The Draketail Peg Wallace

At a brief but moving ceremony during the August board meeting, Peg Wallace dowsed the bow of the museum's new Hooper Island draketail workboat with a splash of champagne, then pulled a bit of line attached to a hank of cloth covering the boat's rounded transom. There she saw the boat's name for the first time. The blue-and-gold lettering reads: "Peg Wallace, Annapolis Maritime Museum." Board members applauded as Peg dabbed her eyes and for once, was struck speechless.

The boat had been donated to the museum by Annapolis boat builder and entrepreneur Reid Bandy after he had restored the 1925 hull and installed a new MerCruiser engine. As historian Sherri Marsh explains, this boat is typical of a popular style of crabbing and oystering workboat that originated on Hooper Island, its reverse-rake stern profile resembling the aft end of a duck, thus spawningthe moniker, "draketail."

"The draketail was among the first Chesapeake Bay workboats designed specifically to operate with engine power," Sherri explains. The boat's long, slender hull, with its extremely sharp bow, cuts through the waves like a knife, though it's turning radius is somewhat cumbersome.

The board voted unanimously to name the boat after the museum's founder and board chairman, and somehow made it happen while keeping it a secret from Peg herself. Eastport artist Cindy Fletcher hand-painted the lettering.

The boat will be exhibited at the McNasby building on special occasions and also will be used for museum promotions and events. Since the dock at McNasby's is somewhat exposed to weather and waves coming across the Bay from the northeast, the boat will be kept at a marina at the head of Back Creek when not in use. The homeowners' association at the King James Landing community has generously donated the use of a well-protected slip at its marina.