Photo: Will Van Dorp
The Vermont Sail Freight Project sailing barge Ceres called in New York harbor this weekend with a cargo of non-perishable produce from a total of thirty farms from Vermont and the state of New York. The had sailed the barge down Lake Champlain in Vermont, through the Champlain Canal and then down the Hudson, stopping at riverside towns along the way. She docked on Saturday at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for a market and a party. See Will Van Dorp’s post on the Tugster blog for great coverage of the Brooklyn events.
I caught up with them on Sunday at the New Amsterdam Market, a pop-up farmers’s market where the old Fulton Street fish market once operated. I got to meet Erik Andrus, the Vermont farmer who conceived the Sail Freight Project and raised the initial capital on Kickstarter to fund the construction of the barge last April. With several others, he was tending the very busy farm stand. He seemed pleased but admitted to being a exhausted, which is not surprising.
Last week, two rare oarfish washed up (or in the case of the first was dragged up) on the shores of Southern California. Yesterday, Japan was stuck by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake. A coincidence? It seems that there is Japanese folklore that says that sighting of oarfish portends a coming earthquake. Oarfish are the longest bony fish in the ocean and can grow up to around 17 meters or 56 feet long. The two that washed up in California were only 18′ and 14′ long, which is still very impressive. Oarfish, which tend to stay in deep water, are rarely seen on the surface. When they do make an appearance they are understandably often referred to as “sea serpents,” given their long snake-like bodies. It is easy to understand how they might be useful in folklore as a predictor of ill-tidings. If sea serpents start appearing, something bad must be coming. In Japan, the oarfish is traditionally known as the “Messenger from the Sea God’s Palace.” (If the Sea God is sending you a message, it is better sent by a sea serpent rather than a sea bass.)
The first US Navy “
At about the same time that the Forrestal was sent to scrap, Bath Iron Works in Maine floated 
A second rare 
October 21st is a busy day in nautical history. In addition to being the anniversary of the 
Congratulations to all the racers in this year’s 
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The composite clipper ship, 
Monitor HMS M33
How far can you sail in a straight line without hitting land? The answer appears to be an almost 20,000 mile voyage from Pakistan to the 
For the second time in roughly a week, a smuggler’s boat overloaded with migrants from Africa has capsized in the Mediterranean off Sicily, near the island of Lampedusa. At least 27 died, but 221 were rescued from the water. The boat capsized 65 miles (105 kilometers) southeast of Lampedusa.