In the 1800s, Vineyard farmers moved their goods to market in very different ways than they do now, by cart and buggy or, in some cases, by seacraft, a mark of the Island’s bustling maritime service economy. This week young Islanders and visitors revisited those vintage ways.

“We’re doing a pioneer thing,” said Alex Mahedy, one of the students in a new back-to-the-old-ways program called Mabel to Table, sponsored by the Farm Institute and Vineyard Voyagers.

Vineyard Voyagers was conceived in the early 1990s by a group of people interested in experiential education, such as Outward Bound, according to executive director Sidney Morris. He described the Voyagers’ programs as “a way for young people to have significant encounters with the sea and gain confidence, character and practical knowledge.”

Recently Mr. Morris became also the education director of the Farm Institute, whose primary goal is to educate people about where their food comes from, about sustainable agriculture and resource management.

The two organizations made a suitable match with Mabel to Table, producing and moving local organic food without using any fossil fuels. The campers harvested crops from the Farm Institute at Katama Farm, loaded them on to a 28-foot wooden sailboat named Mabel, and sailed them from Edgartown to the Tisbury Farmers’ Market in Vineyard Haven.

Kids involved called it exhilarating, hard work. On Tuesday, a group of seven voyagers successfully delivered the crops, including Swiss chard, kale, and peas.

The voyage’s practical ends were no mistake, said Lily Morris, the program’s coordinator, shore support and assistant to the director. “You need a reason to go to sea,” Ms. Morris joked, adding:

“We wanted to give kids an opportunity to offer something to the community. And also help them learn skills, team building and confidence.”

Voyager Seneca Craig, 17, sailed Mabel around Buzzards Bay, Cuttyhunk, and other places along the Cape last summer. “It was unlike anything, it was not like civilization,” Seneca said, recalling with laughter her first Mabel tour.

“You have to come together and run a boat with kids you’ve never even met before. We would get up at sunrise, cook on a tiny little stove with few supplies, look on the chart, look at the wind ... and if there’s no wind, you get out the oars.”

This year, Seneca was first mate on Mabel, assisting Captain Theresa Carey with teaching and leadership duties aboard the vessel. While the Mabel to Table program is one of Ms. Craig’s first structured forays into the sustainability effort, she makes effective points about the need for reducing oil dependence:

“We’re definitely able to turn our polluting ways around,” she said. “We have to.”

Seneca said the program would have lasting effects on its participants’ willingness to live an oil-reduced lifestyle: “We have one sixth grader and now he’s totally into it. Now they have to believe [reducing fossil fuels] can be done ... They just did it!”

At the program’s heart is the re-education of a fossil-fuel-dependent culture, specifically oil-dependant youth. Organizers hope its theme of sustainable food production will transcend Mabel.

“It’s obviously a symbol. It’s about teaching kids about where food comes from,” says Ms. Morris. “It’s not necessary that all food should be sailed to market ... It’s about thinking, ‘How can we do things differently?’ It’s about thinking outside the box.”

Mabel’s Captain Carey, who began her 10-year teaching career as a sailing instructor, practices her own version of reduced energy dependence. “I still have fossil fuels in my life,” she comments, “but I live on a boat, I don’t use electricity, I minimize my impact.” She hopes that eco-friendly appeal will give their crops a competitive edge: “Everything else being equal, why wouldn’t people want to buy food that used no fossil fuels? It’s better for their spirit.”

The voyagers have been quick in absorbing the aim of the program. “I tried before, but now that I’m on the boat, it makes me want to do it more,” said 16-year-old Voyager Lissy Darnell.

Although the voyagers admitted that both the detailed manual work of organic farming as well as life on Mabel presented challenges, the voyage proved worthwhile: “Organic farming takes a lot of work because everything is hand done ... but it is cool to see that these greens got here, and that we grew them,” Lissy said.

Clearly participants are becoming more mindful of their relationship with fuel and its relationship to how food is produced and distributed. “Once peak oil hits, everyone’s gonna’ want to do this,” says Noah Wilson, 16, predicting the popularity of fuel-free transport. Inspired by the program’s responsible farming ideals, Noah went on to discuss his personal disapproval of the use of human growth hormones in cows.

The Vineyard Voyagers program is hoping to expand in the coming years. “We want to do more day sails on Mabel out of Vineyard Haven,” Ms. Morris said. “We want to get people sailing and raise money to get more scholarships for Island kids.”