NEWBURGH – The Schooner Apallonia, a cargo sailboat out of Hudson, is bringing back 19th-century shipping of goods on the Hudson River.
This week the boat sailed from its home port to deliver 2,000 pounds of malted barley from Hudson Valley Malt to Hudson Valley Brewing in Beacon.
The problem was that there is no docking facility in Beacon, so the boat docked in Newburgh, the cargo was off-loaded and biked over the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.
Apollonia Captain Sam Merrett car go sailboats were the order of the day on the Hudson River two centuries ago.
“This was commonplace in the early 1800s and in the 1800s, there were well north of 1,000 vessels on the river on any given day. What that means is you can move a tremendous amount of stuff and it creates a lot of activity,” he said.
This run of the Apollonia also was making stops in Brooklyn to delivery rye for the production of whiskey and malt to Manhattan.
On the return trip, it was to stop at Ossining to make another delivery.
