Russian Atlantic Salmon Fishing – A Cold Beginning! Miramichi Info. - Brad Burns Fishing

Brad Burns is from Friendship.  A hell of a fisherman.  This post is of his trip to the Kola Peninsula three years ago.

Russian Atlantic Salmon Fishing – A Cold Beginning! Miramichi Info. - Brad Burns Fishing

The Varzuga River

Ane Brun - Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan cover)

From Mayday to Safely Aboard Yes We Cam! Kevin Escoffier Explains - Vendée Globe - En

Kevin Escoffier (40)

Jean LeCam (61)

News - From Mayday to Safely Aboard Yes We Cam! Kevin Escoffier Explains - Vendée Globe - En

VIDEO interview

Speaking this morning after being rescued Kevin Escoffier said, 

The damage
“It’s unbelievable what happened. The boat folded up on a wave at 27 knots. I heard a bang, but to be honest, I didn’t need to hear that to know what had happened. I looked at the bow. It was at 90°. In a few seconds, there was water everywhere. The stern was under water and the bow was pointing up to the sky. The boat split in half in front of the mast bulkhead. It was as if she folded up. I promise. I’m not exaggerating. There was an angle of 90° between the stern and the bow.  

 

Mayday
“I didn’t have time to do anything. I just had time to send a message to my team. I’m sinking I’m not joking. MAYDAY. Between the moment when I was out on deck trimming the sails and when I found myself in my survival suit, barely two minutes had passed. It all happened extremely quickly.”
Organising my survival            
“I came out of the boat and put on my survival suit. I could see smoke. The electronics were burning. Everything went off. My only reflex was to grab my telephone to send the message and pick up the survival suit which I never stow away. I wanted to pick up the grab bag, but I couldn’t get to it with the water rising. I grabbed the liferaft at the stern. Open I couldn’t get into it as it was three metres under the water. The water was up to the door in the cockpit.”
Jumping in the raft         
“I would have liked to have stayed a bit longer on board, but I could see it was all happening quickly and a big breaker came and I was in the water with the liferaft. At that point I was not feeling very confident. Being in a raft in 35 knots of wind is not reassuring. I was only reassured when I saw Jean. But the problem was to find a way to get on board with him. We said a few words. It was a real battlefield out on the water. He was forced to move away, but I could see he remained close by. I stayed in the raft until early this morning.”
The recovery      
“I didn’t know whether the weather would ease enough to carry out a manoeuvre. He was 2 metres from me. He sent me a line, but it was difficult to stop the boat. In the end I managed to reach some tubing and lift myself aboard. The sea was still heavy with 3.5m high waves. It is hard in such conditions to climb aboard a 60’ boat, particularly as it is hard in the survival suit. It’s lucky I’m in good shape physically, as I can promise you it is not easy.”
 
Aboard Yes We Cam!
When I found myself on board with Jean, we hugged each other. He said to me. ‘Shit you’re aboard. That was tricky!’ I replied, ‘I have spoilt your race. You were doing so well.’ He replied, ‘That doesn’t matter. Last time it was me who upset Vincent’s race.’    

What next?
“For the moment, I don’t know what will happen. We’ll sort that out with the Race Directors. I have just slept for 2 hours and am well rested. I have eaten something. I did all I could with the boat. I reinforced her and did everything. So I don’t have any regrets about what I did.”
 

International Lightning Class Association

I've owned two Lightnings.  My fave - the woodie, of course - hull #8885.

The second a Lippincott - glass.  But I've forgotten the #.

Home - International Lightning Class Association

About the Lightning

• Design: Sparkman & Stephens, 1938
• Over 15,000 built
• More than 100 active Fleets worldwide
• Length: 19'0" (5.8m)
• Beam: 6'6" (2m)
• Displacement: 700 lb (318 kg
• Draft (board down): 4'11" (151.3cm)(board up): 5" (12.8cm)
• Mast height: 26'2" (7.9m)
• Sail area (main & jib): 177 sq.ft. / spinnaker): 300 sq.ft.
• Crew (racing): 3
• 

  
  
  
  
  

A day in the ER // Craig Spencer, MD, MPH

 Craig Spencer lives and works in our neighborhood.  He is an ER doc at Columbia University Medical Center where he is an Assistant Professor of Medicine.  He first garnered attention when he was infected with Ebola while a volunteer treating patients in Guinea.  He fell ill on return from Africa.  He survived.

