Stealth Destroyer launched in Bath, Maine

It does look stealthy. - GWC
Ship Photos of The Day – First Zumwalt Class Stealth Destroyer Launched in Maine | gCaptain ⚓ Maritime & Offshore News: "General Dynamics Bath Iron Works on Monday successfully launched the Navy’s first Zumwalt-class destroyer at their Bath, Maine shipyard. The ship, the future USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000), will be the first of three ships in the Navy’s newest destroyer class, designed for littoral operations and land attack. The ship began the transition from Bath Iron Works’ land-based construction facility to a floating dry dock on Friday. Once loaded into the dry dock, the dock was flooded and the ship was removed from its cradle. By late Monday, the dock had been flooded and the ship was floated off and tied to a pier on the Kennebec River."

Terrible beauty - Atlantic storm lashes northern Europe

Lou Reed

Lou Reed is dead at 71.   I can't remember why I bought the album - the first - Velvet Underground and Nico when it came out in 1967.  I don't think I really understood what he was saying in Heroin.  But I did like lines like "I don't know just where I'm going but I'm going to try for the kingdom..."  It certainly was not the Hootenanny folkie goodie goodie music like Simon & Garfunkel that I loved.  It was part of a new anti-establishment wave that had lasting impact, even for those of us who never did take a walk on the wild side.

Lifeboat Louie - Anchored to the Water - NYTimes.com

I don't know him - surprising given how much time I spend on City Island.  But now, thanks to the times, I know who owns those two boats tied together just off the doomed City Island Bridge.
Anchored to the Water - NYTimes.com:



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On the hard - sailing season over

North River 2 is on the hard ground now - at Barron's boatyard, City Island, NY

OTHERWISE: Eastport Road Map: Global Meets Local in a Very Small Town - James Fallows - The Atlantic

OTHERWISE: Eastport Road Map: Global Meets Local in a Very Small Town - James Fallows - The Atlantic:



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Fifteen Tons of Groceries, Sailing Down the Hudson - NYTimes.com

Ceres - the vessel of the Vermont Sail Freight project has landed in New York City. GWC
Food Matters | Fifteen Tons of Groceries, Sailing Down the Hudson - NYTimes.com:by Eviana Hartman

 "Before the Industrial Revolution, most food was regional by necessity, shipped via wind-powered boats. Urban waterfronts were vibrant centers of commerce and community. Seeking a more sustainable way to get his grain to market, the Vermont farmer Erik Andrus conceived the Vermont Sail Freight Project to find out if this model could work again today. In April, he raised more than $15,000 on Kickstarter to build a 39-foot-long plywood sail barge named Ceres (after the Roman goddess of agriculture). The Greenhorns, an Essex, N.Y.-based farmer advocacy group, and the Willowell Foundation, a nonprofit education organization, signed on as partners to raise additional funds, handle the project’s logistics and recruit farmers and volunteers."

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Eastport, Maine - James Fallows -- The Atlantic

Loading pulp paper at Eastport. In the 1840's a ship landed from Europe almost daily.

James Fallows loves to fly and he loves talking to people.  So he and his wife are touring the country in his plane, reporting on stirrings in small cities across the country.  I'm delighted that he has gotten to Maine.  I hope we'll soon have reports from Belfast and Rockland.  I'm banking on lots of pictures at Front Street Shipyard, the new force in shipbuilding in Maine.

 James Fallows - Authors - The Atlantic: "Greetings from the American city closest to Europe, and first to see each day's sunrise: Eastport, Maine, which Marketplace will describe in its broadcast on Friday and which we'll say more about starting tomorrow. The scene above is of an unimaginably vast warehouse full of bales of Maine hardwood pulp, destined for mills in Asia.

The "pulp," which I had envisioned as a kind of slurry, turns out to be thick sheaves of papery material, which will then be re-ground and turned into high-quality paper in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese mills. Each of the small footlocker-sized rectangles shown above weighs more than 500 pounds. We watched them loaded into a Norwegian-flag freighter, with a Filipino captain and crew, at the Eastport dock at a rate of 28 tons (one of the truckloads below) every 90 seconds or so."



