Video: The Farm Barge Takes Manhattan

A few weeks after leaving Ferrisburgh, Vermont, on the Ceres, a homemade sailing barge, Erik Andrus and his small crew reached New York City, stopping at farmers’ markets along the way. At each market, they unloaded produce and canned goods from North Country farmers. Beyond the novelty of delivering goods by sea, Andrus is intent on demonstrating that connecting market-goers to local food needn’t be done over land—or by expending fossil fuels. Even though, as Mark Singer reports in this week’s magazine, “during most of the voyage southern headwinds …had forced the crew to depend upon their backup energy source—a twenty-horsepower outboard motor,” the Ceres used wind power for their victory lap around New York harbor. Despite the first-time hiccups, Andrus is planning on making regular runs to New York.