Buddy Cannady

Capt. Buddy Cannady, "Capt. BC", born in Chowan County, North Carolina in 1932, was an Oregon Inlet charter captain for 55 years who built his own boats. With Warren O'Neal he built Mel-O-Dee in 1962, one of the first Carolina-flare hulls, and he opened Cannady Boatworks in 1974. He fished each boat a season or two, sold it and built the next, most of them named Capt. BC: more than 30 custom sportfishermen over 52 feet in juniper plank-on-frame, and more than a hundred skiffs. He died on 1 June 2018. In 2000 he and charter captain and builder Billy Maxwell founded BB Boats Inc in Manteo, which built juniper-and-plywood Carolina boats of 55 to 59 feet and carried his hull count on from 25 to 32; the last, Floor Reel, was finished in 2015.