Issuma - Anchoring in an Antarctic Gale

Anchoring in the lee of Elephant Island

Richard Hudson and crew are northbound east of the Dominican Republic on a heading  that looks like a straight line to Bermuda.  His now peaceful course leads to warm reminiscence about the time spent in Antarctica.

Anchoring in the lee of Elephant Island to wait out a gale is not like stepping onto the porch to watch a summer thunderstorm.  

You don't snap selfies with your iPhone.  You worry about the holding ground.  You remember that this is the last place before the Drake Passage - five hundred miles to the next safe harbor.  You remember that this rock which juts out of the southern ocean like Yosemite's El Capitan, is where the shipwrecked crew of the Endurance spent four starving months before Capt. Shackleton was able to charter a ship that made it through the ice pack to pick you up.

Richard Hudson's matter of fact account of how Issuma held its ground is, I think, memorable in its simplicity.  Click on the link above.

A day in the yard = Barron's Boatyard - City Island

Lucky charm. Boatbuilder Pat Montalbano working on his own boat.

Before the Wind....Jim Lynch

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/books/review/before-the-wind-by-jim-lynch.html?post_id=740643540_10153867812148541#_=_

End of an Era - Sailing the Santa Barbara Channel

We have been sailing the Santa Barbara Channel since our parents bought their house in 1973.  My first sail I rented a Force 5 - a hot little 15 footer which I sailed out of the harbor into a pretty decent swell.  After that I tried a sailing surfboard. Even at 30 I didn't have the strength for that.

Then Dad bought the Bali Hai - a 26 foot Columbia.  When that was sold we sailed Nancy's Columbia 22.  When that was sold we started renting at Santa Barbara Sailing Center.  

Here Nancy and I are sailing a Catalina 23 on a typically gentle Santa Barbara afternoon - approaching the bluffs of Shoreline Park where my mother studied for the California bar exam under the shade of its trees.  End of an era. - gwc

2016

2016

Father's Day 2013 - Fordham men

Helmsman

Santa Barbara and Anacapa - Remembering Dad, Mom and Kathryn

Four C's

Molly, Mindy, Taisy

dock at Anacapa

Nan

Peter & Norma

Anacapa arch

Anacapa Lighthouse

Poddies

Karen Trautfield

Dolphin pod

Michael Cunnion (1945 - 1966)

Mike Cunnion was the star quarterback at Mt. St. Michael's in Mt. Vernon, NY.  When he  went to Holy Cross on a football scholarship we lived on the same floor and were friends.  But then and there even a prime athlete could flunk out.  Mike did.  He joined the Marines and went to Vietnam.  With fourteen others he went down in a helicopter near the DMZ (the truce line between south and north Vietnam).  Mt. St. Michael, pictured below, memorialized Mike.
When I travel to D.C. I go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to remember Mike and two other classmates - Bob Donovan, and Jack Martin who also perished in the war.
As President Obama's visit reminds us we lost 58,000.  The Vietnamese 1 million.  They too should be mourned. - gwc

Giovanni Soldini - sailor | An Affair With Italy

Giovanni Soldini's exploits as a sailor are legend.  Below are some highlights.  More pix and a good interview at the link below.

Giovanni Soldini - sailor | An Affair With Italy

Giovanni Soldini Achievements

• 1991 in his 50-foot Looping he took 3rd place in the La Baule-Dakar single handed race before taking second class the following year in the Europe 1 Star solo race.

• After losing his boat during the Quebec-Saint Malo race, he built the 50 foot Kodak which took him to second place in the BOC Challenge. Renamed Telecom Italia, he then used the same boat to win the Europe 1 Star solo race in 1996.

• With his Open 60 Fila he took the overall win the the 1998 Atlantic Alone, folowed by the 1999 Atlantic Alone, setting record times in both regattas. In 1999 during the third stage of the Around Alone, he rescued French Sailor Isabelle Autissier.

• In 2001, Soldini began his adventures with the trimaran 60 TIM Progetto Italia which he raced in three Transat Jacques Vabre races, one Route du Rhum, one Ostar and one Quebec-Saint Malo. In 2005, during the Transit Jacques Vabrew, his trimaran capsized off the coast of Senegal and he was forced to abandon the race.

• In September 2007, he launched Telecom Italia Class 40. He took first place in the Transat Jacques Vabre together with Pietro D'Ali. In 2008 he won the Artemis Transat Jacques single-handed race and took fourth place in the Quebec-Saint Malo.

• In 2009 he won the two-handed Transmanche race and the Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables and took second place as a crew memeber in the Rolex Fastnet race as well as second place in the two-handed Solidaire du Chocolate race.

• In January 2012, he began his adventure as skipper of the Maserati VOR70. After setting the time reference for the Caide-San Salvador route, Soldini attemtped to record for the North Atlantic crossing but he was forced to withdraw due to weather conditions.

• In February 2013 he and the Maserati's team set the new world record of the Golden Route: from New York to San francisco in 47 days, 42 minutes and 29 seconds.

• In january 2013, Maserati crossed the finish line of the 14th edition of the Cape2Rio, setting a new world record.

• In June 2015 the Maserati covered the Tea Clipper Trade Route in world record time, plied between San Francisco and Shanghai in the mid-1800s.

Jacob's Ladder | Issuma

Richard Hudson and Issuma have stopped at St. Helena.  the midsouth Atlantic island is most famous for being the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile.

Jacob's Ladder | Issuma

Mike Golding Rescue of Alex Thomson

http://www.yachtingworld.com/features/great-seamanship-a-dramatic-account-of-how-mike-golding-rescued-alex-thomson-in-the-southern-ocean-70475

Generations Change- Dodgers Numbers persist - George Vecsey

Billy Cox -Third Base                   Willie Davis Center Field

For George Vecsey - the great sportswriter - the Dodgers were a first love.
As he puts it - "fifty nine years after the Dodgers left Ebbetts Field, I am beginning to adjust".  My path led to the Red Sox and David Ortiz.  But my first heroes were the greatest - every player on the field.  Especially Sandy Koufax who went from Wingate High School in Flatbush to Ebbetts Field without spending a day in the minors.  I wish I had kept that rookie year Topps baseball trading card. - GWC
In this post he remembers Dodgers greats - most in Brooklyn, some in L.A.  I stuck with the Dodgers til the last man who wore a Brooklyn uniform passed away - the fine second baseman Junior Gilliam, one of Major League baseball's first Black players .  At the time of his death he was first base coach. - gwc

Generations Change- Dodgers Numbers persist - George Vecsey

This is the 59th season of the Brooklyn Dodgers out west; I think I am adjusting.

I’ve been staying up late watching the Mets and Dodgers, the two teams in my life, do battle in distant Chávez Ravine. The shock now is the familiar numbers on the home white jerseys -- with strange people wearing them.