The winter of 1779-1780 was so cold that ships carrying supplies for George Washington’s army in Morristown, NJ, were trapped in the Bay. Virginia’s Rappahannock River froze in November, and people could cross on foot between Annapolis and Kent Island. Today, thanks in large part to four ice breaking vessels available to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the ice rarely shuts down marine traffic on the Bay.
One of the four ice breakers is the J.M. Tawes, commanded by Captain Eddie Somers, a Smith Island native who has operated the Tawes out of Crisfield since 1990. “It seems like each generation of watermen has a benchmark winter that stands out to them,” reflects Somers. “For my dad, it was 1936. For my grandfather, it was sometime in the teens. For me, it was 1977. That was the worst ice I’ve seen. No one was working then,” he says, referring to the thousands of oystermen and others in the Bay’s fishing industry, which was essentially shut down by the long, cold winter and resulting ice.
When the Bay starts to freeze, Somers and his crew are a lifeline for the residents of Smith Island, transporting food, people with doctor appointments, and kids going to school, among other jobs. “The people we help are very appreciative, so it’s rewarding in winter. The rest of the year, we do things like put out buoys marking speed limits and fishing restrictions, which some people don’t like much. But in the winter, they’re really happy to see us.” Then he pauses and adds with a chuckle, “Well, except for the kids, I guess.”
Captain Somers and the Tawes are responsible for clearing the waters of Crisfield and the surrounding areas, and maintaining the 10-mile passage to Smith Island. When we caught up with Somers in mid January, he had recently spent several days clearing three to four inches of ice between Crisfield and Smith Island. When asked, he says nonchalantly, “Driving through ice makes the boat shake and vibrate, and when it’s thicker, you can hear it, too.” But steering isn’t difficult Somers says. “Actually it’s easier, because the ice holds her in a track.”
“When the ferry boat operators or watermen call us in the morning to come over, we cut a track on our way there. If the track stays open, the ferry operators like to go on ahead of us back to Crisfield, because we move so slowly. But if the ice is more than about three inches thick, or new ice is forming, or the wind shifts the track, then they’ll tuck in behind our stern and follow us. Usually we don’t take passengers; we just clear the way for the other boats. But if the Coast Guard has issued HP restrictions or the boat captains think it’s not safe to operate their vessels, then passengers will ride with us. Most of the time, they’re in the other vessels either in front or behind us.”
“Tawes was built in the 1940s as a Coast Guard buoy tender and ice breaker,” says Somers. “She’s 100 feet in length, 24 feet wide, and 167 gross tons, yet draws just five feet, making her ideal for the shallow waters of the Bay, especially around Smith Island.”
~Beth Crabtree
This first appeared in the February 2015 issue of SpinSheet.
