Hurricane Sandy is being characterized as the worst storm in recorded weather history to hit the Northeast, worse than the 1938 hurricane.

And while the Vineyard was at the outer edge of the huge, historic storm and escaped the most severe conditions, weather data provided by the National Weather Service shows that wind speed, storm surge and barometric pressure were near hurricane strength, even on the Island.

The H.M.S. Bounty which sank in the waters off Cape Hatteras during Hurricane Sandy on Monday, was an occasional visitor to the Vineyard. When she was home ported in Fall River in the 1990s, she made a number of 40-mile trips to Vineyard Haven, where she would spend the weekend tied up at the Tisbury Wharf, her gangway lowered to allow sailors of all ages aboard.

Juvenile striped bass spawned in the Chesapeake Bay were at a record low at the end of the summer. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources recently completed its annual young of the year survey and found far fewer juvenile fish than a year ago.

Scientists believe the factors are more tied to unusually warm weather conditions in the Chesapeake than to the number of adult fish spawning in the bay.

Fred Murphy and his crew and schooner Ishmael were a top winner in the annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, held late last month. The 48-foot schooner from Vineyard Haven received a first place in her class. There were four classes. The schooner won the Michelob Chesapeake Bay Challenge Trophy for having the best corrected time at Windmill Point of 16 hours, two minutes and six seconds.

“Our strategy was to win our class, and we won fourth overall, on corrected time,” said Mr. Murphy.

The stories of Capt. Zeb Tilton and his coastal schooner Alice S. Wentworth have come alive again in North Tisbury. A replica of the famous 1905 schooner is on the Island, and she is only 32 inches long.

Richard T. Olsen commissioned the model not so much for himself, he said, but for his family, friends and the Vineyard community. Mr. Olsen is the grandson of the famous Vineyard Haven sailor.

On Sunday night the moon rises late in the evening. It is in the zodiacal constellation Gemini, a constellation we most often associate with the cold nights of winter. The moon is gibbous and for the week ahead moves through other constellations of winter: Cancer and Leo.