The Historic Skipjack

The Chesapeake Bay skipjack is the last true working sailboat in North America, having survived as a class of vessel more than one hundred years of industrial progress. Designed and built by the watermen of the Chesapeake Bay from the end of the nineteenth century until the present day, they remain one of the ubiquitous symbols of the Bay. They were built to dredge for oysters, providing a wide, stable and powerful platform to do so. The vessels were built quickly and using materials that were not known for their longevity, which might explain why so few are around today.

Built to a ratio, rather than a plan, they were not terribly complex ships. The rule of threes was important: the beam (width of the hull) was one third the length on deck; and the bowsprit was the same length as the beam. The overall length of the vessel (length on deck plus bowsprit) was also the height of the mast, while the length of the boom at the base of the triangular mainsail was the length on deck.

The hull was shallow, drawing no more than three feet, with a centerboard to provide lateral resistance against leeway. The hull also had a sharp "V" outline, known as deadrise, with fore and aft planking on the sides giving way at the sharp chine to athwartship planking to the keel.

The origin of the name "skipjack" has been is guessed at, but is really unknown. In records of the day, they were called "two-sail bateaux" for obvious reasons when seen under sail. The large triangular mainsail and smaller self-tending jib, more than 900 square feet of sail, give the vessel significant power. Combined with the shallow hull, these wide boats proved to be stable to a point ... once they reached that point, they were just as stable upside down as right side up.

Engineless boats by law and custom, they use a small pushboat to get them on and off the dock and to power through lulls in the wind. While dredging, they were once required to haul up the pushboats on their stern davits to show the natural resources officers that they were dredging under sail. The regulations have loosened to allow greater use of these boats, but they are still able to make a profit because they can keep more of their catch than others.

There were once hundreds, if not a thousand, skipjacks plying the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, but by the 1980's there were less than 35 that were able to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Of those original 35, built between the 1880's and 1950's, only 19 are still afloat and only 11 are still actively dredging on the Chesapeake Bay. A further 8 are land displays at museums or in some cases are in some neglected corner of a boatyard. Most of those that are still afloat were built in Maryland, though a few were from Virginia. The second most famous skipjack in existance, the City of Crisfield, was built in Reedville, VA in the 1950's. The Rebecca T. Ruark is the oldest and most famous, but the late Captain Art Daniels owned and sailed the City of Crisfield, and that dude was amazing.

I'm lucky enough to be relief-Captain on one of those still afloat: the Claud W. Somers of the Reedville Fishermen's Museum, in Reedville, VA. She's one of the few Virginia-built boats still sailing, being one of Tom Young's works of art, built in 1911. There's not much left of the original wood on the boat, but as I tell new crew, these boats are an amalgam of everyone that has ever sailed on her. Something rots, we replace it and the cycle goes on until there's no one left to replace it. I like to think that there will be enough of these old girls sailing the Chesapeake for decades to come.