Summer’s Sweetest Week Starts Here – Elizabeth City
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How Bad will El Nino be? – Fred Pickhardt
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Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for moreBoth the US CFSv2 and the ECMWF ENSO models agree that this El Niño is strengthening rapidly and will likely be a strong-to-very-strong event peaking in fall/winter 2026.
The ECMWF is forecasting a peak relative Niño 3.4 anomaly of roughly 3.0–3.7°C, while CFSv2 peaks around 2.0–2.2°C. That’s nearly a full degree difference at the high end, with both models using the same relative index framework. The CFSv2 projection shows signs of a waning El Niño by early 2027, while ECMWF holds near peak conditions. If we average the two models you get a peak of about 2.7 C which would be a very strong El Nino indeed.
Putting this in historical context using RONI:
Since February 2026, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has used the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) as its official ENSO metric, replacing the traditional ONI. RONI subtracts the tropical-mean SST anomaly from the Niño 3.4 value and applies a scaling factor, stripping out background warming to isolate true El Niño intensity. The three strongest events in the instrumental record (1950–present):
No event in the historical record has exceeded 2.5°C RONI. ECMWF’s plume implies a serious chance of shattering that ceiling by 0.5–1.2°C, which would be genuinely unprecedented. Even CFSv2’s more conservative projection would place this event among the top three on record, approaching the 1982-83 peak.
The 2015-16 event for comparison:
The 2015-16 El Niño crossed 1.0°C RONI in June 2015 and accelerated through fall: JAS 1.6 → ASO 1.9 → SON 2.2 → OND 2.3 → NDJ 2.4 (peak). Decay was swift, dropping below zero by May 2016 and plunging into strong La Niña (−1.1°C) by fall.
The 1982-83 event followed a nearly identical trajectory, peaking at 2.5°C in NDJ–DJF before collapsing into La Niña by late 1983.
Notably, the traditional ONI ranking of these events is different: 2015-16 led at 2.6°C, followed by 1997-98 at 2.3°C, and 1982-83 at 2.2°C. RONI reverses that order, revealing that much of 2015-16’s apparent record strength was inflated by background tropical warming rather than El Niño dynamics alone.
What to watch:
As we move into late summer, the rate of intensification will tell us which model is closer to reality. If we’re tracking toward ECMWF’s upper range, this will be an event unlike anything in the modern record. If CFSv2 is right, it’s still a major El Niño with significant global weather impacts, but not the record-breaker ECMWF suggests.
Forensic Marine Weather Expert
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American Tug Buyers Go to Police with Fraud Claims after Kadey-Krogen Bankruptcy – Loose Cannon
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American Tug Buyers Go to Police with Fraud Claims after Kadey-Krogen Bankruptcy
Ex-Detective and Wife Seek Halt to Liquidation Proceedings
This is the model of American Tug—the 365—that was being built for Joe and Tana Ganete when the company filed for bankruptcy According to the American Tug bankrupcy petition, four vessels are in various stages of completion at the La Conner, Washington factory. The buyers of one of those boats last week filed a criminal complaint alleging the company CEO had defrauded them in the run-up to insolvency.
Joe and Tana Ganete of Gig Harbor, Washington, went to the Sagit County Sheriff’s Department with a timeline and a list of allegations and supporting documents. They say the department has opened a case file (No. 26-07957) and assigned an investigator to look into it.
Joe Ganete, who was a detective for 18 years before founding a company that provides services to law enforcement, said the charges might include theft by deception, exploitation of elders and financial crimes across state lines. Ganete named Kadey-Krogen and American Tug CEO Tucker West as the person most culpable.
Ganete said an investigation might well show that funds from American Tug were diverted to prop up Kadey-Krogen as its revenues declined, though it is not clear whether that, by itself, would be illegal.
Krogen acquired American Tug in May 2023. West filed Chapter 7 bankrupcy petitions for both companies last Monday. Unlike Chapter 11, which allows a company to reorganize and stay in business, Chapter 7 takes it directly to liquidation. That is, all assets are sold with proceeds going to creditors.
Attempts via text and email were made yesterday to reach Tucker West for his side of the story. There was no response, but if West eventually does reply, Loose Cannon will include his comments as a follow-up story.
Kadey-Krogen Files for Bankruptcy Liquidation, American Tugs Too.
