BLUE HILL — Rowing, in one form or another, has been a part of maritime life for just about as long as human beings have plied the sea. Over centuries, fishermen and other mariners developed countless varieties of oar-driven small craft, each uniquely suited to its particular use and the sea conditions in which it …
ELLSWORTH — Trade wars can make for strange bedfellows, but few pairings would seem stranger than Maine’s lobster industry and Food Export USA-Northeast, a nonprofit group that works with the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry and nine other state agriculture departments throughout the Northeast to promote the export of “food and agricultural products” …
CASTINE — The Maine Maritime Academy sailing team sent squads to regattas hosted by Bowdoin College and MIT last weekend and fared poorly at both of them. Racing on Harpswell Sound at Bowdoin’s two-day Nicholas Barnett Trophy event, MMA finished 14th in a 16-team fleet. The best takeaway from the regatta was, perhaps, that MMA …
ELLSWORTH — When the Maine Lobstermen’s Association informed the National Marine Fisheries Service at the end of August that it was withdrawing its support for the agency’s proposed whale protection rules, it also offered a list of 10 “actions” NMFS should take. The proposed rules could force lobstermen to remove half their vertical buoy lines …
CASTINE – Hurricane Dorian, which devastated parts of the Bahamas and did serious damage along the Carolina coastal plain and in Nova Scotia, largely spared Maine, but its fringe effects were enough to delay the starts of two weekend regattas hosted by Maine Maritime Academy. The Harman Trophy, sailed in Colgate 26 sloops, and the …
BUCKSPORT – It’s too soon to break out the dill and lemons, but the plan to grow Atlantic salmon in a land-based facility at the site of the former Verso paper mill took a big step forward Tuesday night. The Bucksport Planning Board approved the site plan review application submitted by Whole Oceans for its …
SURRY — More than a decade ago, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted new “Tier 4” emission standards covering marine diesel engines used in, among other vessels, lobster boats. Phased in over a period of years, by the end of 2017 the rules effectively limited diesel engines used in commercial boats to no more than 805 …
ELLSWORTH — Recreational boating deaths in the United States dropped by nearly 4 percent last year, but more than 600 boaters died in 2018 while engaged in what is supposed to be the pursuit of fun. Last week, the U.S. Coast Guard released its 2018 Recreational Boating Statistics Report and the news was mixed. While …
BROOKLIN — When elements combine with seemingly magical results, the process is often described as “alchemy.” And when noted yacht designer Bill Tripp got together with three Maine boatyards — The Hinckley Co. in Trenton, the Brooklin Boat Yard and the Front Street Shipyard in Belfast — the result was literally Alchemy, a modern, Bill …
BLUE HILL — For the past 15 years or so, members of the Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club have looked on the club’s youth sailing program as something of a mixed blessing. Most KYC members cheer the programs of the Kollegewidgwok Sailing Education Association (KSEA), formally established in 2013, as a good way to engage youngsters in …
ELLSWORTH — Lobstermen will get another bite at the right whale problem over the next few weeks at a series of meetings scheduled by the Department of Marine Resources. The meetings are being held to discuss rules proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service that could force Maine fishermen to cut the number of vertical …
CASTINE — It isn’t often that a bunch of teenage river sailors gets a chance to learn what big-boat sailing is all about, but last Wednesday 11 youthful sailors from the Lawrence Community Boating Program in Massachusetts spent a day learning the ropes aboard three serious cruising sailboats on Penobscot Bay. The occasion was the …
