Category: Business

Vickie Ducharme, a member of Freedom Boat Club, poses with a trainer. PHOTO: COURTESY YARMOUTH BOAT YARD.

Working Waterfront

Boat club offers ‘fee for fleet’

The Freedom Boat Club has gotten more Mainers out on the water this season than ever before. “We saw a significant increase in members last year and into this continuing year,” said Steve Arnold, owner of the Freedom Boat Club’s Maine franchise. “COVID was a big push for people to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Lobster Institute is hub for industry, science

[caption id="attachment_27491" align="alignleft" width="300"] Rick Wahle PHOTO: COURTESY LOBSTER INSTITUTE[/caption] Earlier this year, federal funding became available to study the interaction between the burgeoning offshore renewable energy industry and other ocean users in an area from the Gulf of Maine to waters off New York. It was an opportunity to… SEE MORE
One of the company's labels.

Working Waterfront

Maine’s last seafood cannery

  [caption id="attachment_27425" align="alignnone" width="500"] Arthur Ingalls, production associate, prepares boxes for shipping.[/caption] Story by Sarah Craighead Dedmon Photos by Leslie Bowman Fish canneries once dotted the coast of Maine, jutting off of small-town shorelines, and employing thousands of Mainers for more than a century. At the sardine industry’s height,… SEE MORE
A right whale

Working Waterfront

Lobstermen’s Association sues over whale rules

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association filed a lawsuit in early September against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Secretary of Commerce in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the federal government’s ten‐year whale protection plan. The suit claims the plan will all but eliminate the… SEE MORE
A right whale feeding

Working Waterfront

Feds limit lobstering to protect right whales

A long-anticipated ruling by the National Marine Fisheries Service aimed at protecting the endangered North Atlantic right whale was issued Aug. 30. The ruling impacts Maine’s signature fishery on several fronts. The key components mean lobster fishermen with federal permits can no longer set traps using vertical buoy lines from… SEE MORE
Sara Rademaker

Working Waterfront

Homegrown eels

[caption id="attachment_27060" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Sara Rademaker at the Franklin facility.[/caption] Story and photos by Leslie Bowman Maine’s most lucrative fishery by the pound is its spring elver run, and as such, it seemed an obvious candidate for aquaculture. In Asia and Europe there is a long tradition of eel farming.… SEE MORE
Ethan DeBery, owner of Fish 'n Trips, in Phippsburg aboard his AJ-28-foot lobster boat.

Working Waterfront

Lobster tour operators say demand is strong

[caption id="attachment_27030" align="aligncenter" width="600"] DeBery shows two-year-old Kieran Park what running a lobster boat is all about.[/caption] PHOTOS BY KELLI PARK How well is Ethan DeBery doing with lobster boat charters? So well, that he has advice for his colleagues. “People have asked me, ‘Why don’t half of the lobstermen… SEE MORE
McDonald holds one of her daughters while on a friend's boat in Stonington harbor.

Working Waterfront

The lobstering legislator

PHOTOS BY MICHELE STAPLETON Near the end of our conversation, Genevieve McDonald drops a bit of a bombshell by saying she is applying for law school and hopes to begin classes in the fall of 2022. This comes after she has described her work as a state legislator, her work… SEE MORE