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THE SUNDAY CAPITAL, September 7.1997 - A 5__ REGION _______ _cThe end looks close at hand’ for remaining skipjacks' DEAL ISLAND (AP) - At age 76, Art Daniels still spends each summer preparing his skipjack. City of Crisfield, to sail for oyster season. -But with a catch that declines each year and the staggering costs of -keeping the ship afloat, his invest ment provides little return.That — and state laws strictly regulating the use of skipjacks in -dredging for oysters — explainswhy the nation's last commercial sailing fleet is fading away.Last season, only 10 skipjacks worked the oyster beds And few of them ever lifted a sail to do so“We're vanishing. I’ll put it that way,” said Mr. Daniels.He started oystering with his father around Tangier Sound at age 17 and has been sailing City of Crisfield since he bought it in 1951.Blessed with good health, he has no intention of stopping work, but the costs pile up and he has less and less company on the waterThe end looks close at hand, he said.Maryland’s oyster beds have been ravaged by disease, cutting a harvest that stood at 15 million bushels in the 1860s to 2 million a century later. In 1995, the oyster harvest was150.000 bushels, according to Wade Murphy, who sails the Rebecca T. Ruark, a schooner converted to a skipjack, out of TilghmanPractically all of those oysters were collected by watermen using motorized workboats, Mr Murphy said.When the dredging season begins again this November, there are likely to be even fewer.One problem, said Mr. Daniels, is a state law dating back to the 1800s.It prohibited motorized dredging,fearing that could wipe out oysterbars.That left skipjack owners relying solely on the wind and the vagaries of the local weather.In the 1960s, state legislators modified the law, allowing skipjacks to use motors while dredgingon Mondays and Tuesdays.With so few oysters available, skipjack captains rarely use sail power any more, Mr Murphy said.Mr. Daniels believes if the state is interested in seeing the skipjacks survive as a commercial fleet. Maryland lawmakers need to add at least one more “power day to make the investment of keeping the ships afloat worthwhile-
Newspaper Details
Annapolis Sunday Capital
Annapolis, Maryland, US
Sun, Sep 07, 1997
Page 40
Full Page
Clipped by
Anne A.
MD, USA 22 Apr 2018
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