Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
"1918 Chesapeake deadrise still running; 31-footer can haul 19,000 pounds," Smith's Marine Railway, Yorktown, Va.; Cockrell's Marine Railway, Heathsville, Va.; Sinepuxent Boatworks, Berlin, Md. |
Collection |
National Fisherman Articles by Larry Chowning |
Catalog Number |
2020.9.2.565 |
Date |
MARCH, 2016 |
Scope & Content |
NATIONAL FISHERMAN, MARCH, 2016, Pgs. 38-39 AROUND THE YARDS, SOUTH "1918 Chesapeake deadrise still running; 31-footer can haul 19,000 pounds," By Larry Chowning Brothers Nathan, Tim and Jamie Smith are the sixth generation of Smiths to own and operate Smith’s Marine Railway along Chisman Creek in Yorktown, Va. The Smith family, originally from Mathews County, spread out over the Tidewater region, and many are boat- builders to this day. Peter B. Smith was one of those, moving to Yorktown in 1840, in need of waterfront property with a good stand of trees for boatbuild- ing. He started the boatyard in 1842. The 49.3’ x 14.1' x 4.1’ Ella K. is cur- rently on the rails at Smith’s Marine railway. The late James "Big Jim" Smith of Perrin, a relative of the Smiths, built her in 1918. The Ella K. was recently purchased by a James River oysterman and will be used to dredge oysters in the river. "We are painting the bottom, do- ing routine maintenance, and repairing some decking," says Tim Smith. The Ella K.’s stem is spoon shaped, which is seen on Chesapeake Bay wooden deadrise boats built prior to the 1920s. As builders perfected the round- stem style and increased the beam in the boats, boatbuilders made the sterns rounder rather than spoon shaped. The Ella K. was the last "drudge" boat that worked from the sides in Virginia's winter crab dredge fishery. It was a fish- ery that for years had been exclusively worked by deck boats, like the Ella K., pulling a dredg off each side of the boat. In the 1960s, watermen began to modify 42- to 45-foot traditional deadrise work- boats and shifted to hauling two dredges off the stern. Virginia’s winter crab dredge fishery was closed for con- servation reasons in 2008 and has remained so. Another old-tnne Virginia boatyard is Cock- rell’s Marine Railway in Heathsville, which has just finished a 31' x 11.6' x 8" garvey-style flat-bottom boat that was mentioned in the NF December issue Around the Yards South column. Cockrell’s Marine Rail- way and the Oyster Company of Vir- ginia from North. Va., have partnered and are using the new boat in their cage growing oyster aquaculture business. The cage business caters mainly to the nation’s half-shell market and is sold by the piece to high-end restaurants in big cities. When ready to harvest, a cage weighs about 500 pounds. On Dec. 17, Myles Cockrell and crew hauled 38 cages on the Little Wicomico River. That’s 19,000 pounds on the boat. The 31 -footer handled that weight with rela- tive ease. "We can put more on it, but we are taking it slow so we can see ex- actly what she will hold," says Cockrell. The boat holds 100 empty cages. The 4' x 3’ cages are placed in shallow water on a longline with two anchors at each end. The cages are hauled into the boat with a stainless steel hydraulic winder, fabricated by Cockrell’s Marine Railway. A 20-foot aluminum mast and an 18-foot gaff help to hoist the cages. A 250-hp Suzuki outboard pow- ers the boat. The boatyard fabricated a 5-foot-wide stem bracket that sits 36 inches off the stem. This frees up space inside the boat when hauling cages. The bracket also raises the outboard 6 inches above the stern gunwale, which allows the boat to work in thin water. Cockrell’s Marine Railway is a fourth-generation boatyard known for its diversification. Boats are built in the yard, and boats are hauled on the railway and repaired. The crew works in the oyster fishery and installs piers and pil- ings. An unusual feature of the boatyard is that it has its own sawmill for cutting large lumber for Chesapeake Bay’s aging wooden workboat fleet. Many large wooden workboats on the bay were built with 3-inch-thick bot- tom planks. "We can’t get 3-inch-thick lumber anywhere," says Andy Cockrell. "Now we don’t use the mill very much. But when we need a piece of wood that we can’t get anywhere else, we have the capability to make it right here." The Cockrells keep large pieces of white oak and spruce pine in stock. Another southern boatbuilder with good news to share is Joey Miller of Sinepuxent Boatworks in Berlin, Md. He just delivered a 23-foot fiberglass over wood deadrise skiff to commercial crabber and fishermen Dean Bowie of southern Maryland. Miller says Bowie has religiously read National Fisherman for over 30 years and decided on Miller’s style of boat after reading about his boatshop in one of the Around the Yards columns. |
Source |
Chowning, Larry |
Imagefile |
011\202092565.JPG |