The Skipjack Martha Lewis set sail from Havre de Grace Thursday morning laden not with her usual load of schoolchildren or leisure cruisers nor her bygone haul of Chesapeake Bay oysters.
Instead, on this trip, she carried two tons of grapes bound for a waterfront winery.
“Seeing all these grapes on deck is giving us a laugh,” said Cindi Beane, director of the Chesapeake Heritage Conservancy, which operates the Martha Lewis. “We all keep joking that we’re just going to start stomping.”
Under gray skies, the skipjack set sail on the vast Susquehanna River, recalling the days when Maryland’s watermen made money between fishing seasons by hauling cargo on the Chesapeake Bay.
The sleek, low-slung skipjack, designed for dredging oysters, carried its load of chambourcin grapes from Havre de Grace’s Mount Felix Manor and Vineyards to St. Michaels Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. From there, the grapes will be trucked to St. Michaels Winery.
The journey from the mouth of the Susquehanna to the middle of the Miles River was expected to take seven to nine hours depending on the wind. But when the wind died down, the Martha Lewis made part of the journey with the help of its motor.
About 18 of the 70 crates of grapes made the journey above deck, where the Skipjack?s seven-person crew worked as Chesapeake Bay artist Marc Castelli sketched the grapes.
Winery co-owner Mark Emon came up with the idea of shipping the grapes along the bay when Mount Felix Vineyard offered to sell them, said winery manager Bryna Richter.
“It was a marriage of his love of sailing and his love of history,” she said. “The original Skipjacks were workboats, and we wanted to bring the waters back to their historical use for shipping.”
“I said, ?Yeah, I?ll buy the grapes, if I can ship them by water,? ” Emon said. “The rest just fell into place.”
The Martha Lewis happened to be sailing to Cambridge this week to participate in a race, and the dry growing season meant vineyards had plenty of grapes to sell, he said.
Emon, who had lived aboard a sailboat moored in Fells Point for six years, took the wheel from Capt. Greg Shinn and steered the Skipjack for about an hour as the boat passed Rock Hall.
“A beautiful day for sailing,” he said. “Just amazing to see.”
