The Bradley Family: A History of Belizean Boatbuilding
In tonight’s episode of Belize on Reel, we take a look at the history of boatbuilding in Belize and one family’s legacy in that industry. Steven Bradley has spent the better part of his life building and repairing boats. His nephew, Travis Bradley, has also made a name for himself as a more than capable craftsman. Together they are carrying on a family tradition that has spanned several generations and they are doing so by acknowledging other Belizeans involved in the business of boatbuilding. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
The design and construction of boats, as well as their systems, are a long-established occupation in the Bradley family. Generations of these boat builders have crafted seagoing vessels of all types.
Steven Bradley
Steven Bradley, Owner, Bradley’s Boatyard
“My dad learned the trade from his uncle and his uncle and his father and at that time it was primarily wooden boatbuilding and he used to build small sailboats and many open speedboats for different clients in Belize. Eventually, my dad, Dennis Bradley Sr., branched off. He got contracts to build sailing yachts for clients from the U.S., from Texas, New Orleans, from Florida, and some of those boats that he’s built have crossed the Atlantic Ocean both ways.”
Sixty-year-old Steven Bradley is a master boatwright. He’s been in business as a manufacturer of fiberglass watercrafts since the age of twenty. Along the way, Bradley has built numerous boats for clients across the country.
Steven Bradley
“Like many other local boat builders of today, we, myself and my brothers and my nephew, we learned the trade from the older heads, like our parents, our fathers. And now we are still involved in it. So this is where we are today. We’re building fiberglass boats because that seems… with the difficulty with getting quality wood, first and select quality woods and the advent of fiberglass in the mid-fifties and late sixties, many of us switched over to the fiberglass boatbuilding which is quicker and a longer lasting boat.”
Travis Bradley is a fourth generation builder. His dockyard, like his uncle’s a few miles away, is littered with various types of marine vessels. As the proprietor of Admiral Boat Services, he, too, is carrying on a legacy that began with his forebears over a century ago.
Travis Bradley
Travis Bradley, Proprietor, Admiral Boat Services
“I started off working with my father and then eventually he had left the country again and I started my own business. I went into a bunch of different stuff, I did tendering for a while, built a tender boat and went and did tendering and at the same time started up my own repair shop and stuff like that, and eventually got into building.”
Today, Steve and his crew are preparing a pair of boats for export to the British Virgin Islands. There, his sibling will complete the finishing for clients who have ordered these vessels.
Steven Bradley
“My brother, who lives in the Virgin Islands, he started asking questions and he initiated the move for us to start building boats to export to the Virgin Islands. The first boats that we exported there was the Pelican 300, with the modified deep-V hull, and those were for one client who had a rental, a boat rental business. And then we started to export some of the standard Pelican boats, where the Pelican name started, the twenty-five footers and they received that quite well, as well.”
Despite owning and operating their own boatyards, this uncle and nephew duo relies on each other for advice. They also bounce ideas around together.
Travis Bradley
“I have a great set of workers, a great team and they are very skilled. We do welding, as well as the fiberglass work and we build from scratch. A lot of repairs, we do from welding to electrical and it takes the whole team build a boat. My nephew, Travis Bradley, at Admiral Boat Services, he does excellent work. He can do the same work that we are doing, he can get into the export industry. All the other smaller boatyards that do fiberglass work can get a piece of the pie if they want. Well that may sound weird because you’d say well, why doesn’t Mr. Bradley or Bradley’s Boatyard want the whole pie for themselves? It’s not that, it’s putting Belize out there on the international scene. We do have serious talents in Belize when it comes to building and designing boats.”
At Admiral’s, Travis is taking his passion for boatbuilding to another level. His eyes are set on bigger boats to accommodate international travelers arriving on our shores.
Travis Bradley
“The bigger boats that I am building are mainly passenger boats for water taxis or tour boats or dive boats and it’s growing. Everybody is going bigger and there are more tourists coming into the country. So, I mean, the market will still be there.”
The demand for Belizean-built vessels is high, but it wouldn’t be possible without the work that was put in by a number of well-known craftsmen.
Steven Bradley
“Indeed, it has been a rich history and we had many, many prominent boat builders. From memory, I can recall Stacey Tewes, Clifford Betson, Arthur Hoare, Gerald Jones, my dad, Dennis Bradley, the Alamilla and the Alamina brothers. Mr. Santos, better known as “Balooch Santos”, Pipersburgh. I mean, these were all prominent boat builders with excellent experience in the wooden boat trade. One of the most important points I want to make, all the Belizean boat builders are capable of designing, building the mold and building a boat from their own Belizean design.”
Isani Cayetano for News Five.
