PORT ARANSAS, Texas — At Roberts Point Park, families have until Sunday afternoon to turn a kit into a 14-foot wooden skiff that floats.
It’s the centerpiece of the Port Aransas Wooden Boat Festival, where families build boats over the weekend with help from staff and volunteers at Farley Boat Works, then launch them in the marina.
For one family from Gonzales, the build is about much more than a boat.
Donna Hisey has loved Port Aransas since she was a little girl. Last year, while exploring the island with her sister, she walked into Farley Boat Works, learned its history and found out about the family boat build.
“There was some discord in my family, we were estranged,” Hisey said. “And I saw this and I thought, God’s leading me to do this, to bring my family together next year to build this boat.”
She prayed about it all year. Now her husband, Commie, and two of their grandsons are at work on the boat, with more family expected to join before the launch.
“We’re just building our family back together, and this is sort of an analogy of working with our family and just doing things together,” Commie Hisey said.
He does woodwork at home but has never built a boat. For him, the goal is bigger than getting it finished.
“Just to be able to work and stand by my children, my grandchildren, and be able to do something together that years down the road we’ll look at and say, hey, look what we built,” he said.
The festival celebrates a boat-building tradition that started in Port Aransas when the Farley brothers began building boats on the island in 1915.
“We’ve been building boats in Port Aransas for over 111 years, and this really ties together the history of the town, the fishing capital of Texas,” said Garrick Bernsen, chair of the 2026 Port Aransas Wooden Boat Festival.
On Sunday at 2 p.m., the new boats will be blessed and launched. Donna Hisey says she already knows she’ll be emotional.
“I pray for that every day, that our family is reconciled and reunited, and I want that more in my life than anything I can ever imagine,” she said. “And I pray that this is a step toward that.”
If you go:
- Where: Roberts Point Park, 301 J.C. Barr Blvd., Port Aransas
- Cost: Free admission
- Saturday: Boat building, a coastal market, food trucks and handmade wooden boats on display, starting at 10 a.m. Organizers say the Coast Guard plans a flyover.
- Sunday: Activities from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with the Blessing of the Fleet and boat launch at 2 p.m.
- Help build: Organizers say anyone can stop by and volunteer to help build a boat throughout the weekend.
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