William Hall's maritime watercolors on the Block

“The A to Z, Lost in the 1938 Hurricane’ ‘ (watercolor on paper), by William Talmadge Hall. There will be a show of his new watercolors at the Jessie Edwards Studio, Block Island, R.I., Aug. 23-Sept. 4, wlth a reception Aug. 24, 5 to 7 p.m. The gallery is on Water Street, right across from the ferry landing.

Maintenance by the moon

Watercolor by William Hall, part of his show at the Jessie Edwards Gallery on Block Island, scheduled for this July.

Mr. Hall explains that this picture is about scraping the bottom of boats, in this case a Block Island Double Ender, at very low tides  Seaweed and barnacles slowed work boats. So this stuff needed to be regularly scraped off. Predictable very low tides would leave parts of Old Harbor, on Block Island, above water for 6 to 8 hours a day for several days in a row in the 19th Century heyday of these boats, which were essential for the islanders' fishing and transportation needs.

Double Enders were secured to the dock to wait for the extreme low tides. When they sat on the mud the work  could be done. After scraping,  antifouling paint was applied. Several fishermen and their wives worked together to get the scraping and painting done fast within the window of opportunity provided by the low tides.

"Think of it as  fishermen's barn-raising. Over two days several boats could fully scrapped, '' Mr. Hall says.