Oyster Sloop Nellie

Oyster Sloop Nellie. .

Built: 1891, Smithtown, NY , Length on deck: 32’ 4” , Beam: 12’ 9” , Draft: 2’ 4”

, Nellie represents hundreds of sailing oyster boats used in New York and Connecticut waters., She fished from Port Jefferson and Patchogue, Long Island for 10 years before John Ryle bought her to dredge for oysters near Stamford, Connecticut. She was one of nearly 350 sailing craft licensed to work Connecticut’s natural oyster beds in 1900., Along the Connecticut shore, oysters have settled over thousands of years to form natural beds. Dredges were the most productive tools for catching oysters. To protect the beds, Connecticut prohibited dredging under power on its natural beds from 1881 to 1969., As demand for oysters grew, oystermen learned to cultivate oysters in undersea “farms.” Natural beds were public property, but sea bottom without oysters could be held as private property. Private beds were used for spawning new crops (often using “seed oysters” dredged from natural beds) or for growing oysters to market size. On private grounds, oystermen could use powered vessels to dredge. After Ryle outfitted Nellie with a gasoline engine about 1914, she would have worked as a dredge boat on his 78 acres of private oyster ground., The Friends of the Nellie A. Ryle purchased her for Mystic Seaport in 1964. The Museum replaced her sloop rig, based on measurements from other oyster sloops. During major restorations in 1970-71 and 2001, shipwrights replaced her entire deck, most of her ribs (frames), and some of her hull planking.