All Fordham Law crew takes 3rd in Heritage Cup regatta.

Our all Fordham Law crew took third place honors in the annual Heritage Cup Regatta.  Sponsored by the 127 year old Hempstead Harbour Club, it brings together 25 classic wooden and old style boats for an afternoon of racing on Long Island Sound

We competed in the Spirit of Tradition class aboard my North River 2 - a Buzzards Bay 14.  Designed by legendary naval architect L.Francis Herreshoff in 1945 the 17 foot mahogany planked sloop was built in 1985 at The Boat School in Eastport, Maine.

The crew:
George Conk (son of George Conk -College '45, Adjunct Prof, Law since 2002)
skipper, navigator, main sail trim

Peter Madison - College '67, Law '70 (Fordham College sailing team alum)
tactician, headsail trim

Ralph Wolf, Law '06 (grandson of Frederick Wolfe, Law 1917)
helmsman

Hempstead Harbour Club - founded 1891

Peter and Ralph

Netanya - a Friendship Sloop took second place
15 seconds ahead of us on corrected time

Golden Eye, 81 year old yawl belongs to
race chairman Mike Emmert and family

cat boats pull ahead to windward

classics raft up after race

Peter

North River 2  # 85 at the start

Volvo Ocean Race - best drone footage

Blue Jays at the bird feeder

Frying Pan Shoals Light - North Carolina

If you know New York you may have seen the old Frying Pan Shoals light ship - now replaced by a lighthouse 35 miles off Cape Fear, North Carolina.
This is the sea as Hurricane Florence hit:

Image by Bowsprite
USCG Lightshi[ Frying Pan
LV 115  /WA 537
built: 1930 Charleston Drydock & achine Co.
LOA: 133 feet
beam: 30 feet
draft: 13.7 feet
location: Pier 66, North River, NY, NY

Maps of New Netherland, New Amsterdam, and New England - Fordham University Libraries Digital Collections

Untitled. (The Northeast/New York City) - Maps of New Netherland, New Amsterdam, and New England - Fordham University Libraries Digital Collections

http://digital.library.fordham.edu/digital/collection/DUTCHMAPS/id/19/rec/1

MENHADEN AKA BUNKER ARE BEING TAKEN IN THE MILLIONS!

Artie Raslich Photography | MENHADEN AKA BUNKER ARE BEING TAKEN IN THE MILLIONS!

 am going to tell you, what I saw today was extremely upsetting to me!

I was on the American Princess Cruises whale and dolphin watch today Thursday August 30^th. We had a great day and sighted 11-13 humpbacks, possibly a Minke whale, 20 dolphins and a few sharks. That’s all great but it could be the end of seeing the whales and dolphins in our waters! The day I have been dreading is here! The large Omega Protein factory purse seine net ships are taking our local Bunker fish aka Menhaden by the millions!!!!

Why is this happening and how is this happening? A few bills failed to pass in the NYS Assembly that protect our precious Menhaden AKA Bunker fish.  "Assembly Bill A10506A" would have banned industrial purse seining in New York Waters. Now, any commercial fishing vessel, who buys a permit, can come into our waters and take our menhaden fish legally!

Today, a state-of-the-art menhaden killing machine called the "Rappahannock" cleared out a large section of the ocean of menhaden right in front of us! The Rappahannock drove the whales inshore looking for food, this is total BS!!! It’s a wakeup call to all NYers who love the ocean, because the Rappahannock and ships like this are going to clear out ALL the menhaden, if we let them! They did in the Chesapeake Bay, they destroyed that bay now they are up here doing the same to this area! The whales, dolphins, bass, blues, sharks and everything else that eats them will be gone. Fisherman should be up in arm, almost all the fish they catch eat menhaden! When the menhaden is gone the fish are gone! 

KEEP READING

PHOTOS: Narragansett Bay Classic Yacht Rendezvous 2018 Scuttlebutt Sailing News

PHOTOS: Narragansett Bay Classic Yacht Rendezvous 2018 Scuttlebutt Sailing News: The Narragansett Bay Classic Yacht Rendezvous with racing in the Panerai Herreshoff Classic Yacht Regatta and Panerai Newport Classic Yacht Regatta. Racing

Highlight film of Volvo Ocean Race

The Volvo Ocean Race, successor to the Whitbread is no more.  Volvo is no longer lead sponsor and it is now known as The Race.  It will be run in IMOCA Open 60's like the single-handed Vendee Globe.  So this is the highlight film of the last Volvo round the world race.  Wanna buy a one-design Volvo Ocean 65, cheap?

Blue Heron Stalks the Back River

Today a Blue Heron stalked the Back River behind our house.  There have been few this year.  Their frequent visits in years past led us to call the area behind our house Heron Bend.

Surveying Greenland's northern reaches - Ocean Research Project

Matt Rutherford - founder of Ocean Research Project - first came to my attention as he approached Cape Horn.  The first person to circumnavigate the Americas single-handed and non-stop. 309 days, 27,000 miles.  His story is told in the delightful, even inspiring movie Red Dot on the Ocean.

Having shown himself a master mariner he formed ORP.  Now a NASA grantee they have for the past few years been surveying the northernmost reaches of Greenland.  They do CTD- current, temperature and depth measurements - key raw data NASA scientists need to understand the upwelling warming water that melts glaciers.  The video below tells the story.


VIDEO: (click on it if the play arrow does not display)


Taking measurements on Croker Bay- blog post