Although many Chesapeake Bay crab pot fishermen have switched from large wooden boats to small outboard fiberglass boats, there is still demand for deadrise boats 40 feet and over.
Wayne Hudgins, owner of Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina in Port Haywood, Va., is a commercial crabber and works the crab boat the Miss Violet II.
Hudgins has recently fiberglassed the 39' x 11.5' x 3.5' wooden hull of the Miss Violet II and plans to install a new Cummins QSC 8.3-liter, 600-horsepower, 6-cylinder diesel engine. The boat was built by Jerry Pruitt of Tangier Island, Va., in 1986.
When finished, the hull will be coated with five coats of the West Epoxy System using 1708 biaxial fiberglass cloth with 3/4-ounce mat backing and 545 Awlgrip Epoxy primer. An Awlcraft 2000 acrylic urethane topcoat finish will be applied.
The boat also received four new salt-treated wood bulkheads, new spruce pine washboards and decking, and mahogany guardrails with a new brass rub rail.
Some bay watermen are on the lookout for good used wooden deadrise boats to work in the crab and oyster fisheries. "If a waterman works a 450-crab-pot license, he needs a boat that can carry and move a lot of pots in a hurry," says Hudgins. "If he leases private oyster grounds, a larger boat is better for that work."
Virginia's public oyster fishery has an eight-bushel harvest limit per day for a single licensed boat, and a 16-bushel limit when two licensed oystermen share a boat. "Watermen in the public fishery do not need a 40-foot deadrise workboat to carry 16 bushels of oysters to the dock," says Hudgins. "But, with no harvest bushel limit on private [leased] oyster grounds, the larger boats are still needed in that business."
Jerry Pruitt built boats on Tangier Island in the 1980s and '90s. Now in his 80s, Pruitt no longer builds boats, but his older vessels remain in high demand. "Watermen keep in touch as to where the boats are that were built by Jerry Pruitt, Grover Lee Owens, Willard Norris, and Edward Diggs," says Hudgins. "If one comes up for sale, they are often standing in line to buy it. They all built beautiful boats with sharp as a razor V-shaped bows."
The sharp V-deadrise built into those boats handles the bay's choppy seas extremely well. With the exception of Jerry Pruitt, all the other builders mentioned are deceased.
Ella K.
Hudgins recently purchased the 1918 buyboat Ella K. (49.5' x 14.1' x 4.1'), built by James Smith of Perrin, Va. "I guess the best I can say about her is that her 6-71 Detroit diesel got her over here, and I did not have to tow her," says Hudgins. "Also, the boat is narrow enough that I can haul her on my railway. If she had been a foot wider, I would not have taken her on." Horn Harbor's railway cannot haul anything wider than 15 feet.
"It is going to take a lot of work to get her back in shape, but there is still work out there in the oyster business for her, and they are not building any more like her," says Hudgins.
Jimmy Drewry
On a final note, boatbuilder Bill Keeling — who was at the yard working on a new engine in a deadrise workboat he recently built — reports that a "new build" classic wooden deadrise boat is underway by boatbuilder Jimmy Drewry in Hampton, Va. Any time a keel is laid for a new wooden commercial fishing boat in Virginia, it is news.
