ST. MICHAELS - If there is a pedigree for skipjack captains, Scott Todd surely has one. At 39, he is one of a dwindling breed of watermen willing to stake their livelihood on the shallow-draft, sailing work boats that once dominated the Chesapeake Bay.

And he doesn't plan on being the last.

Yesterday, Todd joined a crowd of captains, shipwrights, carpenters, well-wishers and reporters around his 68-foot boat, the Lady Katie, at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum for a celebration of sorts - a declaration by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that the nation's last commercial sail fleet is also one of its 11 most endangered historic resources.

It is a dubious honor at best, but one that leaders of a three-year effort to rescue the 15 or so skipjacks - still dredging the bay for increasingly scarce oysters - embraced wholeheartedly.

"At one time, there were three skipjacks in our family," said Todd, who lives in Cambridge. "I grew up with these boats. My grandfather built the Rebecca T. Ruark, the oldest skipjack left on the bay. He was a legendary boat builder, and the Lady Katie was owned at one time by two captains I consider legends on the bay. That's the way it should be."

The point of all the hoopla surrounding the annual 11 Most Endangered Places list is focusing attention on sites, or in this case boats, that the 200,000-member preservation group deems in trouble.

"The list is really a wakeup call for all Americans to realize that some of our most cherished resources are threatened," said Peter Brink, the trust's senior vice president for programs. "Skipjacks can be looked at as canaries in a coal mine on the health of the bay. And it's clear that if we don't do something, they won't be here in 10 years."

Since 1988, the list has focused attention and crucial grant money on Maryland projects as diverse as the Senator Theatre, Antietam Battlefield and the Monocacy Aqueduct in Frederick County. Scrutiny by the trust helped raise nearly $9 million for the restoration of the Constellation in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

This year, the list includes Native American burial ground in Montana and the Dakotas and historic bridges in Indiana.

There is no guarantee that being on the list will bring in new grants, but for members of the state's 15-member skipjack task force, including nearly a dozen captains, the attention can only boost a restoration effort that has produced three refurbished boats on the marine railway at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

With an annual budget of about $150,000 - enough to refurbish three skipjacks a year - museum officials and task force members acknowledge they're constantly trolling for new benefactors.

One additional benefit of the skipjack restoration project, said museum chief John Valliant and master boat builder Mike Vlahovich, is the success of a fledgling maritime carpentry program that has trained three apprentices.

"The program is not about the boats, it's not about the people who belong to these boats," Valliant said. "This is a way of life we'd hate to see disappear. Every time you pluck away another piece of that way of life, the bay changes forever."

Russell Dize, captain of the 101-year-old Kathryn, said the apprentice program answers a critical need on the bay - training skilled craftsmen who can work on traditional wooden boats.

"We're excited about all the attention this brings that the skipjacks are in danger, but the hardest thing on the bay is finding skilled people in the trades," said Dize, who traces his family history to the 1670s on the bay. "Everybody nowadays wants to work with fiberglass and plywood."

With Todd's Lady Katie ready for new decking, mast and cabin next fall - after its captain finishes the crabbing season in a diesel-powered work boat - the museum's shipbuilding crew is set to go to work on the 53-year-old City of Crisfield.

Yesterday, shipwright Vlahovich talked of adding three apprentices as a crane lifted the Crisfield's aging mast off the vessel, the first step in the restoration plan.

"For me, pulling the mast is like pulling the cork on a fine bottle of wine," Vlahovich said.