann’s
Harbor, North Carolina in 1947, that spent it’s first years fishing in and out of Oregon Inlet at Cape Hatteras, the
most treacherous inlet on the east coast of United States. (Click this link for the Secotan story on this website.
The following were only one season shrimpers and I write about them more extensively in the San Sebastian River
section of this volume;
Eddie Long;
Steve Stefano
Rick James
The San Sebastian River at King Street looking south with several of the old time shrimp boats with their vintage
trawl rigs that are stepped at mid-ships.
As you can see the pristine Venus with its meticulously painted hull was the most photographed vessel of the local
fleet.
A secret of the shrimp boat captains; always hold your shrimp over night on ice because the next day the count of
the shrimp will go up by one full size. Example; a 31-35 becomes a 26-30. Shrimp size is determined by the number o
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