The Chappy Ferry Book: Back and Forth Between Two Worlds, 527 Feet Apart

This is the delightful, fact-filled history of one of the shortest, oldest, and most unusual ferries in the country the Chappa- quiddick ferry on Martha s Vineyard. It includes stories about the blind man who skippered it for nearly forty years, the seaplane that struck it in 1937, and the roles it played in the filming of the movie Jaws. The book includes a centerfold illustration showing how the ferry works and The Chappy Ferry Movie hosted by Dick Ebersol, former chairman of NBC Sports, and produced by John Wilson, who has had a twenty-year career in sports television and who has loved the ferry all his life. The story of the Chappaquiddick ferry, which travels only 527 feet between two islands, is a history that is nestled into the lifeblood of Martha s Vineyard as vital as the whaling era that left behind Edgartown s beautiful captain s houses. It is the oldest business on the waters of the Vineyard and has always been at the heart of the waterfront that helped define Edgartown as a fishing, whaling, and recreational center. Its brief trek across the harbor from the big Vineyard to tiny Chappaquiddick has been continually marked by drama and hijinks. Its twelve owners and captains have shown a passion for their work that continues today. The Chappy Ferry Book tells an amazing, dramatic, myth-busting, two-hundred- year-old story for the very first time. It is filled with historic photos, many previously unpublished, as well as beautiful present-day images from the Island s premier photographer. It was written by a man who says he fell in love with the ferry when he was four years old. And what you don t read in the book, you ll see in The Chappy Ferry Movie, a short film on DVD that celebrates, among other things, the success of the one-minute conversation.