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Skipjack Sunday ~ Limited Edition, fine art collectible prints of the Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks

Chesapeake Bay art and Skipjack fine art in particular, in the form of the photograph, is the focus of these pages. This �Skipjack Sunday� photograph and art description is included to assist web search engines, thus it may read a bit peculiar to the casual reader. It helps to describe all the ways people may search for Skipjack images i.e., Skipjack pictures, oyster boat, Chesapeake Bay Skipjack pictures, Chesapeake Skipjack pictures, Skipjacks of the Chesapeake, Chesapeake Bay Skipjack sailboats, Skipjack sailboats, working sailboats, Chesapeake Bay workboats even, Skipjack boat. In fact Skipjack (boat) is Wikipedia's description and others have described her as a Skipjack type of boat.

Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks are dwindling rapidly from thousands to a handful. A working Skipjack on the Chesapeake dredging for oysters is indeed a rare site these days. The Chesapeake Bay Skipjack Fleet has been recognized as a national treasure in danger of extinction. On June 6, 2002, the Fleet was named to the list of America's Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

While Skipjack art and paintings are readily available, previously uncirculated, fine art, collectible Skipjack photographs of archival quality are quite limited. Bill Peterson has restored, and printed for the first time, Skipjack images he made in the late 1960�s of a Deal Island Skipjack race. These graceful Skipjacks are the last fleet of workboats under sail in the United States and abounded in both Maryland and Virginia waters at the turn of the last century. From the thousands of yesterday to the dozen or so today, the Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks are the last of their kind and worthy of all efforts toward preservation. Bill has captured the spirit of the Chesapeake watermen in these images, from the deck of the Rosie Parks to the dock at Deal Island, this weekend jaunt from long ago now presents a glimpse of a time he calls a �Skipjack Sunday.

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