CHESAPEAKE BAY FLAT-BOTTOM WATERMAN'S WORKBOAT ~ DETAILED WOOD MODEL
This week on Ebay, I am offering up this beautiful old, high quality, wooden model of a small Chesapeake Bay watermans's boat.
This is a model of what we locally call a 'skiff,' a small, wide, flat-bottomed, personal Waterman's boat, well suited for navigating the Chesapeake Bay's shallow tributaries.
This beautiful wooden boat model has no signature, name or any identification as to who made it, or when it was made. I don't know if it was built from a kit or scratch-built, but I suspect it was hand-crafted, based on all the amazing attention to detail.
The size is approximately 9" long and 3" wide.
It is painted blue and white, traditional colors here on the Bay, but has no vessel name.
I've not been able to find any information about it online.
It was found in an Antique shop in Chestertown, an old town on the Chester River along Maryland's Eastern shore, many years ago. I've had it on my bookshelves for at least 20 years now, but it needs a new home.
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This type of boat was somewhat unique to the Chesapeake Bay. A specialized, personal, workboat used by local Watermen.
These small workboats were once found all over the waters of the Chesapeake Bay region, everywhere from Rock Hall, Oxford, Hooper’s Island, Smith Island, Crisfield, all the way down to Tangier Island, but it's rare to see an original wooden ones anymore. Most modern ones are aluminum or fiberglass.
This was a classic, sturdy, workboat used by most local watermen on the Bay.
These boats had a flat bottom and a shallow draft of just two or three feet, making them ideal for the shallow areas of the Chesapeake Bay.
Chesapeake Bay workboats are not normally things of beauty. They were built to be tough, durable, capable, and versatile. Built to survive weather, waves, and wind, but these old, small wooden workboats were both functional and things of beauty.
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The detailing on this model is amazingly accurate, revealing every detail. This model was clearly made with thought, care, and deep insider knowledge.
The design of these old wooden workboats were a perfect example of the fusion of function and beauty.
The overall workboat shape combines a sharply pointed, slightly elevated bow, to efficiently cut thru the Bay’s waters, and a square 'box' stern to add stability in the Bay’s choppy waters.
This model has a nice sturdy solid wooden bow tie, complete with some rope still attached.
The sides, or freeboards, are high enough to protect the Waterman from rough water and spray, but low enough to allow the operator easy access to reach down to the waterline. The sides are reinforced with vertical planking for strength.
To achieve even more stability, the boat has a very wide beam compared to it's length. A strong, wide, wooden centerboard is mounted in the middle to provide both a big comfortable seat and added structural stability.
The hull is flat-bottomed, except for a long, but very shallow keel, which helped keep the boat going in a smooth straight line, in shallow water, so it was perfect for crab trotlining.
The overall shape and design was simple, but ingenious and well thought out, and very forgiving when the Bay turned rough.
For a small boat, there is a lot of leg room and a large open work area.
This boat has a wide wooden flat bottom with longitudinal raised boards on the floor to add strength, but they also create a stable raised platform to keep gear, nets, footwear and your catch dry and not shifting around.
There's plenty of raised flat workspace at the bow and stern, for sorting the catch and keeping tools & gear handy.
The stern sorting deck is designed so that it is low enough, preventing gear, tools and stray oysters & crabs from washing overboard, but also high enough that there's plenty of space underneath it for storing gear and equipment.
The design of the work area is ideal, offering ample space for working tools, nets, storage containers and crab pots.
As I said, the attention to detail is just amazing; all the detailed woodwork, and there's even a simple 'cleat' or post mounted on the gunwale at the stern, used to retrieve crab trotlines and crab pot lines. It has some remnants of an old trotline still attached, a nice touch.
These simple, but well-designed, small personal boats were rock-stable as a work platform, and able to carry and store many bushels of crabs or oysters without returning to shore.
These wooden flatboats were popular in the days before outboard engines were developed, and were usually controlled with a 'pushpole' that helped out in narrow, shallow waters and allowed for a super-stealthy approach. They were handy for getting you into hard-to-reach fishing spots in shallow water.
They were used year round by Watermen to harvest all types of seafood. Catching crabs with a trotline or crab pots, tonging for oysters & clams, fishing for rockfish (striped bass), and even harvesting eels back in the day.
