The old sea captain eased his skipjack next to the wharf with a well-seasoned hand. He could almost do it blind-folded; just by getting the feel of the waves pushing against the boat and listening to the flutter of the sails. He docks the skipjack by the bucket lift – one that will soon weigh his catch of oysters and pay him his measure of his worth on this bleak day in March.
“Drudging is almost done
now”, he murmurs to his mates as he views the paucity of oysters culled at the
end of a long and laborious day on the water.
His crew would wind in the dredges, now resting on either side of the
deck over thirty times a day. Each time there
seemed to be fewer live oysters. “I
think this is it”, he utters sadly to no one in particular. Drudging for
oysters is just about over.
When
Captain John Smith arrived on the Chesapeake Bay in 1608, the oysters were as
big as a dinner plate. Nine inches
across and succulent beyond description.
A day’s catch could be hauled up
in just a few hours, and a man could be well-fed with just a half-dozen or
so. The reefs were so large that at low
tide, the skipper would have to post a watchman to help the steersman maneuver
the vessel around them. And the reefs were so abundant that a waterman could
drop a dredge almost any place in the bay and be assured of a bountiful
catch. The bay gave up 15 million
bushels of oysters a year in 1880, dredged up by over 800 skipjacks that
traversed the bay for eight months of the year. This year, however, the bay
gave up less than 80,000 bushels of oysters.
Dredging profitably for oysters is just about over.
“Something
must be done”, cried the conservative congressmen in Annapolis, “We need to
preserve the oysters, and the tradition of dredging as a way of life along the
Chesapeake Bay.” Just as Margaret
Mitchell said of the Old South with its charm and grace, now “Gone with the
Wind” so the waterman’s way of life and the oysters that supported it will soon
be “gone with the waves”. Something must
be done.
There
were telltale signs of the bays depleting supply of oysters. In 1878, Lt Edward Francis Winslow conducted
a major survey of the bay’s oyster beds.
He found that when dredges broke up oyster rocks, the oysters seemed to
grow bigger from having more room to grow. This also increased production of
oyster larvae. Once attached to a
surface, such as oyster shells, the larvae become spat which become the next
generation of edibale oysters. However, his recommendations to preserve and
regulate the oyster beds were rejected.
That year, the live oyster take decreased by almost a half bushel per
acre of oyster beds.
The
high demand for oysters continued but the oyster harvests were steadily
declining. By 1900, deep water oyster
beds were depleted. This gave rise to a
new type of fishing boat – one that would not go out on the oceans but remain
in the shallow portions of the bay. This
new boat, with a shallow draft, a sharply raked mast, and extremely long boom, started appearing on the bay in order to access
shallow oyster beds closer to shore. This new boat was called a
“skipjack”.
Debate remains to this day as to the origins of
the name. Some speculate it came from a name New England fisherman called the flying fish. Still others claim
it is derived from an archaic English term, meaning an “inexpensive yet
useful servant.” The skipjacks were
inexpensive to build and easy to operate.
The hull
is wooden and V-shaped, with a hard chine
and a square stern. In order to provide a stable platform
when dredging, skipjacks have very low freeboard and a wide beam, averaging one
third the length on deck. A centerboard
is constructed in lieu of a keel. The mast is hewn from a single log, with two
stays on either side, without spreaders; it is stepped towards the bow of the
boat, with a small cabin. As typical in regional practice the bow features a
curving longhead under the bowsprit, with carved and painted trailboards. A
typical skipjack is 40 to 50 feet in length. The boats use direct link Edson
worm steering gear mounted immediately forward of the transom.
The dredge windlass and its motor
are mounted amidships, between the mast and deckhouse. Rollers and bumpers are
mounted on either side of the boat to guide the dredge line and protect the
hull. Due to state laws, the boat has no motor other than for the windlass.
Most skipjacks were eventually modified with stern davits to
hold a dinghy or pushboat which allowed easy access to and from port. Because
they were inexpensive and easy to build, most skipjacks were built in back yard
of homes along the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake. At one time, the number of skipjacks built
is estimated at approximately 2,000. The skipjack was designated the state boat
of Maryland in 1985, and is the state’s only commercial fishing fleet.
However, just as the oyster
harvests began to decline, so too did the skipjack fleet. These magnificent wooden boats were built to
last about 25-30 years. After that, it
was too expensive or too labor intensive to refurbish rotten planks or repair
worn decks. Many of the old captains thought it was just not worth the effort;
so the skipjacks were towed up one of the numerous creeks in the marshes of the
Eastern Shore, and left to rot in the salt waters of the bay.
Built by Sylvester Muir, Oriole, MD 1905. Dredge # 3. Photographed 1993 at Knapps Narrows, Tilghman Island, MD. Randolph George. Memoir of a Skipjack.
A way of life was quickly vanishing. Bone-chilling tales of captains and crew who
braved the frigid waters of the bay to earn a living were fading from
memory. Historic battles fought over
fishing rights and against Virginia watermen were almost lost to history, and
tragic stories of vessels capsized in violent storms and hurricanes up and down
the bay grew fainter from the collected memories of watermen in towns along its
shores. Packing houses, which once numbered hundreds from Baltimore to
Crisfield, began to decay and the trains that carried freshly packed oysters up
the Delmarva Peninsula and across the country, began to rust. Indeed a way of life was quickly
vanishing. “Something must be done”
people said over and over again. Something
would be done. Help came, but from three
very divergent: an itinerant tinkerer, President
George W. Bush, and a dedicated group of visionaries in Cambridge, MD called
the “Committee of 100”. Together, they
pledged to do something, and a plan began to take shape to preserve and promote
the great heritage of Maryland’s skipjacks.
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