The Hartge Nautical Museum and the Chesapeake 20 Association have partnered with the Museum to present a new exhibition based on the Hartge family legacy and their impact on recreational boating on the Chesapeake Bay.
The exhibition, which will be open through the end of the year, will highlight the Galesville-based clan of watermen, boatwrights and sailors and how they represent the transition from wooden workboats used for harvesting the waters of the Bay to boats designed, built and used strictly for playing on the Bay.
Boat builder Ernest “Cap’n Dick” Hartge, who died in 1991 at the age of 84, created the one-design racing sloop, the Chesapeake 20, and built 49 of them between 1935 and 1946, as well as log canoes, workboats, motor and sailing yachts. A key feature of the exhibit is one of the last he built, the beautifully restored Serenade. The exhibit also features photographs, boat models, and trophies, plus paintings by Laurence Hartge.
There are about 25 of the original Chesapeake 20s still in active use. The Museum hosted a regatta in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition on the weekend of June 19 to 21. Please come by and enjoy!