We all collaborated at the last minute in making Gampy a birthday gift of an enormous photo album, containing photos taken on our recent grandparent-sponsored trip to Tahiti. Everyone contributed their photos, so we had quite a lot. It was a big hit. I think Gammy and Gampy really like to be able to be so generous. I hope we thank them enough for it.
Finally, while there, I got a chance to check in on a new favorite of mine: a crazy and inspired project being undertaken by some local boaty types in Deltaville, VA. A wealthy woman bequeathed some land to Middlesex County not too long ago, and some of the locals saw an opportunity to make a museum of local boatbuilding on it. The Delaville Maritime Museum was born. It's a small place, in what must formerly have been someone's very ordinary little house. But the people curating the exhibits clearly care a lot about it. The best part by far for me, though, is the F.D. Crockett.
The F.D. Crockett is an old "buyboat" or "deadrise" boat, built in the area in 1924 for Ferdinand Desoto Crockett. It was one of the last and also one of the largest of these utilitarian, flat-bottomed wooden boats built for power before fiberglass came into common use. These so-called "deadrise" boats are regional specialists - built with their flat bottoms to be able to navigate the shallower waters of the Chesapeake and her tributaries. The F.D. Crockett herself was put into service first ferrying goods around the region; she had pigpens built onto her deck at one point. Here's a picture of her when she was still in service (likely as a pleasure boat by the time this photo was taken):
She was donated to the Deltaville Maritime Museum a couple years ago. She still floated, but about the best that could be said of her seaworthiness was that "she tows real good." Since then, four or five regulars have been working to restore her to working order. All of her decking and planking (siding) will need replacing. The deckhouse was un-salvageable. And the ribbing -- the skeleton inside that wide body -- needed complete replacing, too. So really, there won't be a whole lot that's original to this boat when the restoration is complete. Except for her log bottom, which is one of the features that make these boats so unique. They were built more like dugout canoes than modern boats. No plans would have been used; boatbuilders just knew how to build a boat. They started with a log bottom -- in the F.D. Crockett's case, the bottom is made up of nine logs side-by-side. One of the fellows working on the boat told me the technique then was the "mostly mulch" approach, meaning that from those nine logs, probably about half the wood would have been chopped and carved away to get the shape of the hull you see above. The rest of the boat they just built up from those logs.
I am totally taken with this project. With the dedication of the men spending their time lovingly restoring this boat. With the quirky history of regional boatbuilding that the F.D. Crockett represents. Here are a couple pictures I took this weekend, at the Chesapeake Maritime Railroad, where the F.D. Crockett is wintering.
This is a photo of the stern (back) of the Crockett sticking out of the shed where the guys work on her. You can see the old log bottom, and the partially replaced planking, as well as the new ribs. The canopy and the vertical planks holding it up is just to keep the rain off while they work. Ultimately, a new deck will be laid down, and a new deckhouse put back on.Below is another photograph taken from the stern. I love that wide, flat belly curving out so extravagantly from the vertical rudder.
Work is continuing over this winter. When I asked the guys how much longer they thought it'd take to finish, the one who likes to call himself Krunch (as in Kaptain...) said "We're going boatin' this summer!".
