Evans Boat Construction & Repair of Crisfield, MD, seems to always be at the forefront of developing and building a desired platform for mid-Atlantic inshore commercial fishermen.
Recognizing a growing market for a shallow draft, wide beam, and sturdy platform scow in the Mid-Atlantic oyster and clam aquaculture fisheries, the firm has just introduced a fiberglass 25.8’ x 8.5’ scow well suited for those fisheries and others.
History
Husband and wife Eugene and Rose Evans, grew up on Smith Island, Md., where Eugene started his working life as a commercial waterman. Together, they founded Evans Boat Construction and Repair in 1980 in Crisfield.
Some of the best boatbuilders of F/V boats in the United States started out as commercial fishermen, building a boat for themselves to go work the water and end up full-time boatbuilders.
The Evans family is a case in point. Evans married Rose, his childhood sweetheart, in 1970 at the age of 17, and went straight to work on the water. Eugene got a reputation as a good waterman and for a good repairer of wooden boats. Eventually, as more and more calls came for him to work on boats, it led to the full-time boatbuilding business.
Eugene also recognized well before other traditional Chesapeake boatbuilders that fiberglass boats were the future for commercial fishermen, and he shifted early from working in wood to fiberglass.
He was unique in that he was Chesapeake Bay born and bred and came from a wooden boat culture to build fiberglass workboats. Whereas in Virginia, the early development of fiberglass workboats in the 1970s and 80s started with non-traditional workboat builders who came from other areas of the country. None of them are in business today, but Eugene and his family are still at it.
The Evans business success has been strongly tied to being a family-run business with Eugene and Rose running the business until retiring in 2020, and their daughter, Christina, son David Sr., along with grandson David Jr., taking over the company.
The scow
“Years ago, we discontinued the Evans Scow,” says David Sr. “This past year, we were able to obtain a beautiful scow mold that seriously fit the bill of what we firmly believe in and that is designing a boat that is practical for working on the water.”
David Sr. said that most of the firms’ inquires on the new scow are coming from Virginia and the Carolinas where bi-value growers are using off-the-bottom cage and bag aquaculture techniques to grow oysters and clams.
He says the firm brought the Evans Scow design back because they recognized market shifts in several fisheries. The boat is also a good platform for working in Virginia’s public oyster fishery, where oystermen use a small 21” wide dredge easily adapted to the scow.
The scow is also trailerable, which makes it attractive for working in the Mid-Atlantic soft-shell crab fishery as watermen trailer their boats to fishing grounds following spring “crab runs,” moving from river to river. The scow’s wide platform allows crabbers to move large numbers of pots in a hurry.
“We have been around for a long time and part of it is because my Dad had an understanding of the needs of commercial fishing and when he saw a change in the fisheries he would make those changes in the style of boat we built,” says David Sr. “We see a market for an affordable fiberglass scow and we think we are offering watermen a real good one.”
The boat is made of solid glass and maximum power is 115 h.p. outboard engine. The scow is sold as a bare hull for $25,500. “We can also build the consoles and seating and anything else the customer may desire as well,” he says.
