The Machigonne II on its way to Peaks Island. FILE PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON

Working Waterfront

New ferries on the way for Maine

[caption id="attachment_35572" align="alignnone" width="700"] The Margaret Chase Smith on Islesboro. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING[/caption] New ferries, the vital link between Maine islands and the mainland, are in the pipeline. In recent months, construction has started on ferries to serve Peaks Island in Casco Bay and Matinicus off Penobsot Bay, and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Listening for right whales

You might think keeping track of a 100,000 pound animal would be easy. But when its home has no boundaries and its prey moves with changing ocean circulation within the vast Atlantic, it presents a challenge. Then there’s the fact that there are only around 350 remaining and they aren’t… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Boothbay’s ‘hidden treasure’ is water temperature data

Maine’s Department of Marine Resources has maintained a hidden treasure in Boothbay Harbor for nearly 120 years—a daily measurement of sea surface temperatures, which provides an uncommonly long record of a warming ocean. Those daily records (more than 42,000 of them) were translated into annual averages to show the estimated… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

When admitting you’re wrong is the right move

Reading the Glass: A Captain’s View of Weather, Water, and Life on Ships By Elliot Rappaport, Dutton/Penguin Random House (2023) A few of us get to know everything: doctors, editors, various experts, philosophers, TV pundits, religious gurus—and, now after reading Elliot Rappaport’s Reading the Glass: A Captain’s View of Weather,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The shameful history of a ‘notorious’ slave ship captain

[caption id="attachment_35121" align="alignnone" width="700"] A newspaper report on a slave ship arriving in Kittery.[/caption] Maine has a proud history of seafaring captains who braved the open ocean in pursuit of trade and fish. Capt. Frederick Drinkwater is not one of them. Drinkwater, according to research completed and presented by Kate… SEE MORE

Katie Ashley, a plant science Ph.D student at the University of Maine, poses with potato bins filled with lobster shells.

Working Waterfront

Lobster shells may protect potato crop

Scientists at the University of Maine are studying lobster shells as a possible aid to microbial communities to ward off soilborne potato pathogens. The novel shell-to-spud combination may connect two cornerstones of Maine’s food system and enhance the state’s circular economy. Potatoes are Maine’s top agricultural commodity with a value… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Fear of aquaculture not couched in reality

An article in the February/March issue The Working Waterfront outlined the fact that an increasing number of coastal towns in Maine fear, and are interposing regulatory measures that bar or limit, new and/or expanded aquaculture activities in their respective towns (“Towns fear, fight aquaculture expansion”). Similar (and somewhat stronger) views… SEE MORE

Hoa (Flower) Truong, left, and Hoa Le prepare food.

Working Waterfront

Vietnamese street food meets Maine seafood in Brunswick

At Fishermen’s Net Seafood Restaurant & Market in Brunswick, the new owners are infusing the flavors of Vietnam in their cuisine with Bánh Mì, a traditional Vietnamese sandwich. Co-owner Hoa (Flower) Truong, 30, purchased Fishermen’s Net on Forest Avenue in Portland in 2018 with her cousin, Quang Nguyen, 33, who… SEE MORE

Maine Department of Transportation officials watch an Irving ship near the Mack Point terminal in Searsport in 2013. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Maine’s ports poised for growth

The future of Maine’s three state-supported shipping ports is bright, says Matt Burns, director of the Maine Port Authority. “We have a lot of activities on our plate out to the end of the decade,” Burns said during a Feb. 14 online presentation hosted by the Waterfront Alliance, a Portland… SEE MORE

The Sedna, a J/46 underway near Gloucester, Mass. Brien delivered the boat from Darien, Conn., to South Freeport in 2020.

Working Waterfront

From here to there— Adventures of a yacht delivery skipper

It’s early October, still hurricane season, and Cam Brien, a professional yacht delivery captain, among other nautical gigs, is sailing a brand new 39-foot sailboat across Frying Pan Shoals, 15 miles off Cape Fear on the North Carolina coast, headed for the Annapolis Boat Show. Brien had flown from his… SEE MORE