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Sea Bright Skiff
Built by Willard Jerolamar, Galilee, NJ 1902

This skiff was original owned by Joseph L. Bull, Sr. and Rane Cathow, partners in a South Carolina fish house. The boat was used for seine netting and gill netting on a share system by the Black fishermen, taken out for a period of about a week at a time. This boat was bought as a part of a fleet from New Jersey. The skiffs were eventually replaced by locally built boats and were retired to pleasure use. Herbert Huchs of Hampton, Virginia, owned the boat and personally used it until 1977 when it was donated to the Mariner’s Museum. The Mariner’s Museum returned it to its home state and the NJ Museum of Boating in the fall of 1999.

The early Sea Bright skiffs date back to the mid 1800’s and were built to fish the New Jersey coastline. The early skiffs were about 15’ long and 5’ wide. They had round bilges, a sloping transom, slightly rockered plank keel and a marked sheer to the topside. The hull was lapstraked White Cedar over Oak frames. Fastenings were copper rivets or clinch nails. These boats are closely related to the New Jersey wrecking and life saving skiffs. They also have many features in common with oyster skiffs and Whitehall boats of the New York Harbor area.

Many of the life saving boats in use along the Jersey coast are similar in design and construction. Some of the builders of the Sea Bright skiff were Lane, Emery, Laber, Huff, Newman, Seaman, Herbert, Hanaway, Clark, Vaughn, Clock and Hankins.

At the rear of the museum, in the Marine Railway exhibit is an example of a Hankins skiff that was built a few miles south of this location.