Dan Pecore, a Port Aransas boat builder, is bringing the only Texas scow schooner back to life.  Pretty life-changing for a city kid from  Houston who moved to Port Aransas years ago to raise a family.  While Dan was growing up in Houston’s museum area, he’d spend weekends on his family’s farm.  In the country, this city kid discovered a serenity from working with wood, specifically old wood.    

How did Dan become involved with boats?

Dan especially liked the weathered posts from the stock pens and their imperfections –  all worn down and sometimes stained by urine and cow shit. He told us  he seemed to be able to feel the years and changes the old wood had watched.  Sometime later on Port Aransas,  he started to build beautiful things from the scraps of aged lumber – jewelry boxes, furniture, keepsakes. 

And then Dan began looking for pieces of old boats, specifically dismantled sailboats from places like the Chesapeake Bay.  He refashioned that wood into projects, using the knots and the holes to lead him.   And in time, he started to build wooden boats. 

Texas Scow Schooner project

In 2015,  Dan hired on to lead a team to complete the construction of the only Texas scow schooner that now exist anywhere.  He has thrown himself into the project with the passion of affair with a stubby, squat beauty that will eventually be called the Lydia Ann.

The balance he has created in his life by building keepstakes, resurrecting the Lydia Ann and reading Rumi is being tested by Hurricane Harvey.  Good luck and traveling mercies, Dan.