·Jul 8Read full story According to the bankruptcy documents, the Ganete’s American Tug 365 is 85 percent complete and 85 percent paid for. Other buyers with unfinished boats at the factory are: Keith Asplundh of Palm Beach, 70 percent complete and paid for; Jeff and Susan Parker of Harrison, Tennessee, 35 percent complete and paid for, and Benjamin and Christine Saitz of Seattle, 25 percent complete and paid for.
Ganete said the bankruptcy court will treat the buyers as “unsecured creditors.” He said the other buyers have expressed interest in contributing to any criminal case as supporting witnesses. Ganete hopes the criminal investigation will prompt the bankruptcy judge to pause any liquidation of American Tug assets.
Ganete said different buyers had different contracts with American Tug, some of which presumably included regular payments at various construction milestones. Ganete’s was different: He and his wife paid 90 percent down—$700,000—with the remainder due at delivery. In exchange, Ganete said, American Tug discounted the price by several tens of thousands of dollars.
The Ganete’s contract also stipulated that the boat had to be delivered by a specific date or the $700,000 would be refunded to them. There were unexplained delays during construction, and American Tug failed to meet the deadline, Ganete said.
He said that when he raised the issue of a refund with West, he was told there was no money available for that purpose. “He defaulted on the contract at that point already,” Ganete said. “He’s already telling me he’s defaulting, and he can’t fulfill the contract.”
According to Ganete, West suggested they meet at the factory, so they agreed to get together on July 9. The petitions for liquidation were filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on July 6. Ganete said he was never notified that their meeting was off.
“This is devastating. People had hopes and aspirations and plans, and, you know, no matter what walk of life you come from, whether you’re rich or poor, it hurts when you lose that much money,” he said.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
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How a Tiny Caribbean Island Made American Independence Possible – Loose Cannon
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On Nov. 16, 1776, the Andrew Doria, coming from the fledgling United States, was acknowledged with the firing of a cannon from St. Eustatius. This event is now known as the ‘First Salute.’ Painting by Phillips Melville, USMC (Retired) via Wikimedia Commons The author is director of Historic Preservation and Community Planning Program at the College of Charleston. This story first appeared in The Conversation on July 1, 2026 and is reprinted here with permission.
By R. GRANT GILMORE III
The American Revolution is often told as a heroic story of 13 colonies rising up against a mighty empire and, with some help from France, winning their independence.
But the real story is more complicated. As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its independence, it is worth remembering that success on the battlefield depended not only on courage and ideals, but also on trade, credit, shipping and access to military supplies.
The center of that trade was not the 13 Colonies – but south of Loyalist Florida, in the greater Caribbean. Here developed the center of the Atlantic economy due to the insatiable appetite for sugar that had grown across Europe by the late 1700s. The economic output of just Jamaica was the same as the entire 13 Colonies. The Caribbean economies depended on slave labor, trade and supplies from around the world to make sure the sugar flowed freely and tax revenues to European colonial powers were maximized. Much of that support flowed through a small Dutch island in the eastern Caribbean that few Americans know today: St. Eustatius.
Small but Mighty
I’m a historical archaeologist, and for eight years earlier in my career, I lived on St. Eustatius and served as island archaeologist and founding director of the St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research.
Barely 8 square miles (about 21 square kilometers) in size, St. Eustatius – or as residents call it, Statia – sits to the northwest of St. Kitts and Nevis. Without this tiny island, the Continental Army might have found itself without the arms, gunpowder and the supplies it needed to survive.
Statia Facts for Sailors from Noonsite
Statia’s importance began with geography. The island rises steeply from the blue waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean. Its dormant volcano, known as the Quill, dominates the southern part of the island.
Unlike taller Caribbean islands, Statia did not receive enough rainfall to make it especially attractive for large-scale sugar production. That made it less valuable to the great sugar powers of the 18th century, especially Britain and France.
What Statia lacked in plantation potential, it made up for as a port. Oranje Bay, on the western side of the island, offered one of the deepest and safest nearshore anchorages in the Americas. Large merchant ships could come close to shore, unload their cargo and reload quickly.
Along the bay stood a long, busy waterfront, lined with warehouses, shops and trading houses. By the mid-18th century, this narrow strip of shoreline had become one of the most important commercial centers in the Atlantic world.
