| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 43 |
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A return to Harry and Jane Walden whom you met earlier in this volume.
HARRY AND JANE WALDEN;
As you may remember; Harry first came to St. Augustine as a specialist in Ferro-cement boat construction from
England.
In his early twenties at the time, youthful Harry looked just too young to be a specialist in anything, but he was.
Back in the 1970s any workers that immigrated to the US from England were known as part of the “brain-drain”, and
hard working Harry was no exception.
at his Ferro-cement boat building yard over on the San Sebastian River and we struck up a lasting friendship with
The first and only success of Melansin’s Ferro-cement boat yard was a very distinctive 75 foot shrimp trawler that
the owner of the yard, Phil Melansin worked off-shore of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas following the shrimp
seasons.
We met this hands on hard working and pleasant man named Phil Melansin when he pulled his one of a kind unique
shrimp trawler up at Rawl’s Boat Yard at Fernandina Beach, Florida.
Phil Melansin’s hired captain had been trawling offshore of Jacksonville Beach near to an anchored seagoing
freighter when one of the trawler rigs snagged the freighters anchor and this sent the Ferro cement trawler violently
swinging in cart wheel fashion around in an arc and slamming bow first into the freighter.
The freighter sustained a good sized puncture wound to its steel plating but the Ferro-cement boat miraculously
appeared unscathed by the impact. Even though there appeared to be no outward damage to the Ferro cement
boat, the owner Phil Melansin wasn’t taking any chances and had his vessel pulled for an extensive in-depth
examination.
We were pulling our vessel Dursmirg on one of Rawl’s marine rails along side Melansin’s trawler at the same time.
This is how we got to know Phil Melansin, we were neighbors and both had something in common, our distinctive
one of kind Ferro-cement vessels.
This was a very unusual occurrence because of the three marine railways at Rawl’s Boat Yard two had Ferro-
cement boats up on them at the same time. The third rail had a Danish built Baltic trader sailing freighter along with
its eight man owner/crew.
Back to Harry and Jane in St. Augustine;
Harry Walden worked for Phil Melansin at his boatyard in St. Augustine building Ferro-cement trawlers, but the huge
amount of labor and extensive quantity of time required to put these durable vessels together was not off set by the
inexpensive materials.
The net result being that in the end Ferro-cement boat construction would not prove to be an economically feasible
form of boat construction and soon lost favor in the US.
(In the Orient where labor was dirt cheap this technique worked well.)
Frugal Harry and Jane lived in a modest upstairs apartment house on Riberia Street and had no, (almost no) heat in
the winter.
Jane and I would come over to visit and just leave our outdoor winter clothes on in their apartment house.
Harry and Jane had just emigrated from old England where home heating was stingy at best and to the point of
being beyond penny-pinching.
This youthful couple was bound to prosper because they were very hard working, intelligent and thriftily they made
every penny count.
Ultimately Harry and Jane built their own 34 foot Ferro-cement sailboat named Sea Nymph at Phil Melansin’s
boatyard in a corner of the huge facility and we helped them with it.
When their lovely sailboat was finished and ready to launch it was totally paid for because this economically prudent
team was extremely adept at money management.
The craze of Ferro-cement boat building came to a close when it became apparent that this process was just too
labor intensive to be economically feasible. This brought the Melansin boatyard to a close and Harry and Jane would
have to move on to other endeavors.
With Harry’s boat building and lofting skills he was a natural to move on to the steel boat building industry where his
talents were in demand.
Steel boat building was thriving not just because steel construction was quick and economical but because of
government backed loans and tax sheltered loop-holes for corporate cronies that saw economy in buying politicians.
These were the days of huge government kick-backs and lucrative tax loop-holes for mega-investors to dump
money into the offshore fishing fleet. So, boat building yards were flourishing.
A father and son team from St. Augustine named Brown landed a sweet government deal in conjunction with some
moneyed New Englanders and opened a steel boat building yard at Cape Canaveral. Harry and Jane already had
earned quite a reputation in the area as competent hard working and knowledgeable boat builders so they were in
demand for their skills.
Shortly after the launch of Harry and Jane’s new 34 foot Ferro-cement boat, Sea Nymph Jane and I helped them sail
(motor) their boat on its maiden voyage to Port Canaveral where both Harry and Jane took jobs at the large steel
trawler building yard.
This boatyard became an enormous business almost over night. The company started in a several acre vacant lot
with just an old house trailer as its office and an industrial sized electrical service. This open air production line
began laying keels as soon as the earnest money hit the deck and would tie up the investor’s money until the next
infusion of capital flowed in and another stage of construction commenced. Consequently numerous partially
completed hulls filled this expansive boatyard.
This was a super deal for the builder who could just sit back and lock in the investor’s money with literally no
infrastructure expenses. These steel vessels were 85 footers and larger and would ultimately lead to the severe
over fishing of the American offshore waters…another sweetheart government deal to quickly line the pockets of
some already very rich investors.
(Note; like all business that start as a flash in the pan this one also had numbered days and would soon fail as soon
as the government money and kick-backs dried up.
The night before the Browns were ready to file bankruptcy and bail out they called in their most loyal workers.
In a cruel cold hearted screw job they borrowed as much money from each one as they could.
The Browns kissed the money and then unmercifully screwed every one in sight…business as usual in the Sunshine
State.
Harry and Jane moved on this time to Green Cove Springs, Florida up on the St. Johns River to ramrod another
steel boat building facility that was going to build vessels in excess of 100 feet in length for the offshore oil industry.
From that business they eventually began their very own boat building and repair facility that became an immense
success.
Above left, A happy Harry and Jane aboard their new just launched 35 foot Ferro-cement sailboat after a
very strenuous project well done. On the right Harry is making last minute inspections before his new
yacht hits the water.
The brain drain and hard dedicated team work from old England made for another American dream come true and
Harry and Jane earned every penny that they put together.
These fine people were an active part of what gave St. Augustine much of its dynamics in those interesting times of
the 1970s.
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