To understand why Buddy Davis yachts are built so tough, take a look at the map: Off North Carolina's Outer Banks lie some of the richest fisheries anywhere in the world. To get to them, though, captains leaving the protected waters of Albemarle or Pamlico Sound have to run a gauntlet. Only a handful of inlets provide access to the sea, and when tides are running high or a storm is brewing, those narrow inlets act like funnels, concentrating the full power of the Atlantic into walls of water ten feet high. A boat takes the full brunt of it on its bow, like a punch in the nose.

Local builders long ago devised a generic design-dubbed "Carolina boat"-to shoulder such seas aside. And the toughest Carolina of them all may be a Buddy Davis yacht. Narrow the field to luxury boats, and Buddy Davis definitely wins rough-water laurels.

Tournament fishermen-local and worldwide-swear by them. Off the coast of Nicaragua in 1993, Captain Timothy H. Hyde found himself battered by winds topping 65 knots and seas he recalls as "mountainous." Boats bigger than his 61-foot Buddy Davis broke apart and sank. Hyde's damage? The log reads: "One broken coffeepot."

Like all Carolinas, the ones made by Buddy Davis Boatworks have two distinctive features: first, an unusually deep and narrow bow-20% deeper than on boats of comparable size-designed to slice through chop. Second, the bow flares outward dramatically as it rises to meet the deck. Looked at head-on, the shape looks almost like a Tiffany floriform vase. The exaggerated flare helps fling waves to either side and keeps the bow above high seas. By keeping water off the deck, it helps keep crewmen on.

Though Buddy Davis yachts may look like other Carolinas, they differ in appointments and construction.

Decks contain Nydacore, a light, strong honeycomb composite used in aerospace. Its lightness helps compensate for the drag caused by the deep bow. Buddy Davis boats are made still nimbler by recessing engine shafts and other underwater protuberances.

Power? When the twin turbo- charged, eight-cylinder, 900-horsepower diesels of Buddy Davis' 45-footer kick in, passengers go grabbing for a rail. The larger yachts (the biggest is 78 feet) get their oomph from twin 16-cylinder motors producing 2,000hp each-as much as 13 Porsche 911s. Declares Davis, "I won't build a boat that won't do 30 knots."

A former fishing captain, Davis became a boat builder in 1968 because in his home of Wanchese, near Kitty Hawk, "It was the only damn job in the winter," he says. After apprenticing under the granddaddy of Carolina boat builders, the late Warren O'Neal, he split off in 1984 to refine his own vision. From the outset, Buddy Davis' goal was to create the world's best rough-water design. "Up here, if you don't fish when it's rough, you don't fish," he explains.

The products of his labor don't come cheap. All boats are built to order, and Buddy, up to now, has been able to produce but ten a year. Even an entry-level Buddy Davis starts at $750,000. A 70-footer costs $2.7 million; marble countertops and SubZero fridges are standard, as well as flat-screen TVs and Bose speakers. The broad afterdeck accommodates just the sort of bolted-down casting chair in which a certain overweight, hard-drinking boxer-matador-war correspondent-sportfisherman would feel right at home.

Such boats attract a serious (and monied) following. J. George Mikelsons, chairman of American Trans Air, an Indiana-based airline, tows a 50-foot Buddy Davis behind his 125-foot yacht. Internet entertainment entrepreneur Haruki Nakayama (son of former Sega president Hayao Nakayama) recently bought his second yacht from Buddy. Such customers, explains yacht broker James Larkin, are paying not just for hardware but for mystique. "People want a Buddy Davis yacht because there aren't six others at the yacht club."

Cash alone won't get you one. You'll need patience. Though Buddy Davis currently is gearing up to triple annual production to 30 boats, he won't be at that level until next year. Even then, he expects demand to far outstrip supply. You probably should count on a six- to ten-month wait, after you place your order. Upside? You'll have plenty of time to brush up on your Hemingway.

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