Overfalls volunteers restore wheelhouse, surfboat

The Lightship Overfalls Foundation is never without a project or two, or three or more. Volunteers are currently busy restoring a wheelhouse from a vintage boat, refurbishing an old, classic rescue surfboat and developing plans to integrate both near its centerpiece lightship in Lewes Canalfront Park.

Lewes Mayor and City Council approved the projects last fall.

More than 30 Overfalls Foundation members gathered at Saint Peter’s Parish Hall in Lewes Feb. 8, to learn about current projects.

Dave Bernheisel, an Overfalls volunteer and foundation past president, gave a retrospective on foundation projects – restoring the more than seven decades old lightship and construction of a permanent slip for the vessel in Canalfront Park, establishing the Maritime Hall of Fame in 2007, and more recently the Lewes Maritime History Trail.

New museum space

Before finding a resting place in Lewes, the vessel Stephanie Anne spent more than five decades plying Maryland and Delaware waters.

Built in 1955 and originally named Alice Ann, the wooden boat was crafted in Rock Hall, Md., by J. Abner Bryden, who built it for Eddie Burris of Bowers Beach. It cost $5,500.

In the early ‘60s, the boat was sold to Walter Wiscowaty of Delaware City. He renamed it Wisso and used it as a water taxi serving Delaware City and Pea Patch Island’s, Fort Delaware.

In 1968, Capt. Bill Cheney paid Wiscowaty $800 for the boat, equipped with a Chrysler gasoline engine using fuel held in galvanized water heater tanks.

Cheney moved the boat to Essington, and renamed it Stephanie Anne, in memory of his daughter who died at age 3.

He salvaged a large diesel engine from the bottom of the Delaware River, rebuilt it, and used it to replace Stephanie Anne’s gasoline engine.

In 1972, Cheney moved the boat to Indian River Inlet Marina to operate it as a charter fishing vessel, and in 1973, it became the U.S. Coast Guard certified Stephanie Anne, permitted to carry 32 customers plus crew.

Cheney moved his charter business to Lewes in 1974, and his boat served as a backup for charter boat Capt. Harry “Speed” Lackhove.

Cheney operated Stephanie Anne through 1976, running charters, performing burials at sea and participating in Lewes boat parades. In early 2006, Cheney gave up his Lewes boat slip, and he moved the vessel to Bowers Beach for wet storage.

In 2008, he moved the vessel back to Lewes and put it up on blocks.

Last year, Stephanie Anne sold for $5,000. The new owners didn’t want the wheelhouse; they cut it off and offered it to the foundation. The group accepted it as a piece of Lewes history to be passed on to future generations.

A 4-foot-wide hallway will connect the wheelhouse to the rear of the Overfalls’ ship’s store. It’s exterior will be repainted just as it was on the original vessel – white with a red stripe banding around it.

The Overfalls’ Dirty Hands Gang has been rebuilding the wheelhouse, working on it in an unheated Lewes Board of Public Works building.

Mayor and city council rejected the foundation’s earlier plans to build a museum near the Overfalls. “It’s a real sensitive issue about putting things on the site,” Bernheisel said.

He said the new space would be used to display items donated to the foundation; for context, World War II-era artifacts and memorabilia would be displayed onboard the Overfalls.

Surfboat restoration

Known as the Monomoy drill-type surfboat design, it is an evolved version of the classic whaleboat. As World War II became imminent, the U.S. Coast Guard saw need to have standardized lifeboats and use them for training merchant seamen.

The U.S. Maritime Service, established in 1938, trained commercial vessel crews for transporting war materials, resulting in 250,000 fighting seamen.

On the East Coast, Monomoy boats were built at a Coast Guard station in Curtis Bay, Md., and also at Johnson Boatworks in Brooklyn.

The boat owned by the Overfalls Foundation, a gift from Cape May Maritime History Museum, was built around 1940, and put into service at the Sheepshead Bay training facility in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The U.S. Merchant Marine Service disbanded in 1954, and the surfboats were transferred to U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, N.Y.

Overfalls volunteer Al Klineburger, boat project spokesman, said the restored vessel should be ready to launch this summer.

He said the Dirty Hands Gang is replicating and replacing 26 of the boat’s original oak ribs. The vessel’s floor and decking is being replaced, and its rails, bumpers, caps, rudder and tiller will be restored.

Existing paint is being removed, Klineburger said, and the boat will be repainted followed by paying – tapping cotton string between planks – and caulking.

He said the white oak-and-cedar boat was constructed using 1,400 hand-installed bronze screws.

Bernheisel said restoring the boat would cost $106,000, including a shelter for it and a pair of custom-made oars.

Bernheisel said the foundation doesn’t have enough money in hand to complete the project.

“We need $45,000 in cash, and we’re trying to get it in one fell swoop,” he said.

The project has received in-kind funding from West Marine, Lewes Yacht Club Foundation and from a galvanizing company in New Castle County, Bernheisel said. He said the group is also seeking a grant through the Longwood Foundation.

The boat is stored in the old Hocker Brush Co. building on Kings Highway, courtesy of building owner Cliff Diver,

Bernheisel said the foundation would like to enter the boat in races, and that’s why high-quality oars are needed.

“If we’re gonna be in it, we want to win it,” he said about the oars. But, he said, purchasing oars and shelter construction would be delayed if there weren’t enough money.

For more information about the Overfalls Foundation, including various ways to volunteer and financially support the organization, go to www.overfalls.org.