Ben Cummings Jr. is new at this. In his mid-20s, he’s only been in the boat-building business for a few years, and he didn’t finish his company’s first hull, a prototype of his Tensaw model, until the fall of 2023.
“I grew up on the bay and down at the [Dauphin] Island,” Cummings said. “Everybody in the area loves being on the water. But to be honest, I feel like there’s not a lot of boat builders currently. At least not yet.”
Cummings has worked on boats, doing repairs and electrical work, since he was in high school at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School and in college at the University of Mississippi. After college, he launched his own fly-fishing charter business, Delta Fly Fishing, and did small marine jobs in his parents’ garage in Ashland Place.
He outgrew that space and opened his own shop, Tensaw Boatworks, in 2021 near Dog River. From there, he recruited a naval architect to draw up plans for Tensaw’s signature boat, a 19-foot skiff that can glide on mere inches of water, ideal for shallow-water fishing. Next, Cummings got the dimensions and built a temporary jig, added foam and then fiberglass.
He said people have shown a lot of interest in it when he runs it around Dog River. He doesn’t expect there to be a problem selling it; the challenge has been the fabrication, as construction is more of an art than a science. He suspects that’s why there aren’t many boat builders still in the area.
“There’s the old timers like Stauter, but I kind of saw an untapped market,” Cummings said. “Most of the big companies are in South Florida or on the East Coast somewhere. That could be for a multitude of reasons, one being it’s hard. But it’s rewarding work. I love doing it.”