Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
"42-foot oyster boat known for its speed; OSVs converted to menhaden steamers," Rivertime Marine, Deltaville, Va.; Omega Shipyard, Moss Point, Miss. |
Collection |
National Fisherman Articles by Larry Chowning |
Catalog Number |
2020.9.2.572 |
Date |
JULY, 2016 |
Scope & Content |
NATIONAL FISHERMAN, JULY, 2016, Pg. 35 AROUND THE YARDS, SOUTH "42-foot oyster boat known for its speed; OSVs converted to menhaden steamers," By Larry Chowning For most of his life, Bill Keeling has worked the water and built and re- paired boats in Eclipse, Va. In March, he sold his boatshop and home in Eclipse and purchased a house and boatshop in Bohannon, Va., where he plans to con- tinue to work on wooden boats. Keeling’s passion for wooden boats goes back to his youth. He learned boat- building from his father and great-uncle, who were boat carpenters, and from craftsmen at area boatyards. Eclipse is just a few miles down the road from Crit- tenden, Va., once a major boatbuilding center of the lower Chesapeake Bay. Keeling, a master builder and restorer of wooden boats, is noted for restoring classic yachts. He honed his skills during the mid-1990s, restoring a 1939 44-foot Elco Cruisette and the Hiawatha, a 1937 53-foot Elco Commuter. He recently restored the Nymph, a 75-foot double- ender motor yacht built in 1913 by Mat- thews Boat Co. in Port Clinton, Ohio. Yacht restoration is just a part of Keel- ing’s boatbuilding career; he is just as well known as a builder of Chesapeake Bay workboats. In April, Travis Hall of patent tong hard-clam fishery. The Kerry Shannon’s sides and stem are strip-planked with North Carolina juniper. The frames, bottom planks and keel are fir, and the stem is white oak, says Keeling. "Juniper makes her a light boat, and she will fly with that 430-hp Cummins engine. He [Hall] has been winning some workboat races with her." Keeling built the boat for himself. "I worked her hard in the Chesapeake Bay, and l sold her to a waterman who worked her hard in [Virgin- ia’s] winter crab-dredge fish- ery. She has seen some hard work in her life and has held up good. I’m glad to know she is still out there working." The Kerry Shannon "is a great boat, and Bill Keeling knows how to build a good boat — one that will last," says Hall who uses his boat in Virginia’s win- ter oyster fishery. Mathews County', Va., had the Kerry Shannon, his Keeling 42 deadrise oyster boat, on the blocks at Rivertime Ma- rina in Deltaville, Va. Keeling has built a dozen or so of these deadrise boats. Hall was doing routine springtime maintenance on the 42' x 12' Kerry Shannon that Keeling built in the mid- 1980s. He used the boat in Virginia’s Moving down to the Gulf of Mexico, the Omega Shipyard in Moss Point, Miss., is converting two 180-foot steel Gulf of Mexico offshore oil supply ves- sels to menhaden steamers for the Ome- ga Protein plant in Reedville, Va. They will harvest menhaden in Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic. "We bought them last year and started the conversion in March," says Monty' Deihl, general manager of the Reedville plant. "We plan to have them in service by the start of the 2017 season." The menhaden season starts in May. The steamers will use two purse boats on the fishing grounds. Traditionally steamers have carried menhaden purse boats to and from the fishing grounds hanging from davits. However, the new style, which will be used on these steam- ers, features a wide stern deck to carry the two purse boats, side by side. The deck slants down to the water, allowing the two boats to slide off the stem together and into the sea. Going to the grounds and back, the purse boats are held in place with a hook and cable that runs from the deck to a U-shaped bolt at the top of each purse boat’s stem. The steamers will be similar to the Rappahannock and the Fleeton, the two newest menhaden steamers in Omega’s Chesapeake Bay fleet. They were also OSV platforms that were rebuilt at the Mississippi yard in 2013. "We are in the process of upgrading our fleet to steam- ers that will all have a stem slide system," says Deihl. "Compared to the old steam- ers that used davits to haul the boats, our new steamers are much safer and faster." |
Source |
Chowning, Larry |
Imagefile |
011\202092572.JPG |