Colbert on the Charleston - Bermuda Race

Stpehen Colbert, sailing on a Farr 65, was part of the crew that took second in the Charleston to Bermuda
Race.

Gil Scott-Heron, poet, rhymer, and inspired protest singer, dead at 62 | NJ.com

Gil Scott-Heron, poet, rhymer, and inspired protest singer, dead at 62 | NJ.com: "'The ghetto was a haven/ for the meanest creature ever known,' Gil Scott-Heron reported on 'Your Soul and Mine,' a song from his 2007 comeback album. For four decades, Heron stared that creature down. He stalked it through the alleyways and mean streets of Chicago, Jackson, Tennessee, and the Bronx, and filed unflinching dispatches as he did. He heard rumblings of insurrection and cries of discontent; he confronted poverty, addiction, government neglect and sheer, unmotivated cruelty. Then, with his poise, his outrage, and his sense of humor intact, he spun all he had seen into poetry and song."

Yard Work

Bill Cunningham - nightcaps

I like hats.  I like wearing my fedoras, like my Irish wool winter hat, like my straw hats, and like wearing caps that advertise my passions and loyalties.  And I like walking around New York.  There is no one more skilled at walking around New York with an admiring lens than the celebrity and fashion photographer for the Times - Bill Cunningham.  the editors have finally decided to let you copy the embed code for Bill's narrated photo essays.  here's a good one.

Harmon Killebrew - Twins slugger dies at 74

Killebrew

He had a funny name, he played for a small market team, he wasn't a gold glover, or a flashy center fielder like the three giants of New York baseball: Mantle, Mays, and Snider.
But he brought his team to the World Series in 1965 when they played the Dodgers to whom I was still loyal.   .
He  led or tied A.L. hitters in home runs six times and hit 40 or more homers in eight seasons. He drove in 100 or more runs nine times. He won the A.L. most valuable player award in 1969, when he led the league in homers with 49, tying his single-season high, and in runs batted in with 140, his career best.  The picture tells the story.  The Times obituary recites the rest.

Remembering the Millrose Games and the Armory

When I was in high school I witnessed two records set.  The first was at the Wanamaker Millrose Games at the old Garden on 8th Avenue and 50th Street.  John Uelses vaulted 16 feet - the first man to break the barrier.  The packed garden shook.    The second was on the splintered 220 yard floor of the old 168th Street Armory.  My Brooklyn Prep teammates set a national schoolboy 220 yard flat track record in the two mile relay.  Kevin Lanigan, Bob Bartolini, Dave Long, and Bob Clark ran 8:02.  Only Long, at 2:06, was over two minutes.

16 ft BARRIER CRASHED IN POLE VAULT (video)

Track was thrilling then, as this highlight clip from the 1962 Millrose games demonstrates.  So Tom Connelly's wistful essay about the Millrose Games departure from Madison Square Garden resonates for me.  It is sad that track doesn't matter to Americans anymore.  A few years ago I turned on EuroSport while in Gothenberg, Sweden where the track and field world championships were about to be held.  A name flashed on the screen behind the anchor reporter "Michael" it said.  That would be Michael Johnson, the great American runner, who was going to try a unique double - 200 and 400 meters.  Not since Carl Lewis has an American track and field star been truly famous.

Tom Connelly: 

On May 16, 1971, Marty Liquori and Jim Ryun went head to head at Franklin Field in Philadelphia in what was billed as the Dream Mile. Maybe it did not generate the overheated water-cooler conversation that anticipated Ali-Frazier two months earlier, but in an era of unusually outsize sports personalities, when malevolence of thought and deed were imputed on the slimmest evidence, the Dream Mile fueled a rousing simmer. Like Ali-Frazier, Liquori-Ryun lived up to its hype.
The contestants were a promoter’s dream. It was easy to pick a side. Ryun was from the Midwest heartland, quiet and self-effacing, with a devastating kick. Liquori was from the urban Northeast, cocky and brash, a front-runner who lived to push the pace. Together with Kip Keino of Kenya, who was invited but declined, they were the pre-eminent milers of their day.
Forty Years Ago, a Dream Mile Captivated Like a Track Ali-Frazier - NYTimes.com

