Total confusion - America's Cup Race 5 — America's Cup Experience

Jack Griffin is a great Americas Cup reporter.
Total confusion - America's Cup Race 5 — America's Cup Experience:



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Sailing with GeorgiaBel

Contact high? MV Goldstar reported ablaze with 30 tons of marijuana off Malta

h/t GCaptain

Upon receipt of the emergency call from the vessel on Friday, an armada of vessels were dispatched by the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) to help subdue, or perhaps just hangout downwind, of the flames which had spread to the Gold Star’s bridge.  The 9 members of the ship’s crew were rescued by AFM assets.  Reports that firefighters broke off early because they were suffering from the munchies could not be confirmed

Oracle takes Race 4 over Team New Zealand

The Americans finally won a race in the Americas Cup 2013.  They defaulted on the first two due to penalties, then lost the first three and finally took a win.  Stephen Lirakis reports.

River Republic: The Fall and Rise of America’s Rivers | University of Denver Water Law Review at the Sturm College of Law

Living on the Hudson River for the past thirty five years has made me a river lover.  I claim to b a man of the sea but the truth is that I have been sailing on tidal rivers most of my life.  My first non-estuary was the the Lake Creek River northwest of Anchorage which we floated down casting for salmon and trout.  Since then I have followed Save Our Wild Salmon [video below] and its  fight to restore the salmon migration up the Columbia and Snake rivers.  Where 1.5 million salmon once spawned now only 1,200 survive the journey.  SOS is the kind of citizen organization that Daniel McCool credits with much of the river restoration progress we have seen in recent years.  Here on the Hudson the Riverkeeper has provided an often emulated model.  David Schnorr at Environment, Law & History highlights newly published River Republic: The Fall and Rise of America’s Rivers | University of Denver Water Law Review at the Sturm College of Law:

River Republic begins with the stories of the Matlija and Glen Canyon Dams.  These dams, the stories of their construction, and Matlija’s removal serve as a cautionary tale of what will happen to America’s rivers if the U.S. allows what McCool calls “water hubris” to cloud its judgment.   According to McCool, “water hubris” is the combined false beliefs that: (i) water development can occur without costs or tradeoffs, (ii) humans are inherently superior to nature, and (iii) society has a moral right to conquer rivers.  McCool concludes, however, that a new water ethic, a “River Republic,” is slowly replacing “water hubris.”  This new ethic involves treating rivers as common property—cared for and maintained by all for future generations.
In Chapter Two, McCool details the history of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) and  explains the Corps’ role in managing our Nation’s rivers.  McCool states that the Corps, like the nation as a whole, is a work in progress.  This chapter focuses for the most part on the early failures of the Corps, such as the environmentally disastrous Kissimmee River channelization in Florida.  Instead of being wholly critical, however, McCool details how the Corps is correcting past mistakes through restoration processes and applauds the cutting-edge engineering that makes such projects possible.  Essentially, McCool argues that the Corps is learning and evolving from its philosophy of conquering rivers to a more modern, balanced approach.

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No surprise - Oracle Drops First Two Races to New Zealand - NYTimes.com

Already in Hole, Oracle Drops First Two Races to New Zealand - NYTimes.com:


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Listening Back To Seamus Heaney | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

Listening Back To Seamus Heaney | On Point with Tom Ashbrook: "The great Irish poet Seamus Heaney died Friday in Dublin.  He was 74.  Heaney was a Nobel Prize winner who wrote poetry of such earthy, brilliant power and grace that it brought hard men to tears, women too, and the whole world to remember the glory of a great poem.

Seamus Heaney’s work ranged over myth and legend, politics and violence and the classics.  And over soil and farm and sweat and tools.  The moment of writing was, for him he said, a moment of joy.  The moment of reading was for us the same.

This hour, On Point:  we listen back to a 2006 interview with the great now-late Seamus Heaney."

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The Majesty and Tragedy of Newfoundland and Labrador //Peter Ralston

Grand Bruit - a Newfoundland ghost town
photograph by Peter Ralston

·       "  For years I have dreamt of Newfoundland and Labrador; I have always wanted to go there, but my operating principle has long been to focus myself here in Maine. That “go deep” mindset definitely comes from the artistic model I witnessed over five decades of knowing Andrew Wyeth...and my work with the Island Institute, raising a family and my profound infatuation with the coast of Maine was more than sufficient to keep me happy and busy.I witnessed over five decades of knowing Andrew Wyeth...and my work with the Island Institute, raising a family and my profound infatuation with the coast of Maine was more than sufficient to keep me happy and busy.

Yet there was always the call of the North…out of sight but never fully out of mind. There was never any doubt in my mind that someday I would get there.

I just did." -Peter Ralston

The photographer and founder of the Island Institute has written HERE of the "Majesty and Tragedy of Newfoundland and Labrador".  Once called the Colony of Unrequited Dreams,  the tragedy of The Mortal Sea, as W. Jeffrey Bolster's Bancroft Prize-winning book calls it, is captured in Peter Ralston's arresting photographs of the beautiful fishing hamlet of Grand Bruit, on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, where the collapse of the cod fishery compelled? the Canadian government to pull the plug and withdraw all support of the town.  My friend the adventurer Richard Hudson photographed many of the ports and hamlets of Labrador during his voyages there aboard Issuma, which completed the northwest passage in December 2011.  Ralston explains his motivations and objectives in his moving essay.

abandoned fishing village in Labrador.  photo by Richard Hudson/Issuma

  

NIMBY: Opponents of LG headquarters on Palisades to continue fight in apellette court | NJ.com

NIMBY ALERT:  WE BOUGHT OUR APARTMENT BECAUSE THIS WAS NOT THE VIEW FROM IT!


Opponents of LG headquarters on Palisades to continue fight in appellate court | NJ.com:

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS — Scenic Hudson and the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs plan to continue fighting a plan to build a 143-foot building above the Palisades.

The groups said Tuesday they would file an appeal to a judge's decision to uphold variances allowing LG Electronics to build a new headquarters on Sylvan Avenue.

The appeal says the Englewood Cliffs Zoning Board of Adjustment didn't have the authority to allow LG to exceed the town's 35-foot height limit.

Scenic Hudson and the State Federation of Women's Clubs are part of the Protect the Palisades Coalition, a group of organizations and individuals opposed to LG's plans. The coalition believes the building, which would rise 80 feet above the tree line, would mar the view of the Palisades.

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Never again - dodging icebergs in the southern ocean - Volvo Ocean Race 2001-2002

h/t Jesse Fradkin