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What is a Bugeye?
Whatever the case may be, the bug-eyes had a very distinctive evolution. Nautical historians have demonstrated that the ancestors of the type evolved from the Chesapeake Bay log-boats, the keel and garboard sections being made out of one log and other logs added depending on how large a vessel was needed – there were three-loggers, six-loggers and so on. In the heyday of the bug-eye, which was used primarily in the oyster fishery and also to transport agricultural products – this being between 1850 and 1890, there were many significantly larger bug-eyes that had the keel and garboards shaped from one log with the rest of the vessel being plank-on-frame. The Lucky Finn has some remnants of this type of construction insomuch as it has a massive shaped keel and the garboard planks are molded or carved rather than bent.
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There are various theories as to how the “bug-eye” got its name – one is that, due to the fact that the vessels were used primarily in the oyster fishery and many of the men doing this work were Scottish, the Scottish word “buckie” for oyster shell became corrupted to buck-eye and then to bugeye. The other theory is that the hawse holes in the bows of the boat look like a bug’s eyes. Others say that it is connected to the nimbleness of the vessel in that it could turn in a bug’s eye!