They were used extensively for crab-dredging and other types of fishing. They hauled freight, including grain, hogs, watermelons, fertilizer and lumber. Before the interstate highway was built around 1960, they were the 18-wheelers of their day-the best way to ship goods throughout the mid-Atlantic.
Buyboats would purchase the catch of these boats for cash right there on the water, then transport large loads to commercial docks or packing houses.īut buyboats did so much more. They would anchor in deeper water near oyster beds in the Chesapeake where smaller craft operated by individual watermen harvested bivalves from creeks and shallow riverbeds. Sometimes called deck boats or market boats, buyboats were named for their original role as mobile marketplaces. Built primarily in places like Deltaville, Mathews, Poquoson and Gloucester in the 1920s, these boats were the kings of the Chesapeake for nearly 50 years. Low-slung, long and sleek, with just a small pilot house near the stern, the outline of the Bay buyboat is an iconic silhouette. The Linda Carol was a piece of living history, but she was on life support.īuyboats are special to the Chesapeake Bay. The Laura Mae would have to tow her all the way back to Virginia, and it was unclear whether she would make it or not. The Linda Carol had no power and could barely float. Her mission: Rescue one of the Bay’s storied buyboats, the Linda Carol, built in Mathews County in 1931, and left to rot neglected and forgotten in a Long Island marine salvage yard. She carried on board 400 feet of heavy duty tow rope, five crew members, and the weight of nearly 100 years of Chesapeake Bay history and tradition. In the summer of 2013, the Laura Mae, a 50-foot lobster boat from Virginia, sailed into New York Harbor.
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