Hillard Bloom Shellfish, Inc.

Hillard Bloom shellfish boats embark before sunrise and return in the afternoon with the day's harvest. Shipments of fresh caught oysters are on board trucks that day. Hillard Bloom Shellfish oysters are harvested to fill daily customers orders. No more no less. Freshness Guaranteed.

At 6 a.m., with the day's orders in hand and crew aboard, the captain steers his boat for the harvesting grounds. Much of the harvesting operation is automated; a Hillard Bloom Shellfish crew of three men can do in a day what it used to take eight men to accomplish. From the wheelhouse, the captain works like a one-man band. He navigates the boat and simultaneously manipulates controls for the port and starboard dredge booms and the twin power winches. He drops one boom to the horizontal and the chain-suspended dredge lowers away to scoop up its treasure. Three or so minutes later, the dredge's is winched up; the boom lifts and the dredge's catch cascades into a bid. A conveyor takes the contents to a tumbler that shifts out empty shells and rocks; the remainder, mostly oysters, travels above deck on a conveyor to a station where three aproned deck hands sort the bivalves into heaps of small, medium and large.

Why Wooden Boats?

There are economical advantages to the wooden oyster boats in the Hillard Bloom Shellfish fleet. Happily, these advantages coincide with the preservation of the old vessels, some of which have worked the beds form more than 100 years. Wooden boats last longer than their steel counterparts because wood doesn't rust. Salt, an enemy of metal, preserves wood like it preserves ham. As long as wood bottoms are painted and caulked yearly, and the decks are washed down with salt water (not fresh), they'll last. When a steel; boat's hull rusts thin, nothing much can be done about it. But an old wooden boat can be replanked, where necessary, and gain 35 years of useful life. Hillard Bloom Shellfish boats are anything but antique when it comes to equipment. They have modern diesel engines and all-weather navigational and communications electronics. Deck handling gear is state-of-the-art.