One of Fournier's tugs works alongside Maine Maritime Academy's State of Maine last summer.

Working Waterfront

Fournier family continues tug tradition in Belfast

If Belfast has an icon representing it to the wider world, it’s probably the three red tugboats docked at the foot of Main Street. As pretty as those boats are, with their clean decks and fresh paint, they are not props for tourism marketing. The Penobscot Bay Tractor Tug Co.… SEE MORE

John Cabe and Anne Watson at the bicycle rental store in Bar Harbor.

Working Waterfront

Environment-friendly electric bike finds niche in Bar Harbor

Anne Watson tried out a Pedego electric bicycle one summer and loved it. Watson, a former school superintendent in Connecticut, has visited Great Cranberry Island every summer since she was a baby, and for the past two years has lived there year-round. But with summer rolling around, she can be… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Demystifying the magical internet: how the info flows (or not)

By Susie Arnold, Ph. D. and Heather Deese, Ph. D. If you think you need better broadband speeds at your house, in your neighborhood, or throughout your community, you’re probably correct. Maine currently ranks 49th in the country for internet speeds and reliability, so most of us have a long… SEE MORE

A view to the Camden Hills from the Islesboro ferry.

Working Waterfront

Lots of lobster news, and a win for public access

Tugboats are the work horses of the maritime world, and seem, by design, to be steady, sure-footed, and safe. But the April Commercial Fisheries News reports on an odd, and probably unusual, tugboat mishap. Two tugs, the 40-foot Helen Louise and the 80-foot Capt. Mackintire, collided on Feb. 22 off… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Harbor visitors will get ‘tides, weather, local knowledge’ in app

USHarbors.com, a website created and run by Rockland based Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors magazine, is taking a step toward putting insider harbor information in the palm of its 4 million users’ hands. The spin-off business has received a seed grant from the Maine Technology Institute to develop a mobile… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Clean energy from a meeting of Iceland and Maine

By Cameron G. Brien What is the single largest commodity the nation of Iceland produces in a single year? Is it fish? Banking? The attractive, blonde descendants of Viking shield-maidens? It is, in fact, something much more abstract than any of those things. What Iceland produces more of than anything… SEE MORE

A right whale that has recovered from wounds linked to fishing gear.

Working Waterfront

Right whale story misled readers

By Patrice McCarron I was disheartened by the article on the plight of North Atlantic right whales on the front page of April’s The Working Waterfront. The story and accompanying photo misleads the public about interactions between the Maine lobster fishery and right whales and runs counter to the Island… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

DMR wins grant to study right whale protection

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been awarded a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to improve the data used to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. The $714,245 grant will support a three-year project beginning this summer to improve and add data on fishing gear that… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

South Portland ponders fishing pier upgrades

By Jacqueline Weaver Proposals for South Portland’s Portland Street Pier, a long time overnight station for local fishermen, range from the modest—adding parking spaces and giving the place a facelift—to the ambitious, with a rebuilt and enlarged pier that could lead to an active fish farming program. A rough estimate… SEE MORE

An advertisement used by the Maine Office of Tourism on the theme of originality.

Working Waterfront

Tourist numbers strong in 2017, but labor shortage looms

Traverse Burnett opened his presentation at the Governor’s Tourism Conference in Portland on April 4 by showing a photo of his children on vacation on Peaks Island in September 2013. It seemed like an odd choice, indulging in a personal slideshow in front of more than 500 people. The next… SEE MORE

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