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Railway season wraps up at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

With days beginning to shorten and fall approaching, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s marine railway service season will soon be coming to a close. Led by Shipwright James DelAguila, and with the hard work of RPM Foundation Shipwright Apprentice Michael Allen and Seip Family Foundation Shipwright Apprentice Spencer Sherwood, CBMM’s Floating Fleet collection saw many repairs and upgrades.

Of note, skipjack Rosie Parks was rid of some troublesome leaking, Jackson or Pot Pie Skiff is in the process of having a rare historical flexible engine shaft coupling repaired, and the Potomac River Dory Boat is being re-powered with a donated marine diesel engine.

It was an active season for the floating fleet, with seven-log crab-dredger Old Point receiving maintenance just in time for the annual Buyboat Reunion, as well as multiple shorter expeditions by the Rising Tide Summer Camp program. Buyboat Winnie Estelle was her normal busy self with frequent river cruises, while smaller craft were in service as ambassadors around the region, and as support craft for races.

Next up, Mathews cabin cruiser Isabel will receive general maintenance, and tugboat Delaware will be stabilized.

The team is also restoring CBMM’s queen of the fleet and National Historic Landmark Edna E. Lockwood by replacing her nine-log hull, in adherence to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Vessel Preservation. All work takes place in full public view through 2018, when Edna will be placed on the marine railway and launched at CBMM’s OysterFest in October.

To keep up with that project, visit ednalockwood.org. For more on the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, go to cbmm.org

Volunteer Will Lambdin works on the 1931 Potomac River Dory Boat at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md. The boat was recently re-powered with a donated marine diesel engine.