By Brice Stump
When Salisbury businessman Bobby Leath Jr. decided a year ago to rebuild the Somerset , even he didn’t know it meant that more than 80% of the skipjack would be …
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By Brice Stump
When Salisbury businessman Bobby Leath Jr. decided a year ago to rebuild the Somerset, even he didn’t know it meant that more than 80% of the skipjack would be replaced.
Leath, owner of Fat Boys Crabs, was up to the task.
Then again, few knew in November 2019 that Leath would buy the iconic oyster boat and be on the Chesapeake dredging oysters a week later.
Leath, who never captained his own skipjack before, was the new captain.
He put together a six-man crew — four of whom were not seasoned oystermen and none of the four had even been on a skipjack.
Then the incredible happened.
No one, including Leath, knew that in just two days pulling dredges from the bay bottom, he would catch enough oysters, at $40 a bushel, to pay the $10,000 cost of the boat (which, as part of the deal, came with a much smaller fishing boat).
Built in 1949, the Somerset has always called Deal Island home and is full of miracles.
When Leath decided to rebuild the boat that was owned and captained for many years by the late Walton Benton of Mt. Vernon, who died in June 2019, Leath knew he wanted quality lumber for the job.
In a coincidence that borders the unbelievable, just what he needed was in his back yard.
“I had some old growth pine and white oak trees on my farm and we set the mill up in the field, cut the trees and milled them out on the spot, more than a year ago, just to build this boat,” Leath said.
Not far from where the skipjack sat at Scott’s Cove Marina in Chance, an industrial-strength planer was set up and the lumber was custom planed, one board at a time.
If the incredible, the coincidental and the miracles weren’t enough blessings for the first-time skipjack captain and owner, there were still more inexplicable lucky things in the stars for him.
For months it was a crew of four or five working on the boat. All of the deck, sides and bottom were removed as well and replaced.
“Hey, I knew it was goin’ to be expensive,” Leath said.
Fortunately he had the lumber. Yet it wasn’t “free.”
Leath said the milling bill was about $10,000.
Almost daily, someone rides by to take a look at the “new and improved” skipjack.
“She’s still the Somerset, still the same boat we just rebuilt ‘er and brought ’er lines back, too,” Leath said.
Improving the lines meant replacing the deck with a slight roundness to keep water from laying on the deck.
Leath said he believes that starting from scratch would have been faster and more cost efficient. “If we started from scratch we wouldn’t have to tear nothin’ apart. I wouldn’t be intimidated by starting from nothin’. I guess I wasn’t smart enough to know I couldn’t to somethin’,” he said, laughing. “I just got common sense, that’s all.”
“That’s right,” said Eldon Willing, co-owner of Scott’s Cove Marina. “People all over the Chesapeake Bay have built and are building boats using common sense. — and God-given talent. You got to have both to do anything good.”
Willing, respected for his extensive knowledge of skipjack construction, is relied upon by Leath, and other skipjack owners, for advice on construction details. For the complete story see the Nov. 25 edition of the Crisfield-Somerset County Times.
“There’s no doubt they’ve done a good job rebuilding her, and really fast,” Willing said.