Skipjacks At The End Of The World

I escaped to Deal Island yesterday to support efforts to restore Stoney Whitelock’s skipjack Kathryn. Deal Island isn’t quite at the end of the world, but the road starts running out of mileposts there. It is not somewhere you just stumble upon on the way to somewhere else, at least not by land. If you’re there, you either were going there deliberately or you got lost.

However, if you like skipjacks, it’s worth a visit. More of the remaining skipjacks sail out of Deal Island ports than any other area. Or at least can be seen there, if they aren’t quite up to sailing.

Without heading down to Wenona at the far end of Deal Island, where there probably were a couple more of the boats, I found four at Chance and one more across the channel on Deal Island proper. Only two of the five were afloat, Fannie L. Daugherty and Hilda M. Willing. Fannie is looking better than usual, as she just received a new mast. Hilda is looking increasingly like a working Deal Island skipjack, having changed owners last year and relocated from the Baltimore area.

The other three were up “on the hard” at Scott’s Cove Marina. Ada Fears looks seaworthy enough. I’m not sure what work she is having done.

Kathryn is undergoing complete restoration under a shelter there, through the help of Mike Vlahovich and the Coastal Heritage Alliance. With her bottom planks gone, I could stick my head up into her and see the new frames already shaping her hull.

Helen Virginia ended up at Scott’s Cove on jack stands after Stoney towed her down the Bay from Cambridge earlier this month. Her mast is gone, as are the temporary plywood patches on her waterline that had kept the water out long enough to get her to Deal Island. The tow was not kind to the already rotted wood to which the lines were attached and she looks rougher than ever.

The work to be done on these boats takes considerable resources, both money and manpower. Yesterday’s community event was to raise some funds for Kathryn’s work. I wondered how many outsiders like me they could expect to come all the way down there for the hotdogs and soft crab sandwiches. Trying to raise money for the significant costs of the restoration from within a small, workingman’s local community has to be challenging.

Unlike the Nathan, these are all privately owned vessels. Every one of them has an individual who owns her, who cares about her beyond reason, and who is committed to keeping her alive. The only boards they have to deal with will be shaped into bottom planks.

…Now, that’s an idea…