Each year, our talented boatbuilders handcraft wooden vessels in which tickets are sold for a drawing that takes place on Luminary Night — a fundraiser for the nonprofit St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum. This year, a Peapod rowboat and the Wee Lassie Featherlight canoe were created. PEAPOD ROWBOAT HISTORY The Peapod rowboat has a long history of sea worthiness, being used as lobster boats and for rescue work with the Coast Guard as lifeboats or surf-boats in the 1800s. The double ender was designed to break waves approaching from the stern to avoid swamping. There is a story about two lobstermen riding out a gale in a peapod far from land. Nearby was a schooner, reefed down and pitching hard, which offered to take the men aboard. The men declined, they preferred to ride out the heavy seas in the safety of their “Pod." Some say the “Pod” originated about 1870 in the waters of Penopscot Bay in North Haven. Eventually Peapods were frequently used as lighthouse tender boats nat...