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Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum documents floating fleet, pins logs on Edna

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Shipwright James DelAguila, a former apprentice who recently re-joined CBMM working on the Edna Lockwood restoration project, is leading efforts to update the documentation process for CBMM’s floating fleet of historic Chesapeake watercraft.

Floating fleet of Chesapeake watercraft, including (from left) the 1912 river tug Delaware, the 2002 Smith Island crabbing skiff Volunteer, and the 1934 Hoopers Island dovetail Martha.
Using open-sourced software, CBMM’s shipwrights and apprentices have been streamlining CBMM’s methods of collecting, reporting, and sharing boat conditions over time. The documentation program is helping to guide and improve yearly vessel maintenance, and supports curatorial record-keeping.

CBMM maintains and preserves the largest collection of Chesapeake Bay watercraft in the world, with more than 93 vessels built from the 1880s to the 1980s, including wooden sail, power, and row boats. CBMM’s boatyard maintains a floating fleet and a collection of small craft used for on-the-water programs, with the floating fleet representing most major types of boats used in the region’s fisheries and now seen along CBMM’s waterfront in St. Michaels, Md.

Work continues in CBMM’s boatyard on the 2016-2018 restoration of the 1889 log-bottomed bugeye Edna E. Lockwood, with all nine logs for her new hull now shaped and pinned together. A National Historic Landmark and queen of CBMM’s floating fleet, Edna represents the last of her kind, and is the oldest historic log-hull bugeye still under sail. The restoration work is being done in full public view, and continues through fall 2018. For more information, visit ednalockwood.org or cbmm.org