Nantucket Current

17/12/2025

SCHOOL COMMITTEE VOTES FOR TURF FIELD PROPOSAL

After months of intense debate and public hearings, the School Committee voted tonight to advance a plan to renovate Natucket High School’s athletic complexes which includes a turf field and a synthetic track. The proposal, a revision of an earlier plan featuring a grass field and an asphalt track, passed 4-1, with Dr. Tim Lepore opposed. Full story coming soon…

📸: Grey Lady Aerials

16/12/2025

Jim Congdon is no novice to running. At the 2025 Boston Marathon—his 25th overall marathon—he placed 102nd out of 1,258 men in the 60-64 age bracket with an impressive time of 3:19:52. He’s competed in two world Ironman Championships, regularly competes in triathlons and spent the summer and fall training for the Chicago Marathon, his 26th. (He finished with an even faster time in Chicago, beating his Boston time by 12 minutes.) He’s become one of the leaders of Nantucket’s growing running community, a collection of contractors, real estate agents, business owners, summer interns and retirees who participate in a cycle of group runs every week. What they have in common is a drive to keep going.

Bridgette Hynes is also at the starting line. An 11-time marathoner herself, Hynes is both a force to be reckoned with on the course and an in-demand running trainer who’s coached marathoners and new runners. So after decades of running, what keeps Congdon and Hynes going? We sat down with Congdon and Hynes for tips on running as well as staying active on Nantucket in the new year.

15/12/2025

A 71-year-old man was arrested on Monday after striking several police cruisers and another vehicle during a "low-speed" chase that stretched on for miles across the island.

The incident began around 9:30 a.m. when island residents spotted a pickup truck being pursued by multiple cruisers on several streets, including Hussey Farm Road, Cliff Road, Hummock Pond Road, and Madaket Road.

"The Nantucket Police Department were in a low-speed pursuit this morning involving a pick-up truck and a single male operator," Nantucket Police Lt. Angus MacVicar told the Current in an email. "The fleeing vehicle hit several police cruisers and a vehicle in traffic before the operator stopped his vehicle. The 71-year-old male operator was arrested without further incident and will be charged with several criminal charges, many motor vehicle violations and property damage. Nothing further at this time as the defendant has not been arraigned."

The video above was captured by island resident Jay Starr's Nest camera at his residence on Hussey Farm Road.

12/12/2025

A scrimshaw s***m whale tooth was sold for $125,000 last week at an auction on Nantucket.

The 9.5-inch tooth was taken from a s***m whale killed by Capt. Richard Macy, of Nantucket, and the crew of the whaleship Wiscasset during a voyage that took them all the way to the coast of New Zealand in 1836.

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.

11/12/2025

In a follow-up to our first report, the Current spoke to several current and former Nantucket community service officers, police officers, and residents of the LORAN barracks over the past two months following the town's closure of the barracks in September due to mold complaints and health code violations discovered during a Health Department inspection. While those problems have only recently come to light, they said the conditions at the LORAN barracks have been deplorable for years.

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.

11/12/2025

SELECT BOARD VOTES TO GIVE OUR ISLAND HOME RELOCATION PLAN ONE MORE TRY

The Select Board voted unanimously tonight to bring back a proposal to relocate the Our Island Home skilled nursing facility before Town Meeting this coming spring. But if voters don't back the project this year, the Select Board will likely opt to shut down the nursing home for good. After extended public testimony, most of it in favor of the relocation plan, the Select Board decided to support a proposal nearly identical to the one voters narrowly rejected at Town Meeting last year.

Full story: https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/select-board-agrees-to-send-our-island-home-relocation-plan-back-to-voters

10/12/2025

DEER HUNTING SEASON EXTENDED INTO FEBRUARY

The state announced new regulations on Wednesday to expand the deer hunting seasons on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, with a six-week winter primitive fi****ms and bowhunting season from January 1 through February 14. The move was made in recognition of the fact that the islands have the highest deer densities in Massachusetts, which can lead to the spread of tick-borne disease, increased deer/vehicle collisions, habitat damage, and coastal erosion.

The regulations will also establish an early fall deer season on the islands, allowing an additional ten days of hunting with primitive fi****ms and archery equipment. That season will run from September 21 through October 1 in 2026.

