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 lfOf//t errra// ^aa' 



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these schooners had high main-deck bulwarks, often 

 with ports cut in them to allow arming with cannon. 



The model represents a keel schooner having strong 

 sheer, a rather upright stem with gammon-knee 

 head, square stern much raked and with lower 

 transom and round tuck, high and rather short 

 quarterdeck with high bulwarks, low bulwarks on 

 main deck, wooden windlass at heel of bowsprit, and 

 wooden pump barrels. 



Rigged with a long pole bowsprit and raking masts, 

 main with a long fidded topmast and a short stump 

 fidded to the foremast head and carrying a windvane 

 only. These vessels usually carried a single large 

 jib, a gaff-foresail, usually fitted with a boom, a gaff- 

 mainsail, and a main-topmast staysail. 



Scale of model is one-half inch to the foot, repre- 

 senting a vessel about 52 feet over the rails, 15 feet 

 beam, and 7)^ feet depth, with bowsprit 19 feet 

 outside the knightheads and 25 feet in total length, 

 foremast 33 feet deck to cap, mainmast 34 feet deck to 

 cap, main-topmast 22 feet, main boom 32 feet, main 

 gaff 16}^ feet, fore boom 22 feet, and fore gaff 16 feet 

 long. 



Given by U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 



CHEBACCO BOAT, about 1790 

 Rigged Model, usnm 39198 



hion 



This appears to be a very old fisherman-built model 

 of the type of small fishing boat first employed at 

 Cape Ann and known as the "Chebacco boat" or, as 

 it was sometimes spelled "Jebacco boat." Chebacco 



Reconstruction Drawing of a Small Chebacco 

 Boat of about 1790, showing typical deck arrange- 

 ment. Drawing is based on rigged model USNM 

 39198 brought to the dimensions of an example in 

 Customhouse records. 



was the old name for what is now the \-illage of Essex, 

 Massachusetts, where the type was extensively built. 

 As far as now can be determined, this type of boat 

 was a developement of the old colonial "double 

 shallop" early employed in the coastal fisheries of 

 New England. After the American Revolution and 

 into the first two decades of the 19th century the 

 Chebacco boat and her companion type, the dogbody 

 Chebacco, were very popular with New England 

 fishermen. It appears that the popularity of the 

 type increased at the end of the Revolution, when the 

 Massachusetts fishermen, impoverished by wartime 

 losses of their large fishing schooners and beset by local 

 economic and manning difficulties, were forced to 

 employ small and relatively inexpensive fishing craft 

 in lieu of building new schooners and sloops. 



The Chebacco boat developed in two models: the 

 sharp-stern hull with a pink, always called Chebacco, 

 or Jebacco, boat and the square-stern variant called 

 dogbody Chebacco or just dogbody. In the 1790's 

 the popular size of Chebacco and dogbody was about 

 36 to 38 feet long on deck, 11 to 12 feet beam, and 

 about 5 feet depth of hold. After 1800 the boats 

 increased in size somewhat and the average length on 

 deck was 39 to 42 feet, with a beam of 11}< to 12^ feet 



179 



