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Company Update With the passing of Lachlan "Lally" Beaton in April 1997, the boatyard has been passed to the Third Generation. Tom has taken over the duties of his father as President.

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Asbury Park Press Editorial Wednesday, April 9, 1997

A Master Craftsman Boat Builder Lachlan Beaton followed his father

Like millions of immigrants, Lachlan Beaton came to this country as a boy because his father saw America as a land of opportunity. Unlike many, he devoted the rest of his life to an increasingly exotic craft -- the building of wooden sailboats.  When Beaton died Sunday at the age of 84, few of them remained active.  But the Beaton family's rich legacy of devotion to painstaking excellence and love of their craft had made the Beaton name synonymous with the traditional culture of Barnegat Bay. Lachlan Beaton's father, David, grew up in Gourock, Scotland, near the port & shipbuilding center of Glasgow, and was an experienced boat-builder and deep water sailor when he decided to emigrate.  He came alone, took a job as a foreman in a Bay Head boatyard, built a two-story home on Hance avenue in Point Pleasant.  When it was done he sent for his wife and children.

Lachlan came in 1927, when he was 15.  The oldest of David Beaton's 10 children, he was the only one to enter his father's business after the elder Beaton opened up his own boatyard in 1932.  The yard, eventually renamed David Beaton and Sons, sits on the western shore of Barnegat Bay in the West Mantoloking section of Brick Township. Beaton built the kind of boat best suited for the bay -- shallow-draft centerboarders, rather than fixed keels.  Referring to the bay's special conditions -- shallow, tidal water and light fluky winds -- the elder Beaton once said, "There's plenty of water around here, but it's spread out pretty thin."

The Beaton built duckboats and Barnegat Bay sneakboxes initially favored by duck hunters and shellfisherman, catboats powered by a single sail.  They built the Penguin, Comet and Lightning one-design racing classes favored by racing sailors.  And their craftsmanship and dedication became legend among area boaters.  After World War II, the Beatons were the only builders of the sneakbox, a 16-foot, gaff-rigged catboat most closely associated with the bay.  At one time, it was estimated that Beatons built more than half of the boats competing in the Barnegat Bay Yacht Racing Association.

David Beaton lived past 90, and Lachlan took over the boatyard in the late '70's after his father's death.  In 1980, he agreed to take on a major and historical project -- building a new, 28-foot Class A catboat, the first built in more than half a century.  Commissioned by Pennsylvania business man Nelson R. Hartranft, who at one time owned all of the other four Class A cats still actively raced in BBYRA competition, the Wasp was completed and launched in time for the 1982 sailing season.  By that time, Beaton was getting a lot of help from his son, Thomas, by now active in the boatyard and the one who initially talked his father into taking on the project.

Today, historic restorations and educational projects are keeping alive the once nearly vanished skills of those who built wooden boats, long before the advent of fiberglass hulls that require easier maintenance than wooden ones but cannot match their elegance and beauty.  The Beatons kept those demanding skills alive during years when there was almost no one else in the region left to do so.  It is a rich legacy, one that thousands of boaters will long remember affectionately and with respect. Those fond memories will keep Lachlan Beaton' s contribution to boating and the region he lived in alive for years to come.

The Beaton family would sincerely like to thank all of those writers who displayed such a wonderful appreciation towards Lally.

He is deeply missed.

Thank you.

Lachlan "Lally" Beaton with Class A cat Mary Ann abt. 1975