Additionally, Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Commissioner Tom O’Shea announced at a Fisheries and Wildlife Board meeting today that the administration will hold public listening sessions in early 2026 to consider additional tools to manage the deer population, including allowing for expanded hunting season or hunting on Sundays. Massachusetts is one of two states in the country that does not allow Sunday hunting.

“Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are facing rapidly increasing deer populations. Overabundant deer negatively impact forest health, increase deer-vehicle collisions on roadways, and increase public health risks through tick-borne illness,” said DFG Commissioner Tom O’Shea. “By expanding opportunities for licensed hunters to harvest deer, we can achieve healthier deer populations while protecting biodiversity and increasing public health, safety, and food security.”

10/12/2025

⛴️ 💨 Hy-Line Cruises intends to build a new high-speed ferry that will provide service to Nantucket and augment the boat line’s existing fleet of vessels.

The high-speed catamaran will be built at a shipyard along the Gulf Coast and is expected to be delivered to Hy-Line Cruises in the first or second quarter of 2028.

“It will be a sister ship to the Gray Lady IV because we already have a design, we already have that in place, and we know we have no issues operationally with her in terms of accessing our facilities,” Murray Scudder, President of Hy-Line Cruises, told the Current. “We’re very excited.”

Read the full story here: https://nantucketcurrent.com/news/hy-line-to-build-new-high-speed-ferry

09/12/2025

Eight years after a ski accident left him paralyzed from the chest down, Warren Ard has become a preeminent house mover on Nantucket.

On the morning of March 3, 2017, Ard decided to take one last run down the mountain in the Adirondacks where he was skiing with his family on a vacation from Nantucket. Ard, a carpenter working frame-to-finish on the island, had been a lifelong athlete but a self-described novice skier who knew when to be cautious, so he hit a moderate blue square to end his day, hoping to steer clear of a trail that might be too steep. He didn’t know it then, but it would be the last time he would stand on his own two feet.

“Life changes in the blink of an eye—it’s a true saying,” Ard said. “Life gets flipped upside down. I was running a 40-man crew, and then I was off-island for a year and a half.”

But Ard didn’t let the life-changing accident stop him. Eight years later, he has reconstructed his business, his house and his life—quite literally. After the accident, he took up house moves, of all things, leading his crew from the seat of his wheelchair with a remote control and a tablet to steer and control the hydraulics on a moving house. Since then, he’s led over two dozen house moves on the island, including five this past fall.

Find the full story on one of Nantucket’s most inspirational people in the winter issue of N Magazine.
📸

09/12/2025

🎄😱 A real-life Grinch nearly sabotaged Nantucket’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony late last month, a celebration of the holiday season that brought hundreds of people to Main Street, including former President Joe Biden and his family.

Just hours before the event, which is held each year by the Chamber of Commerce on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Department of Public Works staff members discovered that someone had deliberately cut the wires to the large Christmas tree at the top of Main Street in front of the Pacific National Bank, the centerpiece of the celebration.

In a Nantucket police report obtained by the Current, DPW employee Richard Moore reported around 3:53 p.m. on the day of the tree lighting ceremony that “an unknown party had cut the string of lights on the Main Street Christmas Tree, rendering the
lighting inoperable.”

The DPW crew had discovered the vandalism earlier that day during a routine testing of the lighting system ahead of the event. They were able to fix the wires before the event, and the lighting ceremony went on without a hitch later that evening.

The real-life Grinch who cut the lines, however, remains at large and has yet to be identified.

Nantucket Police Department officer Jack Moran wrote in his report that his investigation determined the wires had been cut on the interior side of the tree that faces the front stairs to the Pacific National Bank at approximately eye-level. Moran was able to secure surveillance camera footage from nearby businesses in an attempt to identify the perpetrator.

“This case remains open for investigation, pending the discovery of video footage from the camera discovered,” Moran wrote.

09/12/2025

The Planning Board voted unanimously on Monday to approve a six-room expansion of a historic guest house at 17 North Water Street, despite pushback from neighbors, paving the way for the inn to expand by 60 percent.

The North Water Street property, which currently has 10 rooms, will still comply with almost all zoning regulations, but a special permit was required because it is used as a guest house and is located just outside the commercial downtown district.

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.