Under new ownership, the Ellen Marie sailed into Davis Creek in Mathews on Monday for the first time since she left in the early 1990s. Pete Chaconas of Rock Hall, Md., bought the deadrise in 2012.

“It took me four years to find her. Through the Northern Fleet of Buy Boats I had looked at several but when I saw her in Urbanna I knew she was for me,” he said.

Chaconas is in the process of restoring this 62-foot boat, once used for pound-net fishing and later as a crab dredge boat, doing most of the work himself. He vows, “She will always stay like a fishing boat.”

The Ellen Marie was built in 1925 at Smith’s Railway on Pepper Creek for Capt. Henry Owens, who fished his pound nets with her until he died in 1974. She is named for Capt. Owens’s daughter, Ellen Marie Owens Burroughs. There have been several owners during these past years and several additions made. A larger pilot house was installed and the railing seen around her decking came from...