Linda Carol Buyboat Ornament
Description
Our newest ornament celebrates the buyboat industry with the Linda Carol.
The Linda Carol, formerly Croaker, was built in 1931 by Alton and Lennie Smith of Mathews and sold to net fishermen. By the 1940s, she was renamed Velma Bell, reconfigured with a deck and pilothouse and used for hauling oysters. In 1969, Maurice Snow of New Point named her Linda Carol, and dredged crabs. In retirement, Mr. Snow sold her to ocean clammers plying Northeast waters. By 2008, she was in a Long Island salvage yard.
In 2013, Bill Mullis, originally from Gwynn’s Island, acquired Linda Carol and had her towed to Poquoson, Va. There, Capt. Dave Rollins, his son, Dan, and Sid Easley repowered, preserved, and replaced what they could and improved what they dared. She sustained extensive surface damage from a fire in 2014 while in Poquoson but was brought back to life by her restoration crew. Linda Carol is owned by her rescuers and elegantly cruises the waters of Chesapeake Bay today.
The Chesapeake Bay buyboat originated as a one-log dugout canoe with its owners bartering with native Indians for fish and oysters. A ‘business’ arose, taking the catch, from watermen as they fished, to the shore to sell retail to the public. Buyboats of various descriptions – schooners, sloops and bugeyes – became known as runners. In the off-season the boats hauled freight, vegetables, lumber, etc. The first half of the 20th century was the high point of buyboat service.
Buyboats as we know them today evolved when the internal combustion engine was developed. The configuration of an aft pilothouse, high deck, sturdy mast and boom forward of the hold, and a sail for auxiliary power and stability became the norm. Traditionally, a buyboat is 60 – 100’ long and has a 14’ beam.
