Kenny and Company hold a small lead on the fleet after a little more than 24 hours in to the race to Miami.
Month: April 2012
PAINTED WALLS
This is a selection of advertising painted on walls of buildings, most of which no longer exist.
GULF STREAM
The Bermuda Race is the big sailing event, particularly on the East Coast. Yes the America’s Cup is coming to Newport after the race leaves.
The Bermuda race is traditionally broken into three parts, the race to the north wall of the Gulf Stream, the Stream, and the race from the Stream to Kitchen Shoals. Really the Gulf Stream is the obstacle on the race course. I have only sailed 12 races, (my first in 1966) but I have still managed to see many unusual events.
Click HERE to see an animated view of the stream so far this year. It is what has already happened so it will not be much help for what will occur in June, but shows just how much change can happen.
HOW MANY DO YOU REMEMBER?
When someone from the sailing fraternity passes it naturally gives you pause. Bobby Connell in in some of the photos above (with a cigarette) How many others do you recognize?
FRENCH DIRECT
There is something about the French way of expressing their thoughts.
This is about the purity and simplicity of sailing
BOBBY CONNELL “PASSES THE BAR”
Word just arrived from my old friend Dick Enersen, that shipmate Bob Connell has “crossed over the bar”. Bob, I believe had sailed on 5 america’s cup defenders, all in the 12 meter era. I had sailed with Bob on 12 meters, and I don’t know how many offshore races on I don’t know how many different boats over the years. In the Mediterranean, Cowes, Admiral’s Cup, SORC, so many I don’t remember them all. Thankfully the 12 meter America’s Cup re-union took place in September 2010. Where shipmates could find each other once again.
Bobby was aboard the power boat that set the record between Miami and New York. A record that might still stand because no one wants to be that uncomfortable for that long. I am not sure his back was ever right again, after that.
LIGHT SHOW CAPTURED
It was had to miss the reports in the news. The terrible destruction in the midwest from tornados to the spectacular light show in San Francisco. Digital photography has broadened the scope of possibility and put in it in the hands of more people than ever before. The results are showcased here.
WATERPOWER
The Industrial Revolution as an event has always fascinated me. More than 30 years ago my wife and I took a tour of the mill sites in Rhode Island organized by the Smithsonian. Yesterday, Sunday we took a drive and re-visited some of these sites along the Wood River. As you might imagine things had changed in the last thirty years and some things had not changed at all.
I am still hoping to find the photos from the first trip to show how things have changed.
TRAGEDY IN THE FARALLON RACE
1 dead, 4 missing in California yacht race accident
Published April 15, 2012
| Associated Press
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SAN FRANCISCO – A powerful wave swept four crew members off a sailboat during a race near San Francisco, leaving one person dead and four others missing, the Coast Guard said early Sunday.
The eight-member crew aboard the 38-foot Low Speed Chase was participating in a yacht race from San Francisco Bay around the Farallon Islands on Saturday afternoon as their craft ran aground.
Seas were running high at 10-12 feet when the Low Speed Chase was hit by a larger wave and the four were washed overboard, Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read said.
“They turned the boat around to go rescue those people and they got hit by another wave,” sending the boat onto rocks, he said.
A Mayday call reporting the accident went out at about 3 p.m. PDT.
Coast Guard and National Guard helicopters and water craft rescued three crew members who were clinging to rocks, Read said. The body of the other crew member was pulled from the water.
A Coast Guard helicopter, a cutter and a smaller boat were searching the waters around the islands, 27 miles west of San Francisco, as well as shoreline areas early Sunday for the missing crew members.
Dozens of boats were registered for the Full Crew Farallones Race, running from the St. Francis Yacht Club on San Francisco Bay to the islands and back, about 60 miles round trip, Read said.
Rescuers found the three crew members on or near the shore clinging to rocks, about 300 feet from where their vessel was breaking up because of the powerful waves, he said.
They were wearing life vests and cold weather gear — equipment that gave rescuers hope in the search for the missing.
“There is the possibility that the other four were also in the same kind of gear,” Read said.
He said he didn’t know if the four missing were the same crew members who were swept from the boat.
The search was expected to continue through the night, as long as there was a chance there were survivors, the Coast Guard said.
The names of the eight crew members were not released, and there was no immediate word on the condition of the three survivors.
The Yacht Racing Association of San Francisco Bay expressed sympathy for the dead crew member and hope for those missing.
“We offer our thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of the missing crew in hopes they are returned home safely,” the association said in a statement on its website.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Low Speed Chase is based out of the San Francisco Yacht Club, located in Marin County’s Belvedere Cove. The manager of the club declined immediate comment.
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH
Today is Friday the Thirteenth, It means different things to different people. Sailors tend to be more superstitious than many of the population.
In 1969, shortly before the Admiral’s Cup I was in London and a gypsy tried to give me some Scottish Thistle in front of Harrods. I ran in horror feeling that somehow this would jinks our efforts to win the Admiral’s Cup. I cannot report, other than the fact that we returned to the United States with the Cup.