Imperialism Through Trade
The Dutch had settled St. Eustatius in the 1630s, around the same time they were developing New Amsterdam, now New York City. Dutch merchants, families and investors moved through a wide Atlantic network that connected Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and North America. These commercial ties created trust, credit and opportunity across long distances.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, European empires tried to control colonial trade through mercantilism. Colonies were expected to enrich the mother country by supplying raw materials and buying finished goods through approved channels. Taxes, tariffs and trade restrictions benefited imperial governments and favored merchants, but they raised costs for ordinary colonists, shopkeepers and planters.
British colonists in North America often resented these restrictions, but Dutch traders were willing to help them get around them. For generations, Dutch vessels carried goods throughout the Atlantic, often selling items at lower prices than British merchants could offer legally.
Archaeological evidence from sites such as Pope’s Creek Plantation in Virginia, the Washington family home, shows the presence of Dutch ceramics, clay pipes and yellow bricks. Even before the Revolution, Dutch trade was woven into colonial life.
‘Emporium of the World’
In 1754, the Dutch West India Company petitioned the Dutch government to make Oranjestad, the capital of St. Eustatius, a free port, and the request was granted. The result was extraordinary: Goods could move through the island with few restrictions and without the heavy taxes common elsewhere. The government profited from leases on land, warehouses and homes rather than from taxing every cargo.
Merchants from across the Atlantic world quickly took advantage. Ships arrived carrying textiles, tools, foodstuffs, weapons, luxury goods and raw materials. They also carried captive African people, forcibly transported within the transatlantic slave trade and subjected to sale, detention, labor and violence. Enslaved Africans and their descendants were essential not only to the island’s plantations, but also to the households, waterfronts, warehouses and commercial networks that made this trade possible.
St. Eustatius became, in the words often associated with the island, “the emporium of the world.” In modern terms, it functioned like an Amazon fulfillment center for the 18th-century Atlantic. Its prosperity, however, rested in significant part on slavery and on the unequal power that enabled imperial commerce to flourish.
Adam Smith, often called the father of economics or the father of capitalism, noticed. In his 1776 book, “The Wealth of Nations,” Smith helped define economics as a modern field of study. Although he never visited St. Eustatius, Smith discusses the island, as it offered him a living example of what freer trade could produce: prosperity, speed, variety and commercial energy.
The same system that made the island rich also made it dangerous to imperial powers. Britain and France depended on controlled colonial trade, but St. Eustatius showed what could happen when goods moved with fewer restrictions. It also showed how merchants, credit networks and shipping families could challenge empires without firing a shot.
Fort Oranje, from which the ‘First Salute’ was fired, still stands today. SV Zanshin via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA When the American colonies declared independence in 1776, they desperately needed military supplies. The Continental Congress knew that ideals alone would not defeat Britain. The new United States needed muskets, cannons, ammunition, uniforms, cloth, food and credit.
St. Eustatius was perfectly positioned to provide them.
The island’s merchants had long-standing connections with North America, and some of the American founders knew these networks well. Alexander Hamilton, who grew up in the Caribbean, spent his youth in the commercial world of shipping, accounts and credit. His family had ties to the region, and the Caribbean trade helped shape his understanding of finance and power.
St. Eustatius soon became a lifeline for the Revolution. American agents used the island to buy and ship supplies. Cargoes moved from Europe to Statia and then onward to North America. Arms and gunpowder that might have been impossible to obtain through official channels could be purchased through this Dutch free port.
The First Salute
Then, in November 1776, a small but historic event took place in Oranje Bay. The Continental brigantine Andrew Doria arrived carrying a copy of the Declaration of Independence and flying the Continental Colors – the predecessor of the stars and stripes. Following maritime custom, the American vessel fired a salute. Fort Oranje answered with its own guns.
This exchange became known as the First Salute. Many historians regard it as the first formal recognition of American independence by a foreign power. The gesture was brief, but its meaning was enormous. By returning the salute, St. Eustatius publicly acknowledged the flag and authority of the new United States.
Britain understood the significance. The island was not merely a trading post; it was helping sustain rebellion. Over the next several years, much of the gunpowder, shot, cloth and other material that kept the American war effort alive passed through Statia’s warehouses and harbor.
The story of St. Eustatius serves as a reminder that revolutions are not won by ideas alone. The American Revolution depended on farmers, soldiers, diplomats and political thinkers, but it also depended on merchants, sailors, warehouses and credit.
Without St. Eustatius, without Dutch trade and without access to a free port in the Caribbean, the United States might not have survived long enough to celebrate any anniversary at all. The Revolution was a struggle for political independence, but it was also a struggle over who controlled trade. In that struggle, one tiny island helped change the course of world history.
