MADISON, Md. - The 1886 Skipjack was lifted out of the water and onto the safety of dry land.
Back in December, a truck ran off of a pier and onto the historic Rebecca T. Ruark skipjack on Tilghman Island. The oldest skipjack in the nation had been working the water harvesting oysters on the Chesapeake for 130 years.
Pictured above, you can see the damage was extensive. The driver was charged with driving under the influence.
Friday morning, the boat took its first step to a road of recovery. A crane crew worked for about two hours getting her out of the water.
Since the accident, the boat has been pumping out water from leaks and the stern is still in bad shape. For Wade Murphy Jr. and his son Wade Murphy III, it was a happy day.
"The overall feeling is it's up on land and we're going to start rebuilding it. We'll be back to work hopefully in 4 to 5 months and that's a good feeling knowing were going that way," says Murphy III.
"It's about four or five steps to do this and today was the first step that we took," says Murphy Jr.
The Horseman Brothers and their crew of Madison Bay Seafood will be doing the work, preserving the skipjack's rich history. They'll be removing any bad wood and fiber glassing her to last forever.
"These boats go cultivate the bottom and turn the bottom over, catch the good oysters, and put the rest of them back. We're going to bring this boat back to what it used to be. You can't change history. You can change the future but you can't change history. This is a part of history," says Benjamin Krewson.
Murphy Jr. added, "There's only 10 or 12 left. There used to be 1,000 or 2,000. It's a way of life that's gonna be gone when they're all gone."
$100,000 in repairs are estimated to get the Rebecca T. Ruark back to sailing. The Murphy's say they hope to have her back in the water by October.
The Murphy's do have a bit to go to raise the money. Click here for the GoFundMe page.