Description
The Nellie Crockett is a wooden plank-on-frame freightboat, documented measuring 61.6 feet (18.8 m) long, 20.33 feet (6.20 m) on the beam and 6.42 feet (1.96 m) in draft. She measures 52 tons gross and 35 tons net. Her wide beam and moderate draft were useful in her business of buying, loading and transporting oysters in the shallow waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The hull is built using wood frames made from the natural crooks of tree limbs and roots. It is planked with 3.5-inch (8.9 cm) pine. The deck planking is laid fore-and-aft over deck beams on hanging knees. A partially watertight bulkhead is located in the forecastle.
Power is presently provided by a Detroit Diesel 871, dating to 1971 or 1972, fueled from two 150-US-gallon (570 l; 120 imp gal) boilerplate steel tanks. A 90-US-gallon (340 l) water tank is also fitted.
The center of the deck is dominated by a large hold opening, 25 feet (7.6 m) by 13.5 feet (4.1 m), surrounded by a coaming. The 12 inches (30 cm) mast lies just ahead of the hatch, rising 41 feet (12 m). A 1956 quarter and a 1951 nickel were found under the mast, indicating that it was replaced or re-stepped in the 1950s, with a traditional coin placed underneath at the time. The mast has two cargo-handling booms attached at its base. The foc'sle hatch is forward of the mainmast, measuring 4.6 feet (1.4 m) long and 3..2 feet (0.91 m) wide. A low railing runs from the foc'sle hatch to the stern, with two rails, one above the other.
The pilot house is rectangular with a rounded front, 20.42 feet (6.22 m) long and 8.42 feet (2.57 m) wide. It is covered with vertical tongue and groove sheathing. The pilot house is divided into three compartments, each formerly divided from the others by doors, now missing. The wheel room occupies the front compartment, housing the rope-and-pulley-operated wheel, with five windows on the front, two on either side, and doors on either side. A heater stands at the rear. A flush deck hatch gives access to the engine compartment. The next compartment behind the wheel room, and a little lower, is the bunk room, 6.5 feet (2.0 m) long, with three bunks on the port side and a shower on the starboard side, replacing the original head. There is a porthole for the upper bunk. Behind the bunkroom lies the kitchen, 4 feet (1.2 m) long, with a window on each side and a door aft. At the fore, in the foc'sle compartment, two more bunks are provided.
The Crockett is substantially the same as she was built. Apart from the installation of a radar unit two deck manholes were added, a bulhead was removed in the engine room, and a stove may have been removed from the foc'sle. The hold was not used during the Ward family's tenure, as it was considered too smelly. Oysters were stored on deck in baskets, as many as 2200 bushels at a time, with ten to twelve tons of granite ballast below.
Read more about this topic: Nellie Crockett (Buy-Boat)
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