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‘He Hadn’t Lost His Mind. He’d Lost His Moon!’ – Loose Cannon
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‘He Hadn’t Lost His Mind. He’d Lost His Moon!’
Navigation at Its Most Atavistic. Not Totally Eclipsed by Electronics, Not Yet
∙Guest post
Diana, Huntress of the Moon, bas-relief (at left), available on eBay, at least she was. Besides being a regular Loose Cannon contributor, the author is a longtime professor of Psychology and Communications. She landed in Vermont in 1987 after a decade of voyaging under sail. This is an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir tentatively entitled “Jenny: A Night Sea Journey.”
How did we get our bearings, back in the day? Back in the night, back in the dark ages before the Internet. Before there was “an app for that?”
You kept your star charts, your local tides, your moon phases, your dawns and dusks in your mind. You tracked stuff half in your head, half in your hands, half in your heart, half up your ass, and half in pages of your notebook or in scribbled margins of reference books.
Maybe you’re a prawn trawlerman who needs to get up and down the channels and out to the fishing grounds, mind the tides or maybe you’re a woman who needs to track your cycles. If you’re moving through unfamiliar places you are extra observant.
When you sail out of a harbor, you take a good look back to study the way you came in at different distances, just in case you ever need to sail back in. You might hold up your thumb to make a sight by a landmark where there’s a crook in a shoal underneath. Turn here, when the treeline appears as separate dots.
One evening, not long after the first satellite circled the earth, not long after the first black-box satnavs graced the bridges of well-equipped boats, around the time of the Challenger explosion—which rocked our worlds, and which I personally heard recounted over a scratchy radio—we were anchored on the Ningi Creek south of the Great Barrier Reef.
Our prawn trawling friend came aboard in the dusk to swap yarns and discuss boats and generally shoot the breeze and eat up the supper I’d made. They were nattering on, not particularly interesting to me yet sort of comforting to hear their voices rambling and wrestling in a pleasantly low volume, low key, slightly competitive, brotherly kinda way. Same old stuff.
This one piece of gear, some brand of equipment, a few fond insults exchanged in camaraderie; a particularly fond and well worn argument about preferences when it comes to this or that maneuver or bit of tackle, or a type of engine, a detail of machinery, feat of mastery, stupid mistakes, a new enthusiasm, an old disappointment, a critique of some product seen in an ad…The conversation rambles along in a kind of chummy intimacy on shiny rails like a cheerful little choo choo.
Horns toot and brakes squeal and crossing signals dinga-dinga-ding and harmlessly power on by, and that’s a trusting friendship, amongst men. They go somewhere, do something, together. Silences and one upping, punctuated by contests. Men talking on a boat is something you appreciate like a river, but mind the rocks. Stay alongside, on the riverbank. Don’t get in the way.
I’m bored stiff, as I’ve been pretty much solid for…years. On end.
I quietly gather up the supper stuff and I go up on deck to wash dishes in the bucket of salt water and a dab of lemon Joy and just drag on a roll-me-own when I’m done, gazing at the Southern Cross and all the stars laid out above me, some dimmed by the orb of a fully pregnant, perfectly round moon, a vast spider’s web of lights, cast across an upturned bowl of ancient mysteries and long sent messages I only now receive.
I think about the glimmering promises of actual ideas in life. The embers still glowing from things I’ve been reading, but nobody wants to talk about. It’s okay. I’m fine with it. I suppose “fat dumb and happy” lives right next door to contentment and what the other sibling called satisfaction. I guess it boils down to lowering your expectations, basically. I mean, what do you want? The moon?
Our buddy is a third generation prawn trawler, son of a son of a son of shrimpers. You know the breed.
They crank up the diesels at 3 a.m. and chug out down the channels no matter what the weather to the scent of bitter burnt coffee grounds and oily fumes of exhaust and their own body odors, while they busy the works on decks and getting all the clanking tackle ready to drag nets for the many-legged little morsels of food out of the sea, along with the occasional hideous monster of the deep that may have sharp teeth or strange poison, weird antennae or various sharpnesses, google eyes or razor fins—they drag this hidden aquatic life up in their hapless nets and never know WTF is coming up in any given catch, figuring they just gotta throw it back, if they don’t die first, and hence these particular guys are not, on the whole, that impressionable.
Everything is just either dinner or a dollar or a good story to share a million times.
