For at least three generations, the founders and Crew mates of Salty Harbors can trace their heritage through a line of tugboat captains, commercial fishing captains, Navy sailors, and marine hunting guides. The cumulative experience of these generations totals in excess of millions of hours of sea time, and hard-earned wisdom, is the foundation upon which our pool of seasoned mariners have built their careers upon, and staked their names to. One of the earliest living memories was working as Mate aboard an early 1900’s stern-rig trawl boat named The Swallow, whose home port was Vandemere, North Carolina.
Strong memories of the experiences of pulling nets or crab traps on choppy waters and fighting currents as a young teenager are shared amongst the crew; nearly every crewmate has spent a majority of their youth on a commercial fishing vessel learning the ropes and getting their sea legs under them in the notoriously ever-changing coastal North Carolina waters. Eventually each one moved along to different careers on the water, some to tugboats, some to offshore trawling vessels, and even to the US Navy. Each captain has spent at least a decade (or several) aboard a marine vessel, working or living.
After more than a hundred thousand combined hours of working and living aboard a multitude of myriad vessels and navigating the high seas, we made the decision to unite together and offer our experience to those in need of reliable and capable hands to carefully guide their vessel anywhere in the world, as long as there’s water in-between.
-Captain Steven
