Lewes Historical Society’s historic boat replica wins first place

The Lewes Historical Society's wooden boat program has created another award-winning replica of a historic boat.

Volunteers of the 9-year-old program displayed their vessel at the 37th Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md., and came home with first place in the Traditional Design - Professional Build category and the People's Choice Award.

Finishing touches on the 17-foot Sharpie, a single-masted sailboat used for oyster tonging in Delaware Bay during the 19th and early 20th centuries, were completed just days before the Oct. 1-3 event which showcased small wooden craft made by amateur and professional boat builders from all over the United States.

Construction of the Sharpie began in November 2018, based on lines and offsets, or basic plans, drawn by John Brady, retired executive director of the Independence Seaport Foundation in Philadelphia. Work was interrupted three times by state-ordered restrictions related to COVID-19 precautions, but the crew was able to finish in time for the festival, one of the nation's largest gatherings of small boat enthusiasts.

The crew also was honored that the judges put their Sharpie in the Professional Build category. The volunteers, who usually work a couple of times a week, built everything from the keel up, including the mast and spars. The custom-made cotton sail was cut and sewn by Andrew Lyter, who is also Lewes Historical Society's director of interpretation and curator of maritime history.

In 2017, the volunteer crew won the People's Choice Award for its Delaware Ducker, a 15-foot replica of a rowboat used in the 19th and 20th centuries for market hunting rail birds in the Great Marsh.

Since 2009, the wooden boat program volunteers also have built a Bevin's skiff, a sailing skiff, an 18-foot touring canoe and a skerry (a double-ended fishing boat). They also have conducted many educational programs in community and school settings where they used boat building as a teaching tool for families, veterans and youth groups. The program’s main objective is to focus attention on Lewes' maritime history, including 250 years of shipbuilding.

Their next several projects include restoration of several society-owned boats: a 1920s-era pilot skiff, a 1940s-era surf boat, a late 1920s Moth sailboat and possibly a 250-year-old English log canoe. An earlier restoration project was a 1910 Delaware Ducker, which is on permanent display in the Lewes Historical Society Museum.

Lewes Historical Society wooden boat program volunteers are Jim Bertholet, Loren Bystol, Jim Connell, Theresa Datillo, Irv Eberhart, Al Failla, Mel Fortney, David Haines, Pete Hansot, Bob Kotowski, Andrew Lyter, Jim McKelvey, Gregg Obrien, Dick Occhetti, Doug Romaine, Chip Seaburg, Scott Swain and Vince Tamburo.