Bugeye Design

Bugeye Design. . , Like the smaller brogans before them, bugeyes were essentially enlarged log canoes with two raked masts. Chunked from multiple pine logs, their hulls were then planked over, creating shallow vessels with wide decks., Bugeyes were generally sharp in the stern, with shallow-draft rounded bottoms. Most bugeyes averaged around 55' (16 m) in length, although some later examples were well over 80' (24 m) long. The popularity of bugeyes peaked at the height of the oyster harvest, in the 1880s. They were used and constructed throughout the Chesapeake Bay., As the less-expensive skipjack became the preferred oystering vessel in the 20th century, the construction of new bugeyes declined. Old bugeyes were often retrofitted for use as buy boats or were simply discarded in marshes once past their prime. Edna E. Lockwood was the rare exception. Built on Tilghman Island by famed boat-builder John B. Harrison in 1889, she was in use as an oystering vessel until 1966, when she was purchased by John R. Kimberly, and the following year exhibited at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.