By SWS Founding Member John Zohlen
In 1775 the United States Marine Corps was founded in Tun Tavern, Philadelphia, for the purpose of augmenting the Revolutionary Navy. In similar fashion, in 1986 the Shallow Water Sailors group was founded in the Carpenter Street Saloon, St. Michaels, Maryland, but for much friendlier purposes. This is the story of that less belligerent sailing group.
The prehistory of the Shallow Water Sailors began in a partnership between builder Peter Duff and noted naval architect Phil Bolger. The Edey and Duff boat yard and shop built the Dovekie, a 21-foot, sprit rigged, shallow draft sailboat that could be easily trailered. The first Dovekie hull was launched in 1979. Eventually 153 Dovekies were built.
Peter began advertising the Dovekie on the first inside page of the Small Boat Journal. These ads included pictures of the Dovekie anchored in small isolated coves in Maine or “moored to a blueberry bush” in the North Channel in Canada, or hard on the wind on Buzzards Bay Massachusetts. The ads sold the “sizzle” of owning and cruising in a shallow draft Dovekie. Edey and Duff began production of Dovekie’s larger sister, the Shearwater, in 1985. To further promote the sale of these boats Peter organized weekend cruises on the Chesapeake Bay in the Spring and one or two week long “Magnum Opus” summer cruises in Canada and other distant places.
The 1986 (sixth) annual Chesapeake Bay Spring Cruise launched from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum at St. Michaels, Maryland. Unfortunately, it was shortened by bad weather. Everyone hauled out on Saturday afternoon and camped, “on the hard”, on the grounds of the museum. The group walked to the Carpenter Street Saloon in St. Michaels for Sunday brunch. Peter had previously produced a periodic newsletter for Dovekie owners offering suggestions on how to sail the boat and tips on beach cruising. John Zohlen, owner of Dovekie No. 113 and a “veteran” of his second Spring Cruise offered to plan future Spring Cruises and received Peter’s permission to continue sending out a reader-written newsletter. With the help of Jim Cartwright, Dovekie No. 104, the name “Shallow Water Sailor” was chosen for the newsletter. The Shallow Water Sailor group was founded with the purpose of enjoying group sailing. There were no bylaws, no officers, no annual meetings and no dues. A modest fee of five dollars was collected to cover the cost of receiving the SWS newsletters. Three editors, John Zohlen, Ken Murphy, and Brian Forsyth, published over 200 issues of the SWS newsletters between 1986 and 2020.
The 46th Annual Spring Cruise will be held in May 2025 on the St. Mary’s River in southern Maryland. The Spring Cruise has evolved and now includes many different trailered sailboats: Bay Hens, Peep Hens, Sea Pearls, West Wight Potter 15’s and 17’s, Core Sound 15’s, 17’s and 20s, Montgomery 15’s and 17’s, John Harris-designed Pocket Ships MacGregor 19’s and 26’s, Bolger-designed Martha Janes, a Harry Bryan-designed 12.5-ft. Daisy Dory, and a Michalak-designed Normsboat, to name a few. The common theme on all these cruises and throughout all of the Shallow Water Sailors’ activities has been camaraderie on the water and an appreciation of the history and ecology of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
