Sailing Trade Is Active
On no navigable body of water in the United States is there a large trade so distinctive or so thoroughly local as the Chesapeake bay trade of the sailing vessels. These vessels, none of them so very large, carry in a great measure the bulk of the products of the State.
There are about 500 sailing vessels, some of the conventional schooner type that is seen anywhere along the coast and in tropical seas as well, and a great many vessels of the exclusive Chesapeake bay type. Added to these are some 100 barges, with 15 tugs to attend exclusively to bay towing and about 40 passenger and freight steamers.
Perhaps great fortunes are not made by the owners of bay craft, but you seldom find a schooner that does not pay something over her expenses. There are certain seasons for the different trades, and in between these times various charters can be got.
Wheat Season Is On.
Just now the wheat season is on, and every day the smaller type of bay sailing vessels come in and discharge their cargoes. The wheat trade is profitable. It is shared between the smaller schooners, bug-eyes and pungies, power barges, the smaller barges and steamers.
The winter wheat season begins about July 1 and ends about October 1. The first arrival of wheat this year came a few days earlier. The trade is steady during the summer, but there is a lapse of a month between the end of the wheat season and the corn trade.
The corn business opens about November 1 and continues until December. a great deal of the grain brought to Baltimore for export comes from the counties on the Eastern Shore.
The Lumber Trade.
Another important branch of the bay trade is the lumber carrying that is done. With only a few exceptions this trade is confined principally to the larger schooners. It is considerable on the bay, most of the lumber coming from the Virginia rivers or the tributaries on the Eastern and Western Shores of Maryland down near the Virginia line. Although a lot of lumber is brought in the bay trade, it is still only a part of the business to this port, a great deal of the lumber being brought from South Carolina.
It is generally supposed, however, that the typical bay vessel is devoted almost exclusively to the transportation of truck and fruits. Although that branch of the bay trade is taken up by many, the number of vessels engaged in it is in a considerable minority compared with the large number of sailing vessels that follow other lines.
Favorite Anchorages.
There are three places where the bay fleet anchors or ties up. The most important ground is Canton Hollow, where almost every day there are upward of 100 bay traders at anchor. So familiar is the sight of their graceful white hulls and rakishly inclined masts that on the rare days when there are only two or three there it makes the hollow look lonely.
Another place is the upper harbor, or what is called "under the hill." This is a favorite place for a bay trader to drop his hook when he wants to say a while.
But the place where the average person has the chance to look closely at the average bay boat is at Pratt street wharf. It is here that the truck fleet, or the majority of it, ties up to discharge. Everything from the schooner of fair size to the little skip-jack from "down Magothy way" lies by each other in maritime democracy.
Oystering In The Winter.
When the winter sets in and the 'r" months roll around a great part of the fleet takes to oystering. Some of them go in for dredging, but the larger ones prefer to become "run boats" and "buy boats," buying stock from the oystermen and bringing it to Baltimore for disposal.
The trade of these sailing craft is as old almost as the commerce of Baltimore itself. There are vessels afloat today, and still in the trade that were built away back in the fifties.
The Eastern Shore, practically isolated as it is, must depend upon the water for its means of transportation, and the Western Shore, undeveloped in some parts, relies on the bay traders for its commercial intercourse.
Pungies, Bugeyes, Barges.
There are different types of vessels in the bay trade. The schooner, conventional in all parts of the world, differs little from thousands of other schooners, and the real Chesapeake bay characteristics have to be seen in the bugeye and the pungy.
The pungy, too, is little different in appearance from the schooner, except that there is no waist. There is an absence of the graceful, sweeping curve from stem to stern, but when the pungy is under sail and heeling over with the lee rail awash and sails drawing well there is gracefulness and beauty in plenty.
But the bugeye is the one type that is expressive of the Chesapeake. Built of logs and sharp at bow and stern, there is a buoyancy to the hull that makes her an exceptionally fine sailer. Few bugeyes carry topmasts, but the fore and mainmasts are inclined at an
Besides the schooners and bugeyes and pungies the Chesapeake bay barge is an important factor. The barges used by the Baltimore towing companies are usually not converted sailing ships. Most of them are built in Maryland shipyards, the Sharptown Marine Railway turning out very year some up-to-date barges.
Four Men In Crew.
The usual crew of the average bay vessel consists of four men -- the captain, mate, cook and sailorman. When under way all hands work, and work hard. There is no time for chanties or picturesqueness in the bay trade, for there's money to be made for the owners, and it's up to the captain to do it. The crew sleeps whenever it can, for the old Chesapeake has a way of putting up a squall now and then that makes men work to save their vessel.
The bay fleet is increasing, if anything. Every now and then a new bugeye or schooner comes to port, and few of them are ever lost in the bay. So the big fleet continues to hold its own and make a living out of a trade which a big steamboat corporation cannot entirely absorb.