Oyster buy-boat

Buy-boats, also known as deck boats, were approximately 40–90 foot long wooden boats, with large open decks, found most often on the Chesapeake Bay but also present in the waters off the Washington coastline, which made the rounds to purchase oysters from tongers (fishermen who used long tongs to pull oysters from the water) and dredgers. Once the oysters were transferred to the buy-boat, they were taken to a wholesaler or oyster processing house where they could be prepared for sale. This service allowed fishermen to be more efficient by sparing them the need to return to shore as often. The buy-boats might also buy seed oysters, or spat, to be planted in oyster beds.

Buy-boats saw their heyday in the first half of the 20th century when most oysters from the Chesapeake Bay were harvested by tongers in small flat bottomed row boats, or dredged by sail powered skipjacks. Interstate highways, bridges and tunnels such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, and smaller bridges that span the many tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay were non-existent prior to the 1950s, therefore it was much faster to haul seafood to market by boat than by truck. Many buyboat captains also used their vessels to transport freight such as fresh produce, grain, livestock, and lumber to market during the off-season from May to August when they were not buying oysters.

Some Chesapeake Bay buyboats such as the William B. Tennison began their lives as sailing vessels that were converted for power when internal combustion engines became available, however most buyboats, including those built for power, retained a single sail into the 1930s when engines became more powerful and reliable. Most Chesapeake Bay buyboats had plank-on-frame hulls like the Nellie Crockett, but a few were built as log canoes. The F.D. Crockett is a rare surviving example of this type. They had a rear-mounted deck house over the engine that contained the wheel house that typically had a rounded front with three to five windows, a galley, a head, and bunks for the crew. Some boats also had additional bunks up in the fore-peak for crew members.

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Wikipedia