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NOAA will no longer print navigation charts

GCaptain reports that NOAA will stop printing nautical charts.  Hard to believe.  I use a GPS and manual charts but must admit that I look at the screen more often than the printed map. - gwc

A man for all seasons - Col. Robert Rheault, obituary - PenBay Pilot

Col. Robert Rheault, obituary - PenBay Pilot

OWLS HEAD — Col. Robert Bradley "Bob" Rheault, 87, died peacefully at home in Owls Head Oct. 16, 2013. He was born in Boston Oct. 31, 1925, the second of three sons of Charles Auguste and Rosamond (Bradley) Rheault of Westwood, Mass. His father had been a member of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, while his mother worked in Labrador, for Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, of the Grenfell Mission.During the summer, for three years, from age 14, Bob worked as a cowboy on ranches in Wyoming: moving cattle, mending fences and stacking hay. After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy and the United States Military Academy at West Point, Bob served for 26 years in the U.S. Army, retiring in 1969 as commander of Special Forces in Vietnam. He worked for Hurricane Island Outward Bound School for 32 years, from assistant watch officer to president of the school. During the last 19 of those years, he started and ran the Outward Bound Program for Vietnam Vets suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.***A memorial service will be held Nov. 2, at ­­2 p.m. at the Camden Opera House, 29 Elm St. in Camden.In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, 39 Mechanic St., Suite 310, Camden, ME 04843 or to the Georges River Land Trust, 8 North Main St,, Suite 200, Rockland, ME 04841.

NOAA UPDATE On Record Breaking High Ocean Temperatures | gCaptain ⚓ Maritime & Offshore News

NOAA UPDATE On Record Breaking High Ocean Temperatures | gCaptain ⚓ Maritime & Offshore News:


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Monday morning 9:00 AM - on the dock of the Bay - Friendship, Maine

It's like a lot of other workplaces.  Vehicles fill the parking lot.  But here they're F-150's and Silverados.  And their occupants got in their skiffs and zipped out to waiting lobster boats.  Beyond that the Muscongus Bay and the Gulf of Maine where each two or three man crew tends up to 800 traps.  It's Friendship Harbor on an October morning.  (click pix to enlarge and for slideshow)

`Rock the dock' for Dylan Gold - Port Clyde thanks Life Flight of Maine

Fishing towns are no strangers to tragedy.  It is the most dangerous job, after all.  In 2005 a trawler from Port Clyde, Maine went down in rough seas.  Only one survived.  At the iconic Marshall Point lighthouse the town built a memorial to all those from the St. George port lost at sea.  Eleven men's names are carved into the black granite.Its annual `rock the dock' party raises money to maintain the memorial.  But this year it honored Dylan Gold and the funds were raised for the medical helicopter service Life Flight of Maine and the local St. George ambulance squad. The event was held under a huge tent at the wharf of the Mohegan Boat Line where an out of control car wrought havoc last summer, careening down the dock, killing nine year old Dylan Gold of Massachusetts, and severely injuring his mother and two others.  The Courier Gazette reports: 

More than $30,000 was raised with a final amount still being tallied. Fishermen donated more than 2,000 pounds of lobster to serve the more than 1,000 people who attended. There also was roast pig, oysters, and salads, side dishes and desserts aplenty.
Musical entertainment was provided by Country Choir and Maine Rockets.

The largest stack of cooked lobsters and the longest baked goods table ever seen were prominent features.  And no one hunched over an iPhone in the huge tent!

Have a `Dami' river, a North Haven, and a Virginia.  Then come back for more!

the Country Choir band

Navy's largest destroyer to be launched in Bath, Maine // Stars & Stripes

The Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, in its cradle at Bath, Maine

BIW - Bath Iron Works - on the Kennebec River is Maine's largest private employer.  They seem to discriminate in favor of guys with pick-up trucks, on the evidence of their big, full parking lot.
The yard's giant cranes tower above the river, making a spectacular view from the high bridge.  The Zumwalt - a new high-tech destroyer was built there.  Launch is imminent.  - GWC
Navy's largest destroyer is going into the water in Maine - Stars & Stripes:
by David Sharp// Associated Press

"BATH, Maine — After embarrassing troubles with its latest class of surface warships, the Navy is hoping for a winner from a new destroyer that's ready to go into the water.

