Shane Sekul

Shane Sekul is a Mississippi Gulf Coast-based boatbuilder whose work is rooted in the maritime traditions of Biloxi and his Croatian family heritage. His ancestors settled in Biloxi and made their living on the water, connecting Sekul to a community shaped by fishing, boatbuilding, and the industries that grew around the Gulf Coast seafood trade.

Sekul began his creative life as a potter at Shearwater Pottery and later turned to furniture making, developing the woodworking skills that would eventually lead him to boatbuilding. “Boats are probably the hardest thing you can build, but I’ve always been drawn to them,” says Sekul. In the late 1990s, he began seeking out the old-time boatbuilders of the Coast, including Buddy Jumonville of the Covacevich family, and master boatbuilder Bill Holland. Through Holland, Sekul learned boatbuilding by absorbing knowledge through hands-on experience as Holland’s apprentice. He now carries this same legacy forward as a master artist for the Mississippi Arts Commission Folk and Traditional Artist Apprenticeship program, where he will train apprentice Jay Cronin.

As a master boatbuilder with a passion for sharing the craft with others, Shane shares the history and techniques of Biloxi boatbuilding, the craftsmanship that goes into working wood on this scale—including the precision needed to construct frames by shaping and fitting timber to exact specifications. Shane also teaches through sharing his experience restoring the Shawnee, a 1954 Biloxi Schooner originally built at the Covacevich boatyard, and an all-wood sailboat called the Redwing that was used a charter vessel for decades—a service Sekul and the Redwing offer once again now that it has been restored to its former glory.

Over Sekul’s three decades as a boatbuilder, he has built, restored, or worked on dozens of vessels. Sekul also creates furniture, surfboards, and other objects using locally sourced and reclaimed materials. For Shane, sourcing materials and using traditional techniques are a key component of the process, as understanding the materials, the use, and even the way a vessel moves is part of understanding the tradition itself. With only a handful of Biloxi boatbuilders remaining, Sekul sees this work as more than the restoration of historic vessels. It is an effort to breathe new life into a nearly vanished art form and ensure that the cultural history of Biloxi boatbuilding continues to be experienced into the future.