The Pot Pie Skiff is named for the place it was built—a neighborhood called Pot Pie in the town of Wittman, Maryland. Some refer to the boat type as a tuck stern skiff, because of the way the back of the boat is tucked up out of the water on each side.
Waterman Lock Brando used this little skiff to catch crabs with a trotline, and probably to tong for oysters. The boat is steered by a simple mechanism with a stick on the starboard or right side, connected by ropes to the rudder in the stern. Chesapeake watermen like this kind of steering because they can steer with one hand (or even a knee) and net crabs with the other hand.
Built: 1961, Wittman, Md., by George Jackson
Length: 26 ft. (7.92 m)
Beam: 7 ft., 11 in. (2.17 m)
Draft: 1 ft., 10 in. (0.36 m)
Pot Pie or tuck stern skiff, 1961. Collection of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, St. Michaels, MD. Gift of Charles F. Novak. 2005.0032.0001.
