Chesapeake Treasures

At 7:30 on a September morning, boatbuilder John Swain takes a break from projects at his boatshop to show me his world. He often starts such visits on the wharf at the foot of Cannon Street in the historic colonial port of Chestertown, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. On this day, a sultry wind is blowing down the Chester River when Swain and I arrive at the Chestertown waterfront. Sometimes Swain is a bit paternalistic about the classic watercraft tied up at the wharf here. To be sure. This is not his job; there’s a crew of professional sailors and custodians to tend to the boats. But Swain has built or rebuilt them all. They are a bit like his children—never fully out of mind.

At the inner pier, there’s the replica of an 18th-century ship’s cutter and a pair of traditional Chesapeake deadrise work skiffs. Farther out on the wharf lie the 123-year-old skipjack oyster dredge ELSWORTH and the buyboat ANNIE D., built in 1957.

After assuring himself that all is well with these boats, Swain’s eyes turn to the vessel tied at the end of the wharf, looking like a ghost ship from Master and Commander. SULTANA is the 53′ LOD reproduction of an 18th-century square-topsail schooner. She’s the flagship for the SULTANA Education Foundation, and she is Swain’s masterwork.

SULTANA’s builder is fit and able-looking at age 79. He has a ruddy, welcoming face framed by a silver beard, wire-rimmed glasses, and a red ball cap. Both his shirt and pants are denim. This morning, they have not yet gained a patina of sawdust. It will come later today in the shipyard up Cannon Street where he and his helpers constructed SULTANA 25 years ago, or at his own shop next to the house he and his wife, Melinda Bookwalter, built in the woods.

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