Shesapeake bay "YAWL" Pushboat of the Skipjack "Kathryn" - Martin Peebles, Brian Kimura [1995, JPEG]

Shesapeake bay "YAWL" Pushboat of the Skipjack "Kathryn"

Year: 1995
Language: english
Author: Martin Peebles, Brian Kimura
Genre: Practical guide
Format: JPEG
Quality: Scanned pages
Pages count: 9
Description: The builder of KATHRYN's yawl is unknown. All of the hull frames, the stem 2nd stern poet are oak- The hull 2nd deck planks are yellow pine. The hull exterior was covered with fiberglass to approximately 1' above the waterline.
KATHRYN is an early example of the two-sail bateau, or "skipjack," an oyster dredging vessel that appeared in numbers on the Chesapeake Bay in the late 1890's. Skipjacks were cheaper and easier to build than the pungies, bugeyes, and sloops that were previously built for dredging oysters on the Chesapeake. In the twentieth century, skipjacks became the dominant vessel type in the Maryland oyster fishery. Maryland law restricted the use of power vessels for oyster dredging, which has kept skipjacks active in the fishery to the present day. The Maryland skipjacks are today the only fleet of commercial fishing vessels still working under sail. The presence of oyster diseases, particularly M5X (Multinucleate Sphere Unknown) and the fungus Dermo, have wiped out many of the once abundant oyster beds on the Chesapeake Bay. These diseases are threatening the entire oyster fishery and may force the few remaining skipjacks out of the industry.