Featured Chesapeake Bay Skipjack - Ralph T Webster - Photo

This is something I picked up recently - large (15 x 20) black and white photograph of the Chesapeake Bay skipjack Ralph T Webster in action. Signed by the photographer Lynn Johnson (published in National Geographic et al).

Not an antique but I thought I'd post because it's a beautiful photo - and the history of the skipjack boats are interesting to me. The skipjacks were originally built in the early 1900's as dredging / oyster harvesting boats in the Chesapeake Bay. What's more interesting is some of them are still in use today, and are the "last working boats under sail in the United States". The last commercial fleet of sailboats in the U.S. Pretty cool.

Some links:
About the skipjack fleet:

http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/boat.html

More from wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipjack_(boat)

The current resting place of the skipjack in my photo:

http://lastskipjacks.com/boats/ralphtwebster.html

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Very nice.

 

Oh, how sad!

I love your photo.

 

I can't believe that this skipjack, with so much history and registered historically, has become a wreck.

Here's a page with a photo from 1983:
http://mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRDetail.aspx?NRID=876

 

Thank you - I was looking for more pictures of the one in my photo - this is wonderful.

 

Chesapeake Bay, oh my, brings back memories of blue crabs & crab feasts in summer with cold beer in the Bay area. I miss it!

 

Nothing like a bushel of crabs dumped out on some newspaper and a cold one...or three.

 

YES! ABSOLUTELY! heaven on earth actually. It's the only thing i really miss about growing up in DC, the food!!! And when time didn't allow a visit to the Bay i could always get my seafood fix at Chrisfield restaurant just over the line on Georgia Ave in silver spring. Oh Lord! just thinking about those jumbo shrimp stuffed with blue crab is making me wanna do a road trip right now! and the seafood bisque! oh man!
http://www.crisfieldseafood.com/

 

It's making me hungry too - I live in VA but pretty close to the Potomac and there are several crab shacks nearby that get bay crabs in fresh daily. I might just have to go get a couple dozen tonight...

 

Yeah, i see you are in Fredericksburg, CLOSE ENOUGH! alas, i am not anymore, moved to charlotte nc in 2000.

 

I'm in Connecticut.(sigh) All the crab I see is frozen.

 

Well, I live in Iowa, so... you can just imagine that we don't have any but frozen here.

 

Well Evelyb, you do have a lot of old furniture up that way so you got THAT goin for you!

 

Now just try and sell any of it!

 

I have bought some! i have a 1750 conn tavern table with cherry wood turned base. lets see, i have an ex george dudley seymour painted blanket chest that was SUPPOSED to be from conn but i say, probably hadley mass.

 

Figtree, you got fresh corn & bacon! it ain't crab but it ain't bad!

 

James, I lived in Bethesda for 20+ years. My first "real" job was on Georgia Ave in Silver Spring, and I took my first big "potential client" to Crisfield (despite the un-presuming decor, the meeting was a success!) Went there many times in the years to follow...

 

Pass on all three but I'll go!

 

King, DH & I spent a long weekend on a sailboat on Chesapeake Bay a few years back. It was lots of fun!

p.s. No beer for me, either! I can't even stand the SMELL of it!

Shellfish, on the other hand... When I was growing up & spent all my summers at our beach house on Long Island Sound, we had a "clambake" every single weekend, with fresh seafood right from the docks, and corn & tomatoes from a local farm. Believe me, it was heaven!

 

Nice! Been too long since I have sailed.
I copied almost every main deck aluminum part on a Navy Chief's 23' in Pearl Harbor '73 - '74 and hand made it all of stainless including a crossbroke backsplash in the galley.
I got to sail whenever I wanted.
Then I was on a 44' off Waikiki for a day in '86.
Then a big cat on Lake Mead for a day in the mid '80s.
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Beer makes me ill to smell it as well. Don't get it, yuk.
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Had crab once...no thanks....
Didn't like the taste and then needed to eat after all the work to eat it!