Coasting Trade follows the voyage of a Yankee trading schooner, circumnavigating the island of Newfoundland sometime after 1865. As the vessel puts in at various ports, the lyrical narratives weave back and forth through a century of change while the 19th century sailing directions remain timeless.

A smuggler who studies angels, a woman who knits a stove, green martyrs, a homesick immigrant, and a biologist studying the sexual characeristics of caplin all come to the attention of the navigator before he turns southward, to the joy of glad returning.

Coasting Trade, a performance for three voices by Robin McGrath with navigation notes adapted from "Sailing Directions for the Island of Newfoundland" by J.S. Hobbes (1865)was produced for Rattling Books by Chris Brookes and performed (in order of appearance) by Robert Joy, Rick Boland and Anita Best.