The old wooden sailboat up on blocks inside the shed at the Martha's Vineyard Historical Society in Edgartown doesn't look like much.

The white lapstrake boat, less than 20 feet in length, has not been in the water since it was brought to the society in December 1936 from Menemsha Creek. The paint has come off in many places. There is little chance she will ever float again.

Linda Despres, the chief scientist aboard the Albatross IV, has a haunting memory of visiting Georges Bank as a 23-year-old scientist.

"I have this picture in my mind of Georges Bank at night and seeing the lights of over 50 ships going back and forth across the horizon," she says.

Capt. Gregory Mayhew, a Vineyard native and lifelong resident of Chilmark, runs the 75-foot steel dragger Unicorn out of Menemsha. This summer, for the first time in more than 20 years, he went sea scalloping. The reason, he said, is economics.

Emergency Responders Report Moped Accidents Down Again

By BRIEN HEFLER

Moped accidents were down again on the Vineyard this summer, and emergency responders cite better public safety education as a possible factor.

Preliminary numbers compiled by the four ambulance departments on the Island show that the departments responded to an average number of calls during the summer months, with a slight increase in the down-Island departments.

But across the board the number of moped accidents saw a significant drop.

Steamship Authority chairman Marc Hanover was not looking for support from the Dukes County Commission Wednesday in his continuing battle with the Tisbury board of selectmen over ferry fee money. But he got it anyway.

An evolving plan to manage and restore the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest is set for its first public airing tomorrow, when state environmental officials will come to the Vineyard to discuss efforts to alleviate fire danger in the forest and to undertake the largest ecological restoration project in the history of New England.