Fox (boat)

Record-setting Fox surf boat.

The Fox was a specially built surfboat to be rowed across the Atlantic Ocean. It was custom built in 1896 by Seaman Sea Skiffs of Branch Port, New Jersey by William A. Seaman for Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo of Highlands, New Jersey, the boat was named Fox for the financial backer Richard Kyle Fox, owner of the "pink tabloid", Police Gazette.

Seaman was well known for building the seaworthy Nauvoo surf boat and he built the Fox with watertight compartments and hand rails on the keel, for righting the boat if capsized at sea. This feature would be used at least once in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during heavy seas.

In 1975 a replica of the Fox was built by the Long Branch Ice Boat and Yacht Club (LBIBYC) of New Jersey with the participation of Harold L. Seaman. Harold L. Seaman was the son of the boat builder who, as youngster backed-up most of the rivets and at age 91 reconstructed "from old photographs, shop records and memory, lines and measurements, correct within a fraction of an inch" a full set of plans.