A long-time boat builder who once constructed large shrimp trawlers along Bayou Lafourche is now focused on smaller boats and passing his skills to the next generation. At 88 years old, Melvin “Peta” Kiff still rides his bicycle to work at his boatg shop in Galliano. Inside the workshop, he carefully planes and sands pieces of wood that will become a traditional pirogue, the small boat used for generations by fishermen, trappers, and duck hunters in south Louisiana.
“Okay. That’s good enough,” Kiff says as he smooths the edge of a boat under construction. For decades, Kiff built large fishing vessels, including steel shrimp trawlers more than 60 feet long. Some of those boats can still be seen docked along Bayou Lafourche near his shop.
boat builder learned through experience
Friends know Melvin Kiff by the nickname “Peta,” a name given to him by an aunt when he was young. “Because I used to fight all the time like the little rooster that fight all the time, and she call me Peta,” he explained.
Kiff’s reputation as a boat builder grew through decades of craftsmanship. He never worked from blueprints, relying instead on experience and instinct. “You gotta have it in the head, I guess,” Kiff said. “Just follow the pieces. They just add up together.”
When customers wanted a boat built, Kiff tailored each vessel to their needs. “You build a boat for a man, he want it like this. He want it like that. It depends on what they want.” Beginning with the 66-foot Miss Enola in 1968, Kiff built dozens of commercial fishing boats. His 48-foot shrimp trawler, the Coco Jay, worked for more than a decade before earning a permanent place in the Louisiana State Museum in Baton Rouge. When asked about learning that his boat would be displayed in the museum, Kiff smiled and said, “It was nice, you know. Yeah, it was nice.”
boat builder passes on his craft
Today, Kiff is teaching his son-in-law, David LeBlanc, how to build a pirogue from start to finish. “I’ve never come across anybody that’s any better,” LeBlanc said. “He’s just so detailed. He’s fast. He doesn’t make any mistakes or not many.”
LeBlanc believes the skill is becoming increasingly rare. “This is a dying art. Nobody does this any longer.” Kiff’s standards remain as high as ever. “When I build a boat, everything’s gotta be straight. Everything gotta have no bump. Gotta be perfect.”
That boat builder determination helped Kiff through a frightening health scare in 2025. After cancer spread through his body, chemotherapy treatments were followed by scans showing the cancer was gone within months. “I should be dead right now,” Kiff said. “But I’m okay. The cancer went away.” Asked how that happened, his answer was simple. “I don’t know. Thank God.”
Today, the longtime boat builder is back where he’s happiest — beside Bayou Lafourche, building boats and making sure the next generation learns how it’s done.
Leave a Reply