By Kristin Davis - The Virginia Pilot

On a regular morning at Bayliss Boatworks, men perch on the upside-down skeleton of a 6S-foot sport fishing vessel, sanding the curved wood of its hull. They maneuver a 1,500-gallon fuel tank into an airtight compartment and transform a big gray mass into a cabin and bridge.

The teak floors and cherry cabinets, the sleek fiberglass, the complex electronic and plumbing systems and the leather upholstery that make a boat a yacht will come later, and it will all be constructed within this Wanchese workshop.

It will take John Bayliss' crew of 35, a few subcontractors and two years to build this custom boat from start to finish. Those who hammer and measure and saw and craft are assured work for the next four years and probably long after - the demand for these million-dollar boats continues to grow.

Dare County is the center of the industry, turning out more custom sport fishing yachts than Florida or Washington state. For the youths growing up here who aren't necessarily interested in going to college or fishing the local waters, this is the future, say those in the marine industry.

"These are good-paying, year-round jobs," said Bob Peele, director of Wanchese Seafood Industrial Park, where nearly half the area's boat-building companies operate. "This is a career. You can make a career out of boat building in Dare County."

Boat builders such as Bayliss say workers are in short supply.

They've had to advertise internationally to fill positions but say it's hard to attract people to Dare, where housing prices have soared. It doesn't make sense, they say, to ignore the pool of young people already here. “We want to hit the young students now,” Bayliss said.

For years, guidance counselors at the local high schools have introduced students to jobs in the fisheries, the North Carolina Aquarium, the National Park Service and Roanoke Island Festival Park.

Boat building has remained a “hidden industry," said Barry Wickre, curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum on Roanoke Island.

The Dare County Marine Industry Association formed in 2004 to raise awareness and help start a boat building certification program at College of The Albemarle. The next step was to attract students at the high school level, Peele said. At the end or the school year, career development coordinators at area high schools toured several Wanchese facilities and made plans to get the word out to students.

"We weren't aware of the varied multitude of careers available in the marine and boat-building industry, or the multimillion-dollar industry that it is," said Kathey Lamm, career-technica1 education director for Dare County Public Schools.

"There certainly are students in our schools who would be unaware of the opportunities and be interested. They could earn a salary that allows them to live here on the Outer Banks,"

At Paul Mann Custom Boats in Manns Harbor, employees earn from $10 to $25 an hour or more. said finance manager Robin Mann. They get health benefits, life insurance, sick time, and paid vacation, and work weeks are typically 40 hours.

Most beat-building companies are offering similar wages and benefits, she said.

A decade ago, there were no more than six boot builders in area. Most crafted one vessel at a time, Now 16 companies are working on 35m 40 boats each day, not including those being built in garages and backyards, Peele said. Suppliers that delivered twice a week from Florida 10 years ago have moved to Windsor and Edenton to get closer to the business, Mann said.

Boat building on the Outer Banks began out of necessity soon after European settlers arrived, said the Maritime Museum's Wickre. The shad boat got its start on Roanoke Island, and skiffs were built and sailed all along the coast.

"We learned from those,” he said, and sport fishing yachts became a "natural evolution."

Boats built in Dare County were designed to handle the waters of Oregon Inlet - some of the roughest on the East Coast Those boats stayed local until recent years when they began traveling to Mexico, Venezuela and Costa Rica, Mann said. People started noticing the quality, speed and endurance of a North Carolina boat, and that's what they wanted, she said.

So the industry grew. It has remained unaffected by higher gas prices and hard economic times. Boat building directly employs more than 500 people in Dare, Peele said, but work ripples out to welders, electricians and those who work on engine repair and in tackle shops.

Bayliss began his business in 2002 with six employees and enough space to build one yacht at a time. Now, as employees work on as many as three in a building twice as big.

His work force includes 15-year-old Zach Walker, a rising 10 th grader at Manteo High School. He has wanted to build boats for as long as he can remember, and this summer he wrote Bayliss a letter asking for a job.

For now, Zach builds small things around the shop, keeps areas safe and clean. He's just the kind of motivated, local young person Bayliss is looking for to fill his work force and keep the business growing.