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Mostly, these early flat-bottomed wooden boats were used for 'trotlining' for crabs.
Trotlining is an older method of crabbing using a very very long baited line in the water.
Trotlines would be baited about a foot apart with Tripe, chicken necks or salted eels, all of low value to humans, but delicacies to crabs.
The waterman would line up his boat parallel to the line, lift one end of it up over a smooth 'roller' on the side of the boat, and then slowly move along the line, gently lifting it out of the water and dip-netting or snatching the crabs as they clung to the bait.
The crabs, amazingly and greedily, hang onto the bait till the last second and you just pluck them off the line with a net.
The trick is to be smooth, gentle and methodical as you move down the line.
Keeping your boat the right distance from the trotline and moving along at the right speed was a bit of a trick, especially in choppy water.
Boats like this, with their long, low line and square boxed' stern were perfectly suited for trotlining. The boats were perfect for threading thru the shallow waters of the Bay and it's rivers.
They were low in the water, didn't create much wake or eddies, and the long smooth edges prevented the trotline from getting caught up or fouled.
Trotlining was a very popular way to catch crabs back in the day, before modern crab pots and crab cages were invented and legalized in the 1940's.
As crab potting became the norm in the late 40's, these small wooden boats started to disappear.
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THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FLAT-BOTTOMED WATERMEN'S BOATS
After the Civil War, there was a large demand for seafood and wildfowl, due to the war's destruction of food producing farmlands and food processing facilities, especially here in the Chesapeake Bay region, south of the Mason Dixon line.
This caused many locals to turn to the Bay as a source of food and income.
In the late 1800's, steam-powered sawmills popped up in larger towns around the Bay, making milled planks available for boatbuilding and many new large wooden fishing boats were built.
They were very effective at harvesting all the bounties of the Chesapeake Bay and the local fishing industry grew quickly to feed the Nation.
By the 1880's the Chesapeake Bay's deep-water oyster stocks began to wane from massive over-harvesting, and watermen had to move into shallower waters, leading to the design of smaller, lower draft boats.
Oyster harvesting methods changed from large vessels scraping & dredging, to smaller wooden boats, like this one, that harvested oysters and clams by tonging.
Also around this same time, due to being featured in fancy city restaurants, crabs had evolved from unwanted food for the poor, to high demand delicacies.
Crab harvesting in the Bay took off. Maryland Blue crabs lived in the shallower parts of the Bay, so small wooden crabbing boats, like this one, became very popular for the local Watermen.
Their shallow draft made them ideal for working the shallow tidewaters of the Chesapeake and its tributaries, where the crabs flourished.
By the early 1900's, there were thousands of these small, flat-bottomed, wooden fishing boats working up and down the bay.
The shallow tidal rivers and creeks around the Bay here are constantly reshaping themselves, by moving sand, gravel and mud around. That creates their distinctive meandering patterns, but that also makes them nearly impossible to pass thru with traditional keeled boats.
These Flat bottomed work boats were developed to allow local Watermen to harvest crabs and oysters in areas that larger 'commercial' ships couldn't reach, allowing them to make a decent living.
For many years, these old wooden flat-bottomed boats were one of the most popular boats for crabbing, oystering, eeling, fishing, and exploring the small rivers and creeks of the Bay.
Many were built in this area, but very few survive and they are rare to see on the water today, being replaced by more modern versions.
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This is a beautiful, highly accurate, very well built model of one of the early Chesapeake Bay wooden flat-bottomed fishing boats.
I've always had a love for our local Chesapeake Bay and the Watermen and Workboats that made their living on it.
This model boat would make a perfect gift for someone who remembers these fantastic Chesapeake Bay workboats.
It's a great reminder of the long important history of Watermen here around the Bay. It displays great and would make a great addition to any collection.
It would look terrific along with some old fishing lures, nautical or boating items, or in any maritime collection.
I've had it on a bookshelf, displayed with some local Oyster tins for many years.
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Shipping cost within the lower 48 states is $4.50 for this item.
If you would like insurance, or anything faster than Media Mail, please let me know and I can arrange it for you. I’ll work with you to make sure you’re happy!
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THANK YOU for looking and reading if you got this far. -- JOHN