Starboard!

Here's a photo (from Spinsheet's Dan Phelps) of this weekend's Bartlett Cup held near St. Michael's, MD. The event marks the sesquicentennial of log canoe racing on the Chesapeake.

Log canoes, based on dugouts, are (or were) unique to the Chesapeake. They were forerunners of the famous skipjack and bugeye designs used for oystering and crabbing. Later, log canoes were used as a means of getting catches quickly to market.

The key feature of the log canoe was the extreme instability that required rail meat to sit far out on a series of planks.

Nice video here too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPFjZlWnGBs