Ida May

Status

Updated 12 January 2024:
Ida May is privately owned, and while she dredged for most of the twentieth century, she is currently a family boat. She sails out of Deal Island, Maryland. Ida May won the 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023 Deal Island Labor Day Skipjack Races and the 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023 Choptank Heritage Skipjack Races.

Ida May, 21 September 2015

More Photos

Background

Although Skipjack Ida May is over a hundred years old, she has been rebuilt so many times that about the only part of the original boat that survives is her helm. She was built in 1906 at Deep Creek, Virginia, builder unknown. Most of her first half-century of life is shrouded by time. One early reference is to workboat races in 1929 in which she is captained by R. W. W. Parks with her homeport at Wingate, Maryland. Sometime in the early 1950s, she was brought to Chance by Melvin Beauchamp and Melvin "Fish" Bivens.

It is about this time that Elbert Gladden Sr. (known as "Ebb Tide") enters the story, although the year he purchased the boat is variously given as early as 1954 and as late as 1968. Since the Ida May website says 1954, we lean towards that earlier timeframe, which is more consistent with a few other details.

Her website says Ida May had been completely rebuilt when Elbert bought her and was in near perfect condition. Her first documented restoration took place at the Krentz Shipyard in Harryhogan, Virginia, and has been reported to have been in 1955. About that time, she also received a new Georgia pine mast from the ram Levin J. Marvil after the ram sank during Hurricane Connie that year. Elbert is said to have bought two masts from the ram, one for Ida May and the other for Mamie A. Mister, a skipjack he bought in the mid-1940s for $2500.

Elbert bought his first skipjack, Dewey, for $100 in 1941. Over the years, he ended up owning twelve skipjacks, a bugeye and various other workboats, more than any other man from Deal Island or Chance during the post-World War II years, and as many as nine at one time. Of the skipjacks he owned, only Ida May and Somerset still exist. His fleet used hired captains and crews and worked out of Annapolis, Kent Island, Cambridge and Deal Island. Ida May has been primarily a Deal Island boat.

An incomplete list of Ida May's many captains besides the Gladdens (in no particular order) includes Orville Parks (who later owned Rosie Parks), Mervin Christy, Clyde Webster, Ted Webster, Zack Taylor, Arbey Holland, Bobby Leath, Thompson Wallace, Melvin Bivens, Stoney Whitelock, David Whitelock, John Price, Dickie Webster, Jimmy Murphy, Keith Whitelock and Shawn Ridgley. Elbert is listed as captain for the 1979 Chesapeake Appreciation Days races.

According to Pat Vojtech in her book Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks, Thompson Wallace and Mervin Christy were among the few black skipjack captains left on the Bay at the time. Wallace was Ida May’s captain for fourteen years before buying Claud W. Somers (on which he died in a storm), and Christy later owned Bernice J.

Elbert began thinking about selling Ida May in the mid-1970s, asking $15,000 for her. Walt Benton got the money together, but Elbert backed out, deciding to keep the boat. Benton bought Somerset instead. Ida May was Elbert's second favorite boat of all he owned, after Mamie A. Mister.

In 1985, Ida May was named to the National Register of Historic Places along with many of the other surviving early skipjacks. Elbert Sr. kept Ida May working through the mid-1980s. But by then, with oyster harvests plummeting, a captain too sick to dredge and no replacement to be found, and his own health declining, Ida May was left idle, pushed up into the upper reaches of Scott's Cove in Chance. She sat there for three long years.

Elbert's son Gordon said, "We knew if she stayed there any longer, she would die. We didn't want her to die." So in 1990, he hauled her out with the intention to patch her up enough to get her to Salisbury where they would put her on display. She went to Crisfield for some new bottom boards to keep her from leaking then up the Wicomico River to Salisbury where she graced the harbor with lights on her rigging.

But come spring, Elbert, still fond of the boat, thought he might be willing to spend a little money on her to have her rebuilt. Gordon and his brother Elbert Jr. had her trucked to Elbert Sr.'s home in Chance, where "Ebb Tide" in his failing health could watch the restoration from his wheelchair. The work was done by Tommy and Earl Daniels and ended up costing $60,000, and was described as "purely an act of love." They renovated everything from the waterline up, and when done, she looked like a whole new boat.

