"The Melon Boat" by Paul McGehee. Maryland's Chesapeake Bay once had a working fleet of sailing vessels such as these...plying the waves, dredging oysters and hauling produce. Now they are all but a memory. In this scene, a beautiful skipjack (her deck laden with watermelons) sails the Bay, bound for Baltimore in 1930. Back in the day, small workboats (skipjacks, bugeyes, sloops, buy-boats and pungies) would spend the summer months carrying farm produce from the lower shore up north to the food markets of Baltimore, Maryland. In the days before bridges and the trucking industry, these small sailing vessels were the only means by which a farmer could quickly get their crops to the lucrative food markets of Baltimore. "The Melon Boat" is a beautiful piece of maritime history!