We hope you will join us in early summer, for an evening event exploring possibilities for a Maine Sail Freight Project along our fine seacoast. On June 22 we’ll join with Penobscot Marine Museum, MOFGA, Maine Farmland Trust for a Grange-hosted potluck dinner, and panel presenters from around New England.

If you’ve been following the revival of the working sail, you may have caught the maiden voyage of the Vermont Sail Freight Project last fall, further afield there’s New Dawn Traders in England, Salish Sea Traders in Puget Sound, Sailing Vessel Kwai out of the Cook Islands, and a Tres Hombres, traveling with rum and cocoa to the Netherlands!

Here’s a great video of the Dutch: http://science.time.com/2013/08/07/video-set-sail-for-greener-maritime-cargo-shipping/

And the proud Vermonters: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/11/video-the-farm-barge-takes-manhattan.html

Each boat, and each route carries its own particular flavor, mission and salty cast of characters. What they share is a notion to shift the conversation about shipping. Its the whimsical flank on a movement thats working across sectors to build more regional food-supply chains, and reforming our transportation system to reduce energy dependency and carbon pollution.

Last October, the Vermont Sail Freight project delivered 50 thousand dollars of regionally produced foods (syrup, honey, beans, carrots, pickles, jellies and goat milk caramels) a mere 330 miles downstream in a home-built plywood barge, stopping to sell food in canal towns long abandoned by freighters, and eager for the return of regional trade. Imagine what could be possible in Maine, with a rich maritime history, a vital conservation movement, and the ongoing explosion of local, organic food production all along the coast. What a chance to inspire summer visitors to eat local everywhere, as well as on vacation.

Come aboard the planning phase of this journey, the proposed project will be a partnership between local farmers, local sailors, Greenhorns (a national young farmer network), Penobscot Marine Museum and others.

Come on June 22 for an evening of information and idea sharing. Please bring ideas, proposals, vessel suggestions and nautical route perspectives. Please bring a potluck dish to share. The panel presentations will be followed by a facilitated community conversation about what lies ahead for the project. We’re committed to a collaborative, exploratory experience that is both educationally and culturally significant for the students, communities, farmers and citizens involved. Hurray for a futurist, full-sail opportunity to look towards the horizon at an economy we define according to share values. Join us, for an evening together.

EVENT SCHEDULE:
4.30pm Drinks and Entry
Partner orgs have tableing opportunity
Silent Screening of Coaster: The Adventure of the John Levitt

Bar by Marshall Wharf Brewing

Introductions, Severine Fleming, Kathy Goldner, Grange Hosts
“Inclusive Meta statement of purpose”
5.45 pm Patrick Kiley and Severine Fleming report on the Vermont Sail Freight Project with slideshow
6.15 pm Lu Yoder, Sailing Vessel Kwai, Cook Islands- Hawaii a look at the global movement in Sail Freight
Slide show: Sail Freight Around the world

Panel continues:
6.45 Cate Cronin, The History of the Clearwater
7.00 Cipperly Good Penboscot Marine Museum history of sail freight
7.30 Elisheva Kaufman, Mystic Sheaf Traders vision
7.45 Lance Lee, history of Aprenticeshop and the experiments in Sail freight

8.00 Q+ A period

8 pm Facilitated community brainstorming session!