Heron visits Seal Beach

Where seals rest, herons hunt, and children play
click to enlarge photos

Striking out with the bases loaded

Nick Swisher struck out with the bases loaded.
Red Sox 5, Yankees 4 

Montana - Madison River Foundation - this river runs through it

Photo courtesy of Bigskyfishing.com

Sponsors of the 9th Annual Ennis on the Madison Fly Fishing Festival, September 2-3, 2011, these guys love Montana and they love to fish and want to protect the river.
 Madison River Foundation: "The Madison River . . . the legendary 100-mile riffle . . . a world famous river . . . spectacular scenery . . . abundant wildlife . . . Montana’s premier wild trout fishery . . . From its headwaters in Yellowstone National Park to its confluence with the mighty Missouri, the Madison River flows through history, imagination, and memories.

Founded in 2003, the Madison River Foundation is an advocate for the Madison amid the challenges of rapid residential and population growth, commercial development, increasing recreational use and the traditional Western competition over scarce water resources. We strive to work collaboratively with all those who live, work, and recreate on this storied river and its related watershed."

Boatbuilder, teacher Harold ‘Dynamite’ Payson dies — Maine News — Bangor Daily News

Boatbuilder, teacher Harold ‘Dynamite’ Payson dies — Maine News — Bangor Daily News

SOUTH THOMASTON, Maine — Harold H. “Dynamite” Payson, a mentor to a generation of backyard boat builders, has died.

Payson died Wednesday at Maine Medical Center in Portland after suffering an aneurysm at his home in South Thomaston earlier that day. He was 82.

Payson is best known in the world of wooden boats as a builder, writer and teacher. In collaboration with the late Gloucester, Mass., designer Phil Bolger, he developed a line of small boats that could be easily built by novice builders using everyday tools and easily obtainable materials.

Payson called them “instant boats” and wrote a series of books explaining his methods for building. He broke down the barriers to boat ownership for a lot of people who might have been intimidated by traditional boat building methods, according to Carl Cramer, publisher of WoodenBoat magazine.

“There are a lot of dreamers who will see a boat and say, ‘I wish I could build that,’” Cramer said. “But building a boat can be a daunting prospect. Dynamite took the ‘daunt’ out of the process.”

His boats are scattered along coastlines all around the world, Cramer said.

Payson was born in Rockland in 1928 and got the moniker “Dynamite” at an early age from his older sister’s boyfriend who said he was pesky and kept “popping up like a stick of dynamite,” according to a 2009 interview.

Circular Hooks, Designed to Release Bluefin Tuna - NYTimes.com

weak hooks

blue fin Atlantic tuna

Circular Hooks, Designed to Release Bluefin Tuna - NYTimes.com: "Starting this month, commercial fishing vessels that drop long lines in the Gulf of Mexico in search of tuna are mandated to use lightweight circular hooks that retain approved fish like yellowfin tuna, but flatten under the weight of the far heavier bluefin and allow them to swim free."

Great white shark spotted off of Martha's Vineyard

Great white shark spotted off of Martha's Vineyard: "A great white shark was spotted this morning off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard by a group of fishermen, officials said.

The shark, which was confirmed as a great white by a state expert, was circling the carcass of a minke whale off of Gay Head, said Reginald Zimmerman, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.


Jeff Lynch of Chilmark, a commercial fisherman who sails out of Menemsha, said he was headed out to go mackerel fishing this morning with two friends when they spotted the dead whale, then saw the great white swimming around underneath it.


“The funny thing is I was going mackerel fishing to get shark bait,” he said."

A Seal Visits Upper Manhattan, on the Sandy Banks of the Hudson River - NYTimes.com

We have had a lot of marine mammalia around lately.  Bonnie Frogma reported porpoises and seals frolicking with kayakers in the lower New York Bay.  In March we had a harp seal hanging out behind our house in Maine.  And now we've got a seal taking a break from the sea at the beach on the North (Hudson) River at Dyckman Street.
A Seal Visits Upper Manhattan, on the Sandy Banks of the Hudson River - NYTimes.com

South Street Ex-port 2 « tugster: a waterblog

The great ship Peking, the cargo ship Wavertree, the Ambrose Light Ship - all symbols of New York's maritime history - are in danger as the South Street Seaport Museum founders

South Street Ex-port 2 « tugster: a waterblog