PELTIER CREEK--After a long winter of benign neglect, and with her birthday celebration scheduled for the 15th of this month, 1300 until 1630 hours, at her former dock at the Sanitary Fish Market, Morehead City waterfront, it was time to pay attention to Sylvia II, maybe polish her up a bit.

Who is Sylvia II ? She is a 36-foot, 75-year-old wooden boat, a Core Sounder, one of the few remaining examples representative of Carolina's more successful evolutions of working boats. Drawing national attention, photographs of her, details of her lines and her story have been featured in almost every maritime publication, including Yachting, Boating, Wooden Boat and National Fisherman magazines.

Her paint, especially on the foredeck, was cracked and flaking. Although we had put her on the railways just before Christmas to clean her fouled bottom in order to go caroling, it had been too cold and wet to do anything further. Although it's true that plastic boats don't require their decks to be sanded and painted, my theory is that until I see a plastic boat as old as Sylvia II still afloat and running, I'll stick to the tried, tested and true of nature's handiwork, namely, wood, leastwise until nature begins growing plastic trees.

Of native design developed in Carolina's Core Sound area, Sylvia is of a style of boat that evolved to fill the needs of fishermen contending with sudden storms, shallow sounds and the resulting short steep seas. She represents the development of a design sufficiently fast, capable of surviving breaking inlets and the seas offshore of capes Lookout, Hatteras and Fear, the "Graveyard of the Atlantic."

To be a Core Sounder requires being an efficient working boat capable of hauling net and fish, working long hours under less than desirable conditions. Its unique design features a rounded, tucked-under stern making for a stable working platform; its sharp entry, a straight stem and shoal draft, known for seaworthiness, provides economical operation. It proved itself, for its style reigned, supreme from the early 1900s, successfully marking the shift from working sail to plastic, a classic design lasting well into the late 1970s.

Sylvia II is one of the few working survivors of her class. Her keel was laid in February 1932 at the foot of Tenth Street in Morehead City's "Promise Land" by Capt. William R. Willis also known as "Just Right" or "Double Dip" Willis. As a fisherman/boat-builder, he insisted on using the best of materials of the era, including double-dipped galvanized fastenings. Her frames and planking evolved from native timber. (Her stem and frames originated largely from the former maritime forests of Bogue Banks.)

Launched Valentine's Day 1933, in celebration of the birthday of Miss Sylvia Willis but prohibition still being in effect, she was christened with a bottle of clam juice, awarded federal documentation papers under "coastal trade and mackerel fishery" in 1936.

After several years of commercial fishing, including serving as a mail boat, Sylvia was commissioned by the U.S. Navy during World War II, into serving as a patrol craft. Returning to commercial fishing after the submarine menace subsided, she eventually ended up serving as a charter boat on Morehead's then-famed waterfront.

Capt. Theodore Lewis kept her busy, working her from the Sanitary Fish Market until she was sunk in what was known as the Great Groundhog Day Storm of 1976. One of her mooring lines broke, and she slammed against a piling that poked a hole through her hull. The last of Morehead's old-style Core Sound charter boats went to the bottom.

The rest of the story can be read in the book "When the Water Smokes," recounting her salvage and restoration. She made voyages to Florida along the Intracoastal Waterway, and later entertained students from schools as distant as Pennsylvania.

Sylvia's goal is to remain representative of Carolina's maritime heritage, serving as an educational tool for diverse groups, fostering good will, an ambassador ship commissioned to remind of our past.

Envisioning the possibilities of setting up some sort of multi-faceted board of supporters and experts in various fields, I hope, will ensure her long-term participation in various functions, such as to enhance such activities as fund-raising for historical groups; providing assistance and participating in safety education or scouting activities; teaching basic navigation and maintenance; and providing a platform for teaching the lore of the sea.

And don't forget related maritime lore such as rope work and net-making/mending, plus the need to comprehend the vital importance, the relationships to economy, environment, the life, related natural phenomena as astronomy, tides and currents -- all part of understanding such values as those Rachel Carson found so worthy.

After all, more than half the fun of boats is having something to fuss over, the pleasure derived from aimless tinkering, while ducks and gulls, cormorants, loons and grebes idle nearby. This is what we mean by "messing about in boats."