Spare Time is a classic Chesapeake Bay deadrise hand-built by former Northern Neck woodworker Earl Jenkins. It rests at Port Kinsale Marina, awaiting repair. ROBERT A. MARTIN/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Sailing back into Bay's past

Kinsale Foundation trying to preserve pieces of Bay history

Date published: 10/13/2009

By Rob Hedelt

IF TWO KINSALE men can flesh out their maritime visions with fundraising and volunteer labor, floating pieces of Chesapeake Bay history could one day be a draw near what was one of the country's first seaports.

In the process, the pair hopes to save a bay deadrise fishing boat, Spare Time, that means a lot to folks in a nearby community on the Yeocomico River.

Charles Santangelo and Michael Hollingsworth are principals in the Port Kinsale Foundation, a nonprofit group formed several years ago to renovate and preserve a vintage skipjack, the Virginia W., an oyster dredging sailboat with connections to Kinsale.

The foundation, tied to the Port Kinsale Marina Santangelo manages, owns and has responsibility for the upkeep of the skipjack moored there.

Hollingsworth, head of the foundation, said the group hopes to create a small fleet of classic Chesapeake Bay work and pleasure boats.

"They'd be a floating museum of sorts," said Hollingsworth. "We could bring school groups and young people in to hear watermen and others share stories about the work and history that happened on these vessels."

The foundation got a good start, acquiring the Virginia W., built around 1904, which was renovated several years back.

Recently, Santangelo and Hollingsworth worked to acquire a 37-foot bay deadrise, a pleasure and fishing boat built by Earl Jenkins, a much beloved waterman who operated the Sandy Point Marina for years. In his early years, he worked as a mate and captain on schooners and powerboats, shipping goods on the bay.

"It's a classic example of the bay deadrise," said Hollingsworth. "Put that aside the skipjack and you've got two of the classic boats that once dotted the Chesapeake."

It's not quite as simple as driving the Spare Time over on a trailer and sliding her into the water at Port Kinsale.

The boat, finished in 1962, has seen better days.

"It needs the bottom planking replaced and work on portions of the deck," said Hollingsworth. "But its bones and most of what's topside seem to be in pretty good shape."

The Port Kinsale Foundation welcomes donations of money, time or materials. Call Michael Hollingsworth, 804/761-0552, or Charles Santangelo at the Port Kinsale Marina, 804/472-2044. "We think it would be really great in the future to get another boat or two," said Hollingsworth. "A buy boat or a piece of an old steamboat would add to the stories we could share."

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Date published: 10/13/2009