But he’s recently deserted the boats, his life, his heritage, to get with the times, modernize, be sensible. To work in a paper factory and “get benefits.” Doing typical normal life quite well, thank you very much. Hasn’t even glanced at an almanac in ages.
He comes up the hatch at length and at long last, a welcomed guest, welcome to go back home already. I start to get up to fetch the painter and ferry him ashore when I hear a supernatural gasp. His eyes are riveted on an empty quadrant of the night sky. He’s frozen half in and half out, crouching like a stone statue of some Neolithic hunter overwhelmed by a tusked mammoth and no weapons at hand.
Stroke? Heart attack? UFO sighting? Stuck Chicken bone? Heimlich? Ghostbusters? Traumatic flashback?! What is happening? Is there something I need to do?
“Moon!” he croaks.
My god. He hasn’t lost his mind. He’s lost his moon!
His mother, he’s lost, catapulted back, the moon who is always there—changing and waxing and waning and traveling the whole world, and sometimes beclouded or squalled from view. But he had a sky map in his fisherman head of where exactly at any moment on any night he would see her, the moon.
This eclipse, it snuck up on him.
I’ve heard that the last thing sailors cry out when they are drowning at sea is “mother!” Oh, mother! In every language: Mom, mama, momma, mother.
The moon, his mother. She who did suddenly disappear, one time. It was after his dad “beat her out of the house with nothing but the clothes on her back”—a story I’d already heard boasted enough times to know that the man had wronged her
And that neither he nor the sons, now grown men, would ever stop missing her.
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CELEBRATING THE SAVE – Janice Anne Wheeler, Sparring With Mother Nature
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Saving history is far more consuming & complicated than I ever imagined…another week flew by. I’m so glad you took the time to open this email. Thanks!
If you just dove into our very engaging little community, please read SPARS & SPARRING, .….it introduces my wonders and my wanders. ~J
CELEBRATING THE SAVE
The most impactful words I heard two years ago came from a total stranger. I’m still so glad he said them.
Our celebration July 11th really was a thank-you to a community that warmly took me in and a reunion of people the Sailor has known for decades. Regardless of unusual circumstance, these wonderful people have become my backbone, my sounding board and the nurturers of my spirit. James Jacobs, the protagonist in my latest book release made the long drive, as an added bonus to the people who bring me joy.
In the fall of 2024 that stranger became a regular visitor, a sounding board, a storyteller, a friend who has bestowed us with unusual gifts and priceless encouragement. When he went longer than a week or two between visits we missed him and wondered about his welfare. He became a regular character as the scenes unfolded on our two-year rebuild. We finished the majority of our work, are back in the water and promptly planned our long-promised Launch Party. Unfortunately, he was not in attendance to celebrate with us.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: August 11, 2024
I heard the distinctive crunch of car on gravel, glanced up and estimated that the once-flashy-red now dull-rust-colored Mercedes parking on the lawn was only slightly younger than I am. The be-whiskered gentleman that climbed out of that vehicle was estimated to be a few decades years older; he always leaves the driver’s side door open. Always. I’ve wanted to ask, but decided against it.
The stranger walked over purposefully and simply stood, stock still, gazing up at STEADFAST for long, long minutes. In my mind she isn’t all that pretty at this particular juncture, hauled out of her natural element for repairs, holes for projects begun here and there, original materials showing some age. She does make an impression regardless, I have to say that much. Our scaffold isn’t tall enough to reach the top rail or long enough to encompass her 56 feet. When he glanced at me I raised my eyebrows in a silent ‘Can I help you?’ but received no response. We are on the fringes of the Richardson Maritime Museum here in Cambridge, Maryland, but we aren’t part of it. We’re not ready for that, yet.
Arms folded, he stepped closer and without preamble or introduction asked where STEADFAST was built. Wheeler Shipyard in Brooklyn, we told him as we worked, and he raised his eyebrows in turn. For the first time, someone we met had local knowledge of the place, which he spewed with no further encouragement, slowly edging his way into our space, inspecting as he went, murmuring unasked and unanswered questions.
