In 1920, Noah T. Evans built a workboat in Crisfield and named it after his daughters. Evans was a Smith Island native who built boats now and then. His Winnie Estelle spent more than 50 years on the lower Bay buying fish and oysters straight from watermen and running them to markets and packing houses. At 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum will christen her on its St. Michaels campus during OysterFest. The ceremony follows a three-year refit in the museum's working Shipyard.
The museum's shipwrights removed and replaced structural timbers, including her original keel. The boat that slides past the Tolchester Beach Bandstand on Nov. 7 is less a 1920 artifact than a working hull, rebuilt by people who work a few hundred yards from Talbot Street so it can go back to doing a job. That is how this boat has stayed afloat for a century.
A Hull That Has Already Had Several Lives
Winnie Estelle has outlasted most of her kind by changing jobs and getting rebuilt for each one. The record runs like this:
| Years | Where | What she did |
|---|---|---|
| 1920 to 1960 | Lower Chesapeake | Bought fish and oysters from watermen for market |
| 1960 to 1975 | Chesapeake, owned by Shug and Gene Marshall | Sold oysters, collected fish scraps for rendering, ran to the Washington, D.C., waterfront fish market |
| After 1975 | Caribbean | Hauled lumber from Honduras to Belize, then ran charters |
| 1985 | Belize | Abandoned |
| 1985 to 1990 | Belize | Rescued and restored over five years by Capt. Roberto Smith |
| From 1990 | Belize | More than a decade of tourist charters |
| 2012 | Guatemala, then back toward the Chesapeake | Moved to Guatemala as Smith weighed retirement, then bought by Michael Whitehill |
| 2014 | St. Michaels | Donated to CBMM by an anonymous donor |
PropTalk's account of the boat shows that the St. Michaels refit is at least her second full rescue. A Belize charter captain spent five years putting her back together after she sat abandoned. Each owner rebuilt her for the work in front of them, whether that meant hauling oysters, lumber or tourists.
Her kind is scarce. A 2015 Soundings article estimated that fewer than 50 of roughly 5,000 buyboats built were known to survive at the time. By 2019, National Fisherman described just four boats still buying seafood from Smith and Tangier Island watermen. The boats that lasted were the ones somebody kept working.
What the Shipyard Took Out and Put Back
CBMM's refit was underway by March 2023. In 2024 the Shipyard walked the Evans family, the builder's descendants, through the project as shipwrights removed the original keel, chines and bottom planks. The museum's refit page logs what went back in over the following two years:
- A new keel, bottom and deck planking, stringers and sole bearers. Visitors from the Australian National Maritime Museum, Andrew Bibby and Matt Coco, spent a week in March 2026 helping with the bottom planking.
- Electrical systems. Evolution Marine Electronics of Trappe installed the electronics and safety package in April 2026. Joe Fisher led that work.
- Bulwarks. Shipyard Manager Robert Leiby planned new bulwarks based on historic images of the vessel, and the shipwright apprentices built the log rails and bulwarks.
- Rail, windlass and steering. Master Shipwright Jeff Reid built and fitted the stern cap rail. Master Shipwright Patrick Mertaugh oversaw the cap rail, windlass and steering system.
- The whiskey plank, set in August 2026. This traditional ceremony marks the completion of a hull.
- A rub rail of oak and Osage orange, made by Shipwright Chip Gutsch.
- A new six-cylinder, 325-horsepower John Deere engine, installed with care that Marine Mechanic Mark Newberg described in a September update.
The crew list goes beyond the master shipwrights. CBMM also credits shipwright Daniel Gutierrez and apprentices Kaeo Clarke, Caden Lewis and Austin Benshoff. Shipyard Intern Aiden Crumpton recorded his own update in July 2026 on what he learned working next to the shipwrights. The museum says its own shipwright team did most of the work, and it describes the Shipyard as a "tangible connection to the Chesapeake's rich story of boatbuilding."
Taken together, the list explains the christening. The skills that kept buyboats running in Crisfield in the 1920s are still being taught on the Miles River, and the people learning them are apprentices whose names appear in the update videos. A crane put the hull back in the water this fall, and Leiby filmed a behind-the-scenes update on why that milestone meant so much to the crew.
Planning Nov. 7 Around a 3 p.m. Ceremony
CBMM says the christening will honor the boat's history, the shipwrights who worked on her, the supporters who made the project possible and her next chapter on the Bay. It sits inside a full festival day, so it helps to plan backward from 3 p.m. Per the Talbot Spy's rundown and CBMM's release:
- 10 a.m. OysterFest opens and runs until 4 p.m., rain or shine. The day includes raw and cooked oysters, an oyster stew competition with area restaurants, an oyster slurp-off and live music on two stages. Food and drinks are extra.
- 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free drop-in cruises run aboard museum fleet vessels.
- 11 a.m. and noon. Pocomoke Indian Nation presentations. Flintknapping, cattail decoy making, traditional music and Kris Turner's dip-net-making demonstrations fill out the program, and Swamp Donkey plays the Tolchester Beach Bandstand.
- 2:30 p.m. A narrated Miles River cruise aboard PATRIOT departs. Combination festival-and-cruise tickets are available.
- 3 p.m. The Winnie Estelle christening.
The PATRIOT cruise leaves at 2:30 p.m. and the christening starts at 3, so check timing before booking the combination ticket if seeing the ceremony from the dock matters to you.
Tickets for 2026 are posted at cbmm.org/OysterFest:
| Ticket | Advance price |
|---|---|
| Adults | $22 |
| Seniors 65+ and students 17+ | $19 |
| Active and retired military | $10 |
| Children 6 to 17 | $9 |
| Children 5 and under | Free |
| Adult CBMM members, online | $10 |
| VIP, members / nonmembers | $50 / $80 |
Tickets cost $2 more at the door, and members' children 17 and under get in free. With the $10 member price, a membership can pay for itself quickly for a household that would visit anyway. VIP covers admission, the stew competition and a mug, a hospitality lounge, a tote bag and bar discounts. The museum offers free overflow parking at St. Michaels Middle/High School with a shuttle to campus. Dogs other than service animals stay home, and you can't bring your own alcohol.
Her Next Job on the Miles River
Before the refit, Winnie Estelle carried students in CBMM's education programs and took museum guests and private groups out on the Miles River. The Star Democrat once listed public sunset, sailboat-race spectator and ecology cruises on her. CBMM describes the rebuilt boat as a floating classroom and ecotourism vessel and says she will return to cruising the Miles River. The museum has not yet posted a cruise schedule or fares and asks the public to stay tuned.
So the boat christened on Nov. 7 goes back to work. She was built to buy oysters off Smith Island, rebuilt in Belize to carry tourists and rebuilt again in St. Michaels to carry students and visitors. Gifts to CBMM's Annual Fund support Shipyard projects like this one, and the museum is posting new updates on her return to cruising on its refit page.
Every waterfront house in Talbot County has its own boat stories. If you're weighing a property where a buyboat, a skipjack or a sailboat at the dock is part of the appeal, Cornelia Heckenbach is glad to talk through what Miles River living looks like up close. Let's Connect.