Old Delaware Bay oyster dredge working hard out of Tilghman

This past summer, I was visiting the Tilghman Watermen’s Museum on Tilghman Island, Md., when I ran into local boatbuilder and waterman John Kinnamon. He’s been a family friend ever since he built one of his Chesapeake Bay deadrises for my grandfather about two decades ago.

It had been a few years since I’d seen him, but he knows I live somewhere in the vicinity of Delaware Bay. After a few minutes of catching up, he told me that an old Delaware Bay oyster dredge named A.B. Newcomb was now docking in Knapps Narrows, a short channel that allows boaters to get back and forth from the Choptank River to the Chesapeake Bay without going all the way around the island. Most of the island’s working watermen dock there.

Interested, I went and found the dredge, and took a few photos. I asked someone if the owner was there. I was given the name – Nick Hargrove of Tilghman Island Seafood – but he wasn’t there.

I got ahold of Hargrove recently and met him in the office of his processing facility that sits on the narrows. Primarily, they process blue catfish, an invasive species to the bay, and ship it all over the place.

However, Hargrove and his team are also working to replenish the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population by dumping old oyster shells to rebuild natural oyster beds, which in turn will hopefully attract spat (baby oysters) and foster a rebirth of wild-grown oysters.

Estimating “she’s” roughly 100 years old, Hargrove said he bought the A.B. Newcomb for $1 a few years ago from an operation out of New Jersey that didn’t need it anymore. It’s now one of four vessels he uses for his oyster operation. It leaked like a sieve when they brought it down, he said.

Between the four boats, Hargrove said, the company put about 90,000 pounds of oyster shells in the bay last year.

“She’ll hold 3,000 bushels, but we try not to fill it much beyond 2,500,” said Hargrove, of the A.B. Newcomb. “It moves like a water snake when it’s loaded with shells, going three ways at once.”

The boat is currently getting the hull fiberglassed. If she’s going to last any longer, it needs to be done, said Hargrove.

Hargrove said he and crew have piecemealed repairs – cotton stuffed here, cedar shingle jammed in there, socks used in emergencies – but the ship is double-planked, with 3-inch planks on the inside and outside of the frames. It’s a ship within a ship, and it’s not easy to take care of, he said.

“It’s made from wood out of the Garden of Eden,” is how Nick said one of his employees described it. “It’s got no knots in it at all.”

In addition to fixing leaks “big enough to read the newspaper through,” Hargrove is looking for the fiberglass to stiffen up the A.B. Newcomb. She’s got a bend in her “like a backwards banana” when she’s taken out of the water. If nothing is done, one of these times it will just break in half, he said.

When asked why he’s going through the effort, Hargrove said, “I couldn’t afford the wood right now to build a new one if I wanted to.”

That’s an easy-enough reason to understand.

Rehoboth’s Boardwalk skyline is about to change

A couple of weeks ago, the family and I were eating dinner at Louie’s Pizza on the north side of Rehoboth Avenue in Rehoboth Beach. It was getting busy, but we managed to snag the first booth to the left of the door. My son and I sat facing the street. At some point while waiting for our pizza to arrive, it dawned on me that every building I could see on the south side of Rehoboth Avenue – from Candy Kitchen on the Boardwalk west to T-Shirt World a few storefronts up – would no longer be there when the new Belhaven Hotel is built.

Also gone, from that booth’s vantage point, will be much of the open skyline because the hotel will be four floors, instead of the one level of retail that’s currently there. In my opinion, it’s an it-is-what-it-is situation, and it’s just one of a few projects that will change the city’s skyline near the beach. The city is building a new beach patrol building at the end of Baltimore Avenue. A developer will be building another hotel on the north side of Rehoboth Avenue at the Boardwalk. When all three projects are complete, the changes will be dramatic. However, all three areas are screaming for redevelopment, and it’s much better to have people willing to invest in the city’s future than not.

Joke of the Week

I realize St. Patrick’s Day 2025 has come and gone at this point, but it was relatively recent and reader Ann submitted this joke well in advance of the holiday. It’s my fault for forgetting to run it. As always, send jokes to cflood@capegazette.com.

Q: Who’s Irish and stays out all night?

A: Paddy O’Furniture