home

W

hen you need to haul some gravel today it would be normal throw it in the back of a pick-up truck. In 1730 they might have done something similar – but the pick-up truck of that day was an open boat called a Periauger (pronounced pear-e-au-ger).

One visited Oriental last week.

Periauger at the Town Dock (Ben Casey photo)

None from the 1700’s still exist – but a “replica” was created and launched in Beaufort earlier this year. She is on her way home north to Hertford (near Edenton).

That journey has her visiting many of North Carolina’s coastal towns – including Oriental.

How To Design A Replica

The roots of the Periauger date back to colonial times – the design coming to North Carolina with French settlers. This would have been a common craft used by settlers in the mid 1700’s to travel the North Carolina waterways. While the boats were used through the mid 1700’s, no remains or even drawings of the boats exist today.

This fascinated Michael Alford. In 1991 when he was director of the N.C. Maritime Museum he set out to design a Periauger. He had only a couple of written descriptions to go by, and an understanding of materials and construction techniques of the day.  That’s all.

The Perquimans County Restoration Association, based in Hertford, NC raised the money to build her and in 2002 work began.

Bags of cargo (corn they say) line the hull. The barrels would have been for water, or perhaps rum? (Ben Casey photo)

In the 1700’s these boats were made by hollowing out a cypress tree log. Today giant cypress logs are hard to find, so instead they glued cypress planks together to create a similar effect.

Periauger has two 25’ masts, each with a single gaff sail.  Eight rowing stations equipped with a 12-foot long sweep, provide auxilary propulsion to the sails.

Periauger is 30 feet overall, with a beam of 7 feet. The basic boat weighs 2800 pounds, and to stiffen her another 2500 pounds of ballast were added. Some of the ballast is lead, and some comes in the more traditional form – bags of stones. The boat is shallow draft, needing just about 20 inches of water to float.

She was designed to carry cargo such as sacks of corn, bricks or barrels of rum.

In at least one case a periuager was fitted out for military duty. Benedict Arnold wrote of using one in his Revolutionary War fleet.

(John Ernst photo) [page] Photos of Periauger….

Periauger went for a sail off Oriental Friday afternoon (John Ernst photo)

Volunteers sewing up burlap bags with cargo ("more corn" they said). TownDock.net research indicates Hertford is about to receive a substantial supply of Beaufort corn.

Time warp collision. Periauger volunteer John Ernst in traditional garb, holding a laptop computer.

(Ben Casey photo)

[page] Come Saturday morning Periauger had to depart. There was no engine to start. They left under just oar power…just as it would have been done in the 1700’s.

It worked, but it made us appreciate that oars are harder to use than a diesel auxiliary.

First – the crew readied the oars.

They "accelerated" away from the Town Dock.

With an uncooperative breeze and limited "horsepower", Periauger didn’t make the turn and had to be pushed off the pilings at the Oriental Marina Inn.

Flogging and encouragement took over after that, and the crew rowed out of the harbor…

…then raised a sail while still rowing (circa 1700 "motor sailing")

They then raised the other sail and smartly sailed out of the harbor bound for little Washington.

The crew of volunteers that came through Oriental plan to spend the next few weeks taking Periauger north – and showing her off to several coastal towns along the way.

You can see an online video of Periauger under sail – click here. (The video was done in New Bern…you will need a broadband connection.)

Posted Tuesday August 24, 2004 by Keith N. Smith