The year was 1978, and Martha’s Vineyard confronted a big decision about its character. It could take a big step toward becoming part of generic America or fight to maintain its individuality.

A property had come up for sale on Vineyard Haven harbor, and the multi-national purveyor of junk food, McDonald’s, was lined up to build its 5,110th restaurant on it.

But the town of Tisbury, the Island population and a big cast of seasonal celebrities — William Styron, Jules Feiffer, James Taylor, Mia Farrow, Beverley Sills among them — joined what the legendary late editor of the Gazette, Henry Beetle Hough, referred to as “the down with McDonald’s cause.”

Let one of those who opposed McDonald’s take up the story.

“There was a purchase and sale agreement. A lot of people thought it was a done deal. But the groundswell of opposition was just huge. It was on the national network news and everything. And eventually McDonald’s backed down, which is something they rarely do. It was a huge victory for the Island.”

And, as it turned out, a huge turning point in the life of the speaker, Nat Benjamin.

See, Mr. Benjamin and his friend Ross Gannon, a couple of sailors, had lately used the strip of beach adjacent to the proposed McDonald’s site to work on reframing an old 36-foot sloop Mr. Gannon owned.

At that time, no Vineyard boatyard would let them use a slip. But Mr. Benjamin had some necessary tools, a steam box and a few other things at home, which he brought down and set up right on the beach.

“And as we worked, we talked about how nice it would be have a little boatyard, like those ones in Europe and the West Indies where they were low-key, low-tech, where if people need help they can hire a local shipwright, or do it themselves,” Mr. Benjamin said.

Even before the next in line for the land, Donald DeSorcy, had bought it, the pair had approached him with a plan to lease the waterfront area for a little boatyard.

“We signed a lease in 1980, and we’ve been here ever since,” said Mr. Benjamin.

And so instead of fast food, the Vineyard got sleek boats. Instead of mass-produced product with huge quantities of salt on the inside, it got handcrafted works of nautical art which kept the salt on the outside.

And this weekend, there will be a big party at the site, to celebrate the 30-year existence of one of the Island’s iconic businesses and remarkable partnerships.

Mr. Gannon, who had grown up around wooden boats in Connecticut, got to the Vineyard first. He had graduated as an engineer, been offered a job, and then took one look at the fluorescent lights of his new office and decided he couldn’t do it.

Mr. Benjamin, who never went to college, sailed in a few years later with his wife, on their way back from Majorca, at the end of about five years overseas.

“In 1972, Pam and I sailed into Vineyard Haven harbor and anchored and rowed ashore,” recalled Mr. Benjamin this week. “The rosa rugosa were in bloom, the beach plums, we met these wonderful people and we just fell in love with this place.

“We liked it because it was so close to America.”

“We were going to sail back to Europe that summer, but we decided not to. In the fall I got a job in the shipyard. I met Ross probably in that first year. He was doing all sorts of interesting stuff, moving houses, building with old materials. We both had old boats that we were trying to keep afloat, so we would help each other.”

They didn’t just form a friendship, they shared a passion. Wooden boats.

They are quite uncompromising on the subject.

“I don’t want to be on a metal boat or a fiberglass boat,” Mr. Gannon said.

“They sound different, they feel different, they smell different. Even a lot of people who own fiberglass or metal boats still think wooden boats are the prettiest. They just don’t want to have to take care of one. But I would not have anything else.”

When the two men talk about their 30-year partnership, it sounds more like people discussing a happy marriage than a business arrangement.

“We really don’t have any division of responsibilities,” said Mr. Gannon. “Except that I don’t even attempt to design the boats.”

Even that, though, is collaborative.

“Nat will always bring a preliminary drawing down and ask what I think of it. And if I see something that I think could be made better, he always listens, always goes back to the drawing board.”

And their craftsmanship and aesthetic sensibilities are so much the same, he said, that “a boat will go away for a long time, and when it comes back, we can’t recall or tell who did what on it. When we look at each other’s work, we can’t tell whose is whose.

“We have the same eye. If there is anything different aesthetically, it’s that I tend to make things bigger. He refines more.”

Mr. Benjamin, however, demurs.

“I think Ross is somewhat self-effacing. He often says he doesn’t have the artistic touch. But he does. He has a very graceful sensibility.”

Surely though, in 30 years, they have had disputes?

“Well,” said Mr. Benjamin, “we have had disagreements, usually about what to do with a particular customer, or some difficult financial situation. We have situations that need to be resolved, but we’ve always had enough latitude and tolerance to work things out.”

And they “absolutely never” argue about the central thing, designing and building.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said Mr. Benjamin. “It really is. I wouldn’t want to be in this business alone.”

And the relationship goes way beyond boat building.

“We’ve owned boats together. We had a 72-foot yawl for 10 years. We’ve owned a 64-foot schooner together, General Patton’s old When and If [which they rebuilt when others wanted to scrap her].

“The partnership goes way beyond just owning a boatyard and building boats. It’s also run into our personal lives and family lives, and it’s been a lot of fun.”

But not without its tough times, most notably in 1989, when the boatyard was destroyed by fire.

“I got a call at 1:30 in the morning, saying the boat house was on fire,” Mr. Gannon recalled. “I lived up on Lambert’s Cove Road at the time, and when I went out of the house I could see the glow in the sky. When I got there the building was completely gone.”

It was, he said, an immense setback, but they never considered walking away. And, as Mr. Benjamin puts it, the Island would not have let them.

“The Island community and people beyond the Island came and said essentially, we want you to stay, we want you to go back to work,” he said.

“There were fund-raisers, donations, a lot of manual labor. Literally hundreds of people pitched in and helped us. And all of a sudden we realized we had become a bigger part of the community than we ever expected.”

Mr. Gannon recalled breaking down in tears, at a fund-raiser at the Black Dog. And he recalled his rebuilding effort.

“We worked for about a month cutting all the timber and getting everything ready. And then one Saturday, this building went up. Literally in one day.

“It was an assembly project. There was a photograph, I think in the Gazette, of the nailing down of the floorboards. And there was literally one person for every floor joist. Whoever was cutting the floorboards — in multiples of 16 inches, because that was the spacing of the joists — would throw one down and straight away you’d hear 10 hammers going at once. It was really remarkable, unbelievable.

“It was a disaster that turned into something incredibly wonderful.”

And so, this weekend, on Saturday, from 5 to 8 p.m., they will celebrate their fortunate lives in this place, with a few speeches and a lot of friends, and coworkers and some food and drink.

But no corporate hamburgers.