In 1914, a master craftsman from Birmingham, Alabama named Fred Farley moved his wife Mabel and their sons to a barrier island on the Texas coast. His brother Barney, already a tarpon fishing guide, had written to him about the untapped market: local guides desperately needed reliable powerboats for the choppy waters of Aransas Pass, and nobody was building them. Fred set up shop on the waterfront. He never drew a blueprint. He sketched his designs directly on the wood flooring with colored carpenter's crayon. For the next sixty years, three generations of Farleys built what many consider the first production sport fishing boats in America.
The Brothers from Alabama
Key Facts
- Founded
- 1914
- First boat launched
- 1915
- Business name
- Farley and Son, Boat Builders
- Closed
- ~1973-1975
- Revived
- 2011 by PAPHA
The Farley brothers traveled from Alabama to the Gulf Coast — at least four brothers in all, though only Fred and Barney are prominently associated with Port Aransas. Barney arrived around 1910 as an aspiring tarpon fishing guide. He was sixteen years old. Within a few years he had become one of the island's most skilled guides and a civic leader.
Fred was the craftsman. Before Port Aransas, he'd lived in Rockport, building utility boats, lighthouses, and ornate bars. He was an experienced woodworker who could look at a piece of water and design a hull to match it. When Barney described the conditions at Aransas Pass — the chop, the current, the size of the tarpon — Fred knew exactly what to build.
No Blueprints
The Farleys never created formal plans. Designs were sketched directly on the wood flooring of their shop using colored carpenter's crayon. When a prospective buyer came in, they'd walk them across plywood sheets laid on the floor with the boat's lines drawn out in full scale. Custom modifications were demonstrated through hand-carved half-models — small wooden boat halves that showed exactly how the finished hull would look.
Each Farley boat was essentially custom-built. The signature design was an 18-footer for two people, but they built everything from 16-foot tarpon boats to 28-foot offshore cruisers. In the 1920s, they even built a speedboat for Gail Borden Munsill of the Borden dairy empire — capable of 60 miles per hour.
“God wanted fiberglass boats, He would have made fiberglass trees.”
— The Farley family, on why they never switched materials
Built for Aransas Pass
Farley boats were designed for one specific set of conditions: the choppy, current-driven waters at the mouth of Aransas Pass where the tarpon ran. The hulls were V-bottomed with a hard chine — angular, not rounded. The chine didn't touch water until well aft of the bow. Low sides with rounded tumblehomes made it easier to lean over and land a fighting tarpon. High bows combated the choppy seas. Open cockpits with stern-facing fighting chairs. Front windshields with opening hatches.
The materials evolved with the times. Before World War II, Farley used 5/8-inch-thick top-grade cypress planks — light and incredibly durable. When cypress became scarce after the war, they switched to Honduran and Philippine mahogany. The engines were never marine motors. They were converted automobile engines: Chrysler flatheads, Fords, Chevrolets. Some customers supplied their own.
Four Locations, Four Disasters
The boat works operated from four different locations over sixty years, and the reason for each move tells its own story. The original waterfront shop, southeast of the Coast Guard station, was destroyed by the devastating 1919 hurricane that brought a 12-to-15-foot storm surge and essentially wiped out the entire town.
After 1919, the Farleys rebuilt inland, east of the Tarpon Inn, fortifying the new shop with shellcrete siding. Post-World War II, operations moved to White Street and Mercer Street, where Jim Farley built the Tina. The final location, 716 West Avenue C, operated from about 1968 until the family closed the business.
A President's Boat
In May 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt came to Port Aransas to fish for tarpon. After unsuccessful outings on his own 35-foot vessel, a local captain suggested switching to a Farley boat. On May 8, fishing with Barney Farley Sr. as guide, FDR landed a 77-pound tarpon at 3:27 PM. He was reportedly so pleased that he returned later that same year.
The FDR connection cemented the Farley reputation. But the boats had already earned their place. They were widely regarded as the first production sport fishing boats built on the Gulf Coast, if not the first in the United States. No formal dispute of that claim has ever been found.
The Tina's Fifty-Year Journey
The Tina is the only complete original Farley hull known to survive. Jim Farley built it around 1947 for Sam Cone, a wealthy angler, who named it after his wife. After Sam and Tina divorced, Cone stored the boat in a barn at Avenue B and Trojan Street. It sat there for nearly fifty years.
The Tina then passed through five owners: Rick Pratt, David Loese in Buda, Steve Loese in Bastrop, Jeff Morehouse in San Antonio (who commissioned a restoration by Ron Blue in Rockport), and Ned Teller. Keith Farley — Fred's grandnephew, who traces the Farley family in America back to 1622 — located the boat in Rockport. On May 26, 2007, Keith, Barney Farley III, John Studeman, and Thomas Teller transported it back to Port Aransas. It was refurbished in 2012 and now sits on display at Farley Boat Works.
The End of an Era
The Farleys closed sometime between 1973 and 1975. The cause was simple and irreversible: fiberglass. Mass-produced synthetic boats were cheaper, faster to build, and required less maintenance. The Farleys could not compete with factories. They never tried. They never switched materials.
After the Farleys closed, the Avenue C building housed Steve's Boat Works, then Camric Boats. By 2011, the building was deteriorating.
The Revival
In 2011, the Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association purchased 716 West Avenue C for $200,000 — the largest purchase in PAPHA's history. They renovated the building, retooled the machine shop, and gathered volunteers.
The key to the revival was a man named Doyle Marek. Born in 1932 in Robstown, Marek had taught at Port Aransas ISD for 36 years. During the 1970s through 1990, he'd created a boat-building program at the local schools where students built 51 wooden boats and won 15 awards. In 2012, at the age of 80, Marek came out of retirement to provide inaugural instruction at the revived Farley Boat Works, free of charge, to over 40 volunteers. He and his friend Will Mayfield built two skiffs. The "Marek Skiff" — now called the "Port A Skiff" — became the signature boat of the revival.
Since 2011, over 130 wooden boats have been built at Farley Boat Works. The core builders are volunteers — many of them Winter Texans whose spouses describe the shop as a "husband daycare center." The shop charges for space and materials but provides free instruction. It is, in every sense, a living museum.
“Doyle Marek taught boat building at Port Aransas schools for 36 years. His students built 51 wooden boats and won 15 awards. Then, at 80, he came out of retirement to relaunch Farley Boat Works.”
What's Being Built Now
Today Farley Boat Works builds Port A Skiffs (flat-bottomed plywood fishing boats, 14 to 20 feet), kayaks, paddleboards, rowboats, kit boats, Core Sound 20 sailboats, and Scamp sailboats. The annual Wooden Boat Festival — held every October at Roberts Point Park since 2014 — features a competition where five families race to build a 14-foot Port A Skiff in three days.
On the grounds, a 60-foot replica scow schooner named the Lydia Ann has been under construction since 2015. When completed, it will be the only Texas scow schooner in existence. It survived Hurricane Harvey in 2017 nearly unscathed. The Preserve — a 6,000-square-foot maritime museum on the same campus — is nearing completion and will house the Tina, the Starfish (a 28-foot original Farley from the late 1960s), and the McKee Collection of antique fishing tackle.