Skipjack: The Story of America's Last Sailing Oystermen

In late March 1978, biologist and science writer White (Chesapeake Bay) joined the crew of the sailing ship Rebecca T. Ruark, a ""skipjack"" that was ""among the last sailboats still employed in commercial fishing in North America."" Renting a cottage in Tilghman, a village then untouched by development and tourism, White spent the next year chronicling the lives and community of the oystermen. In order to preserve the oyster population, an 1865 Maryland law limited the dredging of oysters to sail-powered ships; for over 140 years, this ""enforced obsolescence"" approach worked; now, however, the oyster population of the Bay (once ""king of the American oyster"") is plummeting for reasons not entirely clear, though pollution, disease and more efficient fishing methods have all contributed. Naturally, what's at stake is not just an important sea creature but a way of human life; White mines information and testimony on every aspect of community life, from family recipes to skipjack races to oyster wars, in a moving account. Examining the circumstances and difficult decisions of men like the skipper of the Rebecca, a third-generation oysterman, White provides on-the-ground insight into the possibilities and problems of simultaneously sustaining a community and an ecosystem.