“Crazy old coot, that’s the fourth one this week,” my Sailor said to me. We smiled at each other. It is rewarding, and heartening, to have people understand instead of just thinking we were crazy. (Which we are, make no mistake.) I tried to properly convey that phenomenon here:
The gentleman meandered along on his own tour, stepping and then backing up, taking in the topside teak and rig. Unable to resist, I toddled after him, volunteering random answers to common questions. Each time, he put his hand up to his ear and indicated that he hadn’t heard, so each time I repeated myself, a little louder, not sure if he was interested in the facts that I was spewing, un-encouraged. It reminded me of Waterman Johnny Kinnamon, in fact, his story is here. He told me once that if he always wanted to hear what folks were saying, he’d put his hearing aids in. But he doesn’t. He sits in church beside me and appears to listen attentively. At first I commented occasionally (to no avail) and he finally said to me, “I can’t hear any of this.” Now I sit quietly, too, appreciating the simplicity of not trying to make conversation. Johnny is 87 and chooses carefully who he spends his time and energy on.
“Who are you?” I inquired. “Who am I?” he repeated, laughing. “Who am I. Well, I’ve been around these places my whole life. I’ve seen people working on boats and fixing them and most of them weren’t worth fixing.” He shook his head at the world. “But this girl, she’s worth saving.” My appreciation of his words was so vast that I said nothing at all.
Unfortunately, we had somewhere to be when that stranger showed up; we were already hot and tired of trying to put the puzzle pieces of our quickly changed life together while making sure we had all the ones we needed. We definitely don’t. There was no plan to be where we are.
Our appointment was ticking closer. The stranger and I made it to the bow, where we had discovered Mother Nature had endowed STEADFAST’s stem with an insidious rot not detectable from the outside or the inside. We are still assessing, peeling back the layers. She’ll need rare, expensive materials and even rarer expertise. These are some of the puzzle pieces I refer to, the elements to bring our home back to where she needs to be. We are in a new town, a new boatyard, living on land. It’s an uncomfortable place, depending on others when we are used to being both independent and fully mobile.
Peeling the layers. It seems to take just as long to disassemble as it does to build. We unexpectedly get to experience both…. I apologized and invited him to come back anytime. I had to repeat myself, and it was priceless. “She’s worth it,” he called after me. “This is a special boat.”
I stopped in my tracks, because that’s what we say, too, when we are trying to explain THE WOODEN BOAT PHENOMENON. “I hope I won’t be a pest. I’ll be back.” I smiled at him then, this stranger who had encouraged me more than he would ever know.
“Crazy old coot,” the sailor commented redundantly. “Crazy old coot knows his boats.” I said as we got into the seen-better-days boatyard loaner car, and I smiled again. SOME THINGS AREN’T WORTH SAVING. And some things are.
The choices are rarely easy. Until next week, may your choices be simpler (mine, too!). ~J
Are you skeptical? Hope not. My sixth (or is it seventh?) sense this waiting to see how it all transpires.
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SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE has become my favorite routine! Over the course of the week I consider what happened that can offer some commentary on life and the NATURE of it. This story just jumped out at me. If you are enjoying these, consider upgrading to a paid subscription just as you would a magazine that you have forever been skimming in the grocery story line and then you finally buy one! Or not. Either way is perfectly fine with me, honestly! I enjoy and read and respond to all comments so spew those thoughts!
My weekly Sunrise shot! The Osprey on the Chesapeake Bay are in a wonderful cycle of recovery. I share sunrise daily on our Facebook Page YACHTING STEADFAST, please join us!
My boatyard neighbor had a freshly built little wooden sloop and oh how I lusted after that beauty. There’s something inherently more beautiful about boats that originate in a forest rather than an oil well.
As you say, some things are not worth saving, like a big wooden trawler that sank one weekend on the Eastern Shore in the slip next to us. It was memorably sad. They used an excavator to remove her from the water and load her into dumpsters.
Have you ever caught a glimpse from Key Bridge (RIP) of the Baltimore Clipper hulls that were burned to the water line, sank, and are visible during low tides? Or the wooden merchant marine hulls in that big marsh at the southern tip of MD? During WWII, someone decided that it was a good idea to build a bunch of cargo ships from wood, but the war ended so they towed the unfinished ships to the marsh to rot away.
Until next time, it’s stormy and oppressive here, with low leaden skies but nothing quelled our launch party. IT WAS WONDERFUL to have so many folks from so many walks of life join us in our joy. I’m grateful for that, and also the adrenaline that has flowed since I sat down to write this, just after the witching hour, to make sure it gets to you and we have our weekly hoo-doo. ~J
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Ah, dragonflies. Save them every chance you get. RESTACK please. Thanks.
I so appreciate your support of my work. Have a wonderful week!
