From the Editor: Tending the Garden

Back in the 1960s, the ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson was watching a tragedy unfold in and near Great Island saltmarsh, where the Connecticut River enters Long Island Sound. Just a decade or so earlier he’d counted some 150 osprey nests. By 1965 there were only 13. By 1972, when only a single nest remained at Great Island, I was a kid growing up sailing on the northern Chesapeake Bay, and I didn’t even know what an osprey was. I’d never seen one.

Researchers like Peterson determined that the insecticide DDT was biomagnifying—transferring from the fish that are the birds’ food source, concentrating in their systems, and causing the shells of their eggs to thin. These birds, who had survived the perils of migration from as far away as South America, returned to their nesting sites in the Chesapeake, Long Island Sound, and elsewhere, only to crush their own eggs as they tried to brood their young. Eventually, DDT was banned, though its presence is still found in the Bay’s food chain.

Today, the Chesapeake Bay—what some call the osprey garden of the world—is home to the planet’s largest breeding population of ospreys. It’s impossible for me to witness their return each spring and not feel immense wonder, gratitude, and hope. Wonder, because they are breathtaking in their ferocious beauty and power. Gratitude, because we humans felt their loss, worked to understand its causes, and took action to change it. Hope, because my kids grew up sailing in a Chesapeake full of ospreys, and they will work to ensure that it stays that way.

This year, as I watched the beloveds return to the creek where we keep our Peterson 34, my husband and I began a new ritual. Instead of cutting pounds of plastic shrink wrap off the boat, we removed the reusable cover we’d installed, folded it up, and stored it until fall, when we’ll cover her up again and await the ospreys return in spring.

Why? Because based on the most conservative of estimates, boatowners in Maryland use at least 234 tons of shrink wrap annually—and the number is very likely double that amount. Rhode Island-based Clean Ocean Access has estimated that each year boatowners generate at least 46,000 tons of shrink wrap nationally. The vast majority goes into landfills. I wrote about this for Maryland Sea Grant when I was a science writer there, and after conducting the research, I couldn’t stomach seeing the single-use plastic covering our boat in winter. (More on this in an upcoming issue.) My husband and I made the choice to change something we could—and as the service manager of a boatyard, he’s encouraging his customers to do the same.

To me, it’s tending the garden that is our home waters, our nest, our planet. In this issue of SAIL, you’re going to read about members of the sailing industry who are doing the same. They’re setting ambitious goals—like Fountaine Pajot’s Odysséa24 project’s goal of carbon-neutral sailing by 2030 —and taking real-world steps—like Beneteau’s launch of a First 44 built using a recyclable resin. They’re designing boats that motivate us to sail more and motor less, and they’re spurring innovations to make sailing more environmentally sustainable. They are looking at environmental loss, assessing what’s causing it, and effecting change to address it—much like Peterson and others did all those years ago, to our great benefit today.

They’re tending the garden, and when you’re sailing this summer and look up to see the graceful arc of an osprey overhead, I encourage you to consider how you can do the same. 

June/July 2023 2023