Monomoy - Lewes, Delaware - Landlocked Boats on Waymarking.com

This boat was one of 250 that were build and used to navigate waters to detect U-Boats. These boats eventually became standard lifeboats on all U.S. merchant and military ships.

Do not climb on or in the boat.

Marker Text:
The Monomoy story and the story of the Lightship Overfalls are about saving the lives of seamen. The twenty-six foot Monomoy rowboat is constructed of oak and cedar and was designed in the perilous days of early WWII. Then, in the greatest sealift in history, men and supplies were moving across the Atlantic to aid our Allies in Europe. Along the way they were being intercepted by an increasingly able and lethal enemy attack, primarily U-boats. The unsustainable shipping losses were of a magnitude difficult for us to imagine now. They could not be replaced. Neither could the Merchant Marines who sailed them. Many men were lost at sea because the rescuers did not know where to search for them. The Monomoy was one solution to this problem. In 1942, President Roosevelt ordered 250 Monomoy boats built and students at the Naval Academies and the Merchant Marine training centers be instructed to navigate and sail these boats under the guidance of the U.S. Coast Guard. Training continued throughout the war and into the 1950s.

The Monomoy boats were built to a plan that was developed on Monomoy Island off Cape Cod in the 1740s. The vessels, powered by 10 rowers and controlled by steersman in the after part of the boat, were used for a variety of purposes such as livery and transporting cargo from anchored ships. In 2011, six of the long forgotten boats were given to the Cape May Maritime Museum to be distributed to organizations that would preserve and maintain them. The Overalls Foundation was honored to be able to fully restore one of the boats and to perpetuate a symbolic tribute to those who sacrificed so much to preserve treedom.

Is there a tour: No If boat is a garden what was planted in it: Not listed

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