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CHESAPEAKE BAY LOG CANOES: by Joe Valliant, paintings by Charles Raskob Robinson
"The Magic and the Mystery" shows craft bui/1 in the 1890s and 1930s respectively as they appeared in 1983 races.
"Rounding th e Red Nun " in the Govern or 's Cup of 1981 , the Mag ic (3) leads Island Lark (16), built in circa 1900.
"Into the Ba v: Governor'.1¡ Cup 197J " features Marion C. Marshall and his crell' in ti1e Rover. built circa 1886.
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Across the starting line they go, like a flock of white-winged seabirds with sharp, jutting beaks. Chesapeake Bay log canoes are racing in the muggy heat of a Maryland summer weekend. Nowhere but on the Eastern Shore of Maryland do such boats race. Sleek, low in the water, vastly overs parred for their beam, the Chesapeake Bay log canoe is the end product of over 300 years of hull design and more than 200 yea rs of innovative sail development . Their hull s are literall y shaped from logs. When the first Europeans ventured into Chesapeake Bay, they found the Indians travel ling and fi shing in canoes hacked from a sing le tree by the ancient fire-hollowing method. Some of these canoes were enormous- over 40 feet. Their design was described as "an hogg's trough , but somewhat more hollowed in ." At first, lack of ski lled shipwrights fo rced some colonists to adopt the Indians' building methods, but as the colonies fl ourished, they improved on the Indian vessel, shaping it with steel tools and ap pl ying their knowledge of sails to it . America was a land of timber, and the colonists we re dependent on their canoes for transportation. Soon dugout canoes were ubiquitous. By the end of the 17th century, in response to the need for boats that could be built quick ly and cheapl y to ca rry heavy ca rgo, the multi-log canoe was developed. At first they were catamarans, then three logs bolted or pegged together and then holl owed out . No log canoe racing today has less than three logs in her, and most have five. These logs form the keel and bottom of the vessel ; the sides are fo rmed by rising planks. The logs are bolted together and shaped as desired before the planking goes on. Sails came to the log canoes of the co loni sts in the later 17th century. The earliest records indicate that the so-cal led " Dutch Carpenter's rig" or Bermuda rig appeared soon after the colonists ado pted the dugout from the Indians and sharpened its bow. The Bermuda rig consisted of two raking masts and leg-o-mutton sails, and , despite the fact that a single-masted rig was known to have been used in Tidewater Virginia about the same time, the twomasted rig with a foresa il , mainsai l andjib is the one that survived and evo lved into the present-day racing rig. Oddly enough, centerboards are not known to have been used in log canoes until racing started. The first log canoe with a centerboard was built at St. Michaels, Maryland in 1857 by Robert Lambdin , a prolific boat-builder who is thought to have produced 68 canoes between 1865 and 1894. As the 19th century progressed, log canoes lost their function as ri ve r transportation to steamboats, but were increasingly used by watermen who tonged oysters or netted fi sh in the shallow rivers of the Chesapeake country. By 1880, the US Census reported 6,300 log canoes at work on the Chesapeake. Rac ing probably began as simple contests between individuals who just wanted to see whose boat was fas ter, but interest in the sport was keen enough by 1840 for the first organized races to have been held on the Mil es Riveroff St . Michaels. Within a few yea rs of the Civil War's end , log canoes built specifically for racing began to appear, and the tradition of a unique sporting vessel began. In 1885 the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Club was organized and log canoe races became more carefull y planned. A body of rules was set up, which included a handicapping system to account for the boats' different sizes and characteristics. At the first race sponsored by the CBYC, the first prize was won by the Tilghman Island-built Island Blossom , a vessel that is still raci ng today. In the races of those days , the custom was to offer a cash prize to the winner, and, for the owner of the last boat over the line, a ham "so he could grease her and do better next time." The 1890s and first decade of the 20th ce ntury were the heyday of log canoe racing. After that, the introduction of the gasoline engine into the work boat fl eet spelled the rapid decline of the graceful , sa il -powered working boat that could be rapidl y rigged for weekend racing. SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984