Charlie Ernst built yachts, sailboats (Stars), and troutboats on Keuka Lake during the 1930s. He learned the boatbuilding trade as a lad in his native Nova Scotia, and applied the same high level of skill to the construction of troutboats that he used in yacht building. He and his crew turned out numerous boats from his shop on Brandy Bay before it burned prior to WWII.

Ernst troutboats typically are carvel planked with mahogany strakes fastened with copper rivets to steamed oak ribs. Surviving examples exhibit a rounded, slightly raked transom; mahogany decks forward and aft with blind fastenings and caulked deck seams, a tumblehome stern, a moveable rowing seat, and no inwale.