Classic Chesapeake workboats on Smith Island include the deadrise, patent tonger, barcat, and skipjack. Their design grew from a long tradition of adapting hull shapes, sailing rigs, and other features to the conditions of the Chesapeake Bay. Earlier log-built canoes, schooners, and sailing skiffs helped shape these later working craft. From the beginning, mariners needed maneuverable, shallow-draft vessels that could navigate the bay’s narrow inlets and shoal waters. In the 1800s, rising demand for Chesapeake oysters drove the development of larger, faster boats able to work far from shore and in varied weather. Alongside traditional gear such as hand tongs, dip nets, and seines, watermen later adopted more efficient scrapes, dredges, and other fishing equipment to increase their catches. The deadrise has been used from the late 1800s to the present for oyster tonging, crabbing, clamming, eeling, and net fishing. The patent tonger, in use from the 1930s to the present, is a deadrise workboat fitted with a hydraulic patent-tong rig operated by levers and pedals, typically for oyster dredging in deeper parts of the bay. The barcat, also used from the 1930s to the present, can work over shallow sandbars to scrape for softshell crabs. The skipjack has been used from the 1890s to the present for oyster dredging and more recently for carrying passengers on day excursions.