This animation describing a day in the ER at Columbia Presbyterian really hits home with me.  I've been there - short of breath - sucking oxygen from a tube, waiting for a room; cared for by nurses, tested, stuck, probed, stared up at the meaningless monitors above me in the "Cath Lab".  This is A Day in the Life in the ER at 168 and Broadway, NY, NY.   

As COVID19 surges across the US, it’s hard to describe the situation inside hospitals for healthcare providers & patients.

We made this video depicting 1 day in the ER to show the painful reality & to remind us why we must remain vigilant. Please watch.pic.twitter.com/JzxcHJKFuP

— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) November 29, 2020

Van Morrison - Live at Rockpalast Dusseldorf - Christmas 1998

 

The Humble Confidence of Seamus Heaney | Roy Foster - Literary Hub

The Humble Confidence of Seamus Heaney | Literary Hub

By R.F. Foster

When he first began to publish poems, Seamus Heaney’s chosen pseudonym was “Incertus,” meaning “not sure of himself.” Characteristically, this was a subtle irony. While he referred in later years to a “residual Incertus” inside himself, his early prominence was based on a sure-footed sense of his own direction, an energetic ambition, and his own formidable poetic strengths. It was also based on a respect for his readers which won their trust. “Poetry’s special status among the literary arts,” he suggested in a celebrated lecture, “derives from the audience’s readiness to . . . credit the poet with a power to open unexpected and unedited communications between our nature and the nature of the reality we inhabit.” Like T. S. Eliot, a constant if oblique presence in his writing life, he prized gaining access to “the auditory imagination” and what it opened up: “a feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the levels of conscious thought and feeling, invigorating every word.” His readers felt they shared in this.

The external signs of Heaney’s inner certainty of direction, coupled with his charisma, style, and accessibility, could arouse resentment among grievance-burdened critics, or poets who met less success than they believed themselves to deserve. He overcame this, and other obstacles, with what has been called his “extemporaneous eloquence” and by determinedly avoiding pretentiousness: he possessed what he called, referring to Robert Lowell, “the rooted normality of the major talent.” At the same time, he looked like nobody else, and he sounded like nobody else. A Heaney poem carried its maker’s name on the blade, and often it cut straight to the bone.

KEEP READING

At 75. May hope and history rhyme.

At 75.  I chose a couple of passages to read before we cut the chocolate birthday cake Marilyn baked.

Remembering my father

If all a man does is to watch from the shore,

Then he doesn't have to worry about the current.

But if affection has put us into the stream,

Then we have to agree to where the water goes.

- Robert Bly

Hope and history

from The Cure at Troy

History says, Don't hope

On this side of the grave,

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for  tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

- Seamus Heaney 

 

Vendée Globe: A well-tuned Renault 4 >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

61-year-old Jean Le Cam’s boat, designed by Bruce Farr of

Annapolis in 2007 is leading the 33 boat fleet through the south Atlantic, 

despite lacking the hydrofoils of the next 9 boats in the 33 boat fleet.

Vendée Globe: A well-tuned Renault 4 >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: For the 2016-17 Vendée Globe, of the 29 IMOCA 60s, six new prototypes had been fitted with foil appendages and one older boat modified to include them.  For the 2020-2021 Vendee Globe 18 of 33 have been fitted with hydrofoils which give a 3 knot advantage in off-wind conditions.  Wily Jean LeCam describes his fifteen year old boat as a Renault 4 racing against Ferraris.

Snipe Class: Changing the gender balance >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

Snipe Class: Changing the gender balance >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

by Kathleen Tocke
When the 2020 Snipe US Women’s Championship on November 7-8 was cancelled mid-week due to the impending hurricane, some sailors were already on their way south to Miami, so the fleet organized a heavy-air clinic, pairing women with heavier male teammates.

For safety reasons, only three boats were rigged and the women switched in an out from a RIB, which had a female coach on it, who explained the technique for very heavy air Snipe sailing. What the sailors learned was invaluable and it was an opportunity of a lifetime to sail with Class greats like Augie Diaz and Ernesto Rodriguez.

The clinic was just one of the things the Class is getting right in terms of increasing opportunities for women’s sailing.

At the recent Frigid Digit regatta in Annapolis, over 60% of the sailors in the 28-boat fleet were women. This is becoming a trend for major Snipe events in the US and women’s Snipe sailing is growing exponentially in many places around the globe. What has the Class learned? What have the women learned?