© 2026 Janice Anne Wheeler
Living aboard Sailing Yacht STEADFAST again soon!
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Free Pump Out Service – Indian River County
Thanks to Keith Drewett for informing us of this new service:
FREE PUMP OUT SERVICE is now available to all vessels anchored or docked in Indian River County, Florida.
Sebastian River to Little Round Island.
Call: 772-268-3189
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Famed Maine Schooner Goes Down in New York City, Just Like Any Other Derelict Vessel – Loose Cannon
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Famed Maine Schooner Goes Down in New York City, Just Like Any Other Derelict Vessel
Restaurant Chain Bought ‘Victory Chimes’ in 2023
Brad Vogel, an independent writer who covers waterfront news around Brooklyn, took this photo. Vogel said the Victory Chimes (right) sank sometime between Friday night and Sunday. Pilot had sunk a few days earlier. There had not been time to wrap an oil-spill barrier around Victory Chimes.. It became clear to me last July that if nothing had begun in converting her to a restaurant she wasn’t going to make it much further. Not sure when the took Pilot out of restaurant service, but apparently something changed for them, and they were stuck with them.—Captain Paul DeGaeta
The most overused word in the English language at this moment in history is iconic. Almost everything is iconic nowadays, it would seem. Nonetheless, those overworked three syllables are the best possible descriptor for Victory Chimes, the three-masted schooner from Maine that a waterfront restaurant chain in New York City left to sink.
Yeah, the boat on the tails side of the Maine quarter¹ sank over the weekend. She and Pilot, another old-timey wooden boat which also sank, were being stored at anchor by the Crew restaurant company. The sinking happened during or after a squall that was much publicized because it had hit the Tall Ships in New York for the 250th celebration while at anchor.
Victory Chimes was built in 1900 as a cargo ship to work Chesapeake Bay. The 128-footer was originally named the Edward & Maude. She had no engine and relied on a pushboat for close-quarters maneuvering, a “yawl boat.”
For the most part of 50 years, beginning in 1954, Victory Chimes carried passengers for hire on multi-day tours of Midcoast Maine, staging from Rockland.² With capacity for up to 10 crew and 40 passengers, thousands of visitors sailed aboard her over the decades, handling lines and eating chili and chowder out of big pots.
There was great sadness at news of the sinking, and bitterness too.
The two boats appear to have been rafted together before sinking. (Photo by Jesse Briggs) Captains Kip Files and Paul DeGaeta bought the boat in 1990 and operated as a passenger vessel until 2018. Here’s what DeGaeta said this week after hearing the news:
After seeing Victory Chimes in July 2025, I predicted she’d sink this winter. The tough old girl lasted longer than I thought.
I didn’t see signs of even the most minimal maintenance being done. She was pumping water at an incredible rate, which makes me wonder if anyone was even noticing and how much she was insured for.
Things worked out very differently than Kip and I had hoped for in passing her along to future caretakers. She had 118 good years followed by a steady decline that only accelerated.
Heartbreaking. But you’d have to show me a three-masted or larger American sailing vessel that represented the American spirit any better than Victory Chimes: Her legacy was earning a steady living under working sail longer than any of the larger American traditional sailing vessels—she never had a penny of foundation or 501(c)(3) money. Victory Chimes supported herself, until she couldn’t anymore.
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum could have had her but decided on a bascule bridge instead. Kip worked for years trying to get her to Mystic. We watched historic builds of copycat vessels raise millions, while the Chimes could have been had for a fraction of that cost.
And now, maybe those elitist frauds at WoodenBoat magazine will do an article in relation to the Tall Ships parade. They never paid any attention to Victory Chimes during (another owner’s) efforts to save her in 1987, aside from a snide remark about the name change, nor during our 28 years as her caretakers. Instead, they portrayed the new owners as heroic figures, gallantly riding in to rescue her as a restaurant. In reality, they did nothing more than allow her to sit unattended and give up the ghost.
How freaking ironic—she participated in Operation Sail during the Bicentennial in 1976, then ends up on the bottom as a host of traditional sailing vessels from countries that truly care about them parade by for 250 years. You’ll never convince me that vessels lack a soul; that was her final message as an American National Historic Landmark and representing Maine on the State Quarter. She didn’t want to be a restaurant; she was meant to run free before the wind.