Elbert Sr. saw Ida May go back to work dredging in the 1991–92 season, but he didn't live to see her dredge the following year, passing away in August 1992, with the boat inherited by his sons. That next oyster season was the worst yet on the Bay, diseases ravaging the oysters, and Ida May barely dredged ten days, even then having to work the upper Bay and with a reduced crew.

By 1999, Ida May needed more major repairs. Some of the work had used green wood and didn't last, so by 2006, when she turned 100 years old, Ida May was once again in pieces being rebuilt, and it was almost six years before she would sail again. Gordon and Elbert Jr. never thought it would take that long to repair her, but they kept finding more rotten wood with every piece they took out of her. They replaced the bottom, keel, sides, stem and sampson post. Frank Antes volunteered to build a new cabin. Gordon's son David, Eldon Willing, Cody Daniels and Tom Evans were among other volunteers who worked on her those years. By 2011, she was a new boat again and ready for the races, but not dredging. She was put on display at Green Hill for its Parade of Lights, dressed up in 600 feet of LED lighting, then went to Pocomoke City for the winter. Ten years later, in 2021, she was almost completely rebuilt yet again at Scott's Cove by Sean Messick, during which she was fiberglassed.

For many years now, Ida May has been only a family boat, not doing any dredging or charters. She and her rebuilds have served an educational purpose, though. A documentary was created about her 2011 reconstruction, "The Ida May Project," that has been shown in conjunction with exhibitions about skipjacks and their heritage at museums including the Delmarva Discovery Center in Pocomoke, where she also has been docked on display.

Over the years, she also has been a favorite subject for artists including Keith Whitelock of Salisbury and William Kavanek of Bridgewater, Connecticut. She and Somerset appeared on the cover of the 1992 annual report for the First National Bank of Maryland.

Especially in recent years, though, Ida May has been justly known for her racing. Gordon Gladden called her an "easy boat to sail." She shows up with various captains through the years on rosters of boats at Solomons, Deal Island and Chesapeake Appreciation Days at Sandy Point. Pat Vojtech provides this description of a race, likely in the mid-1980s, with Elbert Sr. at Ida May's helm: "Gladden was in his late seventies when he raced Ida May during the Deal Island Labor Day races. When he returned from the race, the old man refused to put down the push boat, and instead sailed into the harbor under full sail. At the dock, he ordered his crew to lower the sails, 'and she fit in the slip just like a tugboat,' said his son Gordon, who was on the skipjack that day."

But it wasn't until after her 2011 rebuild that she earned fame as the boat to beat at the races.

In 2011, she dropped out of the Deal Island race because her jib shredded in the high winds, but she came in second at the Cambridge Choptank Heritage Skipjack Race with a jib borrowed from Stoney Whitelock and John Price at the helm. With new sails in 2012, she came in second at Deal Island.

The 2013 races were quite eventful. A week or so before the Deal Island race, they discovered Ida May's mast was rotten, and with one borrowed from Helen Virginia, which was being repaired at Scott's Cove, Ida May won the race. At the Cambridge race, she was in first place charging toward the finish line with Rebecca T. Ruark hard on her heels when Price put her broadside to the wind and she capsized. Her crew and passengers ended up in the water, but were soon rescued by the small boats close at hand to watch the race. The only significant injury was Gordon Gladde'’s dislocated shoulder. She was towed over to the nearby bulkhead and raised and pumped out within a couple days, with only minor damage including a rip in her mainsail and a water-soaked pushboat engine.

With a new mast and boom, she placed second at Deal Island in 2014, but missed the Cambridge race when her pushboat engine gave out on the way to that race. John Price passed away the following summer, and Dickie Webster and Jimmy Murphy stepped up to the helm for the 2015 races.

Elbert Jr. passed away in December 2019 and Gordon in January 2024, but both lived to see many of the triumphs finally earned by the boat they saved for their father. Shawn Ridgley came on board as captain and the boat's manager in 2016 and started her winning streak in 2017. With Shawn at the helm, Ida May won both the Deal Island and Cambridge races in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and Deal Island in 2020, did not race in 2021 due to repairs underway, won both races again in 2022 and 2023. She continues to do "Ebb Tide" and the Gladden family proud.

Please help keep this information up to date by submitting news or corrected facts about any of these boats and letting us know of skipjacks not yet included on this site.