So far, construction of the first-in-class Zumwalt, the largest U.S. Navy destroyer ever built, is on time and on budget, something that's a rarity in new defense programs, officials said. And the Navy believes the ship's big gun, stealthy silhouette and advance features will make it a formidable package.

The christening of the ship bearing the name of the late Adm. Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt was canceled a week ago because of the federal government shutdown. Without fanfare, the big ship will be moved to dry dock and floated in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the public christening ceremony featuring Zumwalt's two daughters will be rescheduled for the spring."

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Hunter's Moon Tides

The east Friendship "Back" River, Muscongus Bay, Maine.  (click pix to expand and or slideshow)

Heron Bend

Back River 1 hour after high tide

Friendship River meadow

 舵手

Hard Rock Island

Two tone lobster from Owls Head

Landed by Jeff Edwards, Owls Head, Maine
 J

Solo Robert Redford Stars in Intense High Seas Drama, ‘All is Lost’ | gCaptain ⚓ Maritime & Offshore News

Solo Robert Redford Stars in Intense High Seas Drama, ‘All is Lost’ | gCaptain ⚓ Maritime & Offshore News:
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Lk_R04LfUQU?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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Mars Curiosity Rover back online

Mars Curiosity Rover back online. Good to know but not much new up there.  Waiting for spring, I guess.

David Ortiz

David Ortiz - Clutch Hitter?
Not particularly - just consistently great.

Sailing in the Santa Barbara Channel with Nancy and Peter

Peter has lived in Silicon Valley, California since 1967.  Still a Yankees fan.
I have lived in New York almost my entire life.  Still not a Yankee fan.

WHAT CHANGED ON ORACLE? | stephenlirakis.com

WHAT CHANGED ON ORACLE? | stephenlirakis.com:
by Matthew Sheehan
 "Having remained in San Francisco for a few days after the end of the event, I got to speak to a number of people about what was really going on. It didn’t take long for the real picture of what was behind the speed improvements to emerge.

Oracle’s jump in performance half way through the America’s Cup is still the subject of hot debate, particularly among the New Zealand press who are convinced that the black cat had some special device that allowed them to foil more effectively. Was the ‘Herbie’, as it became nicknamed, legal? Would Team New Zealand take legal action?"

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Marsh sketchbook - Pescadotes

I came to appreciate salt marshes only late in life.  Joe Warren gets it now. Check him out at Pescadotes

Coast Guard crews rescue overboard lobsterman

Coast Guard crews rescue overboard lobsterman:
Coast Guard crews from across the Northeast worked together to rescue a commercial lobsterman who fell overboard off Long Island, N.Y., Wednesday.

John Aldridge, a crewmember of the 44-foot lobster vessel Anna Mary was last seen aboard the boat during his watch relief at 9 p.m., Tuesday, while the vessel was underway off Montauk, N.Y.

Coast Guard watchstanders received a report of the missing fisherman from the crew of the Anna Mary at approximately 6:30 a.m., Wednesday. Rescue crews from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York coordinated to develop and conduct a search pattern that covered more than 780 square miles (more than half the size of the state of Rhode Island).

Crews established the search area based on the assumption Aldridge has fallen overboard without a lifejacket sometime after 9 p.m., Tuesday, but before 4:30 a.m., Wednesday. Eight hours after the initial report, an Air Station Cape Cod MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter located Aldridge 36 nautical miles south of Montauk, N.Y. The air crew deployed a rescue swimmer who hoisted Aldridge to safety.  
"This ending had a lot of people shaking hands and smiling," said Lt. Joe Klinker, First Coast Guard District public affairs officer. "Reports of persons in the water often mean a difficult search is ahead. To hear the call that he was found and rescued makes it a proud day for those Coast Guard crews."
Aldridge told the helicopter crew he used his rubber boots as flotation devices throughout the ordeal.



- See more at: http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/1863314/Coast-Guard-crews-rescue-overboard-lobsterman#sthash.SJOPaH1J.dpuf


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