This photo was taken from Fireboat, a Crew-owned bar on a retired 1960s New York City Fire Department firefighting vessel. In May 2023, New York City restauranteurs Miles and Alex Pincus bought Victory Chimes at auction in May 2023 for $75,900. Under the corporate name Crew, the brothers operate several waterfront or harbor-themed restaurants, a few of which are old boats. Pilot, which sunk a day or so before Chimes, had been taken out of service as a floating eatery not too long ago.
“We’ve admired Victory Chimes for quite some time. When she went up for auction, we felt a responsibility to step in and ensure her preservation. We don’t have a plan yet other than to get her into safe harbor,” the Pincus brothers said in a May 2023 statement.
Brad Vogel, who covers maritime happenings in Brooklyn, said the vessel sank sometime between Friday night and Sunday. Using his screen name BoweryBird, Vogel had some harsh words for the vessel’s caretakers at Crew:
In a July 6 statement, Crew company Vice President Marisa Chiarello said in part:
In response to both incidents, our team called in maritime salvage experts to make a plan to safely raise the vessels, determine the cause of the sinking, and assess any damage to the hulls. We remain hopeful they can be salvaged and restored. Since Crew was founded in 2014, we have been committed to restoring historic vessels for future generations and sharing the spirit of maritime adventure.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
1
Being on the back of a commemorative quarter in New England may not be much of a lucky charm. The New Hampshire quarter featured an “iconic” rock formation called “The Old Man of the Mountain,” which looked a lot like an old Yankee farmer’s profile. The formation collapsed in May 2003, though it continues to ironically portray a head on the tails side of the Granite State quarter.
2
Loose Cannon became familiar with Victory Chimes during his service on another, brand new three-master that also operated out of Rockland. The boat was Kathryn B, built by Treworgy Yachts in Palm Coast, Florida. I worked on the commissioning and then as a member of her crew under her owner and captain, Gordon Baxter. Unlike Victory Chimes, this 105-footer was marketed as a luxury vacation with a capacity for 12 passengers in six staterooms. Renamed Alliance, she now runs educational sails from Sutton Bay, Michigan.
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Kadey-Krogen Files for Bankruptcy Liquidation, American Tugs Too. – Loose Cannon
Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes that mariners with saltwater in their veins will subscribe. $7 per month or $56 for the year; you may cancel at any time.
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Kadey-Krogen Files for Bankruptcy Liquidation, American Tugs Too.
Revenue Declines Dramatically Over Past Three Years
Kadey-Krogens are considered among the best looking of the full-displacement trawlers. Kadey-Krogen this week ended its 49-year run as one of America’s finest producers of full-displacement trawler yachts after filing for Chapter 7 liquidation in Deleware’s federal bankrupcy court. Nearly 700 Krogens have been built, but apparently only two were “in the pipeline” when the company called it quits Monday.
Kadey-Krogen’s fall has taken the American Tug brand down with it. Kadey-Krogen acquired the LaConner, Washington-based builder of semi-displacement trawlers in May 2023.
Unlike Chapter 11 bankrupcy, in which a company may continue to operate, a business that has filed under Chapter 7 ceases to exist and its assets are sold off to pay creditors. Documents on file with the court indicate that Kadey-Krogen’s secured and unsecured claims total $2.2 million. Nearly 100 creditors are listed.
Tucker West of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, signed the papers. He was president and CEO.
Back in 1977, marine engineer Art Kadey and naval architect Jim Krogen teamed up to create a vessel that combined the seakeeping of a fishing trawler with the yacht comfort and yacht ascetics. They were built at the Asia Harbor Yacht Builders yard in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Krogens, as they are often called in conversation, are the yin to the yang of Nordhavn within trawler-yacht world. Nordhavn boats, made by Pacific Asian Enterprises, are generally considered the more capable bluewater performer. Krogens, though, are prettier.
Trawlers, like other niche boating markets, experienced an “Covid bump” beginning a half decade ago. That is, a historic surge in sales, as affluent folks put money into outdoor lifestyles with built-in social distancing. That phenomenon has run its course, as Krogen sales revenue may reflect.
The company’s 2026 drop in gross revenue was precipious. According to the banruptcy filing, gross revenue was around $14.9 million in 2024 and $10.1 million in 2025. As of the end of June, 2026 revenue was just $403,962.
The documents mentioned two current boat orders. One was said to be 95 percent complete in Taiwan and 95 percent paid for. The other was listed as zero percent complete. There was no reference to whether a downpayment had been collected for the latter.
An American Tug underway at semi-displacment speed, or is it semi-planing? LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
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