Butterfly fish

from Pescadotes

Tall Ship Concordia sinks with 64 aboard - all saved

AP February 19, 2010


A Nova Scotia-based ship carrying dozens of students has sunk off Brazil, but everyone is safe and there were no serious injuries, officials say. 

The Brazilian navy said the tall ship 
SV Concordia went down about 550 kilometres southeast of Rio de Janeiro in rough seas.
West Island College International, of Lunenburg, which runs the Class Afloat program, said all 64 people aboard were rescued from four life-rafts by merchant vessels early Friday.

The 48 students, eight teachers and eight crew had to abandon ship and spent the night in life-rafts equipped with blankets and some food. A Brazilian navy helicopter spotted the rafts and dropped medical supplies.
The rescued people were expected to be moved to a navy frigate and taken to Rio de Janeiro. 
Ships with poor stability get struck by microbursts and ships with good stability get struck by squalls.


For intelligent discussion of the stability issues see the Wooden Boat Forum


Richard Hudson on Issuma was approaching that region as he makes his way north from Uruguay in deep water east of the continental shelf.  he did not encounter the storm system.  But Richard  went through the weather forecasts he receives on board and provides this report(with some interpolations by me):


[Note that Beaufort scale 8 is 34 - 40 Knots with waves 13 - 20 feet.  And that these are informed guesstimates.  Actual conditions may have been more severe.  We won't know the analysis for a while. - GWC]

According to the AP story, it was Thursday night, so Feb 18, and the ship was about 550 km SE of Rio de Janeiro.  That puts it likely in Forecast Area Bravo (possibly Delta--my forecast area map is not very detailed). 

The relevant part of the GMDSS Metarea V forecast for Thursday noon (GMT) to Friday noon (GMT) (winds in Beaufort, seas in metres): 

PART TWO - ANALYSIS AT 180000 (hours)

LOW 1006 AT 29S 043W. 

HIGH 1020 AT 40S 047W. 

C(old)-FRONT OVER RIO DE JANEIRO EXTENDING TO SE AND MOVING WITH 10 KTS TO NE.

I T C Z* 02N020W, 02N030W, 01N040W AND 01N050W WITH 3/4 DEGREES  (*Intertropical convergence Zone)

WIDE WITH LIGHT/MOD SHWRS AND ISOL THUNDERSTORMS IN THE

WHOLE BAND.

PART THREE - WEATHER FCST VALID FM 181200 TO 191200 (hours)AREA BRAVO

SHWRS AND ISOL THUNDERSTORMS N OF AREA. 

WIND SE/E BACK(ing to)  E/NE

(Force) 5/7 OCNL 8 BECMG 4/5 OCNL 6 WITH GUSTS. 

WAVES S/SE 2.0/3.0 (meters) BECMG

SE/E 2.0/2.5. 

VIS GOOD DECR TO MOD DURING SHWRS.

纽约新年游行 Chinese New Year Parade - Chinatown, New York

Went to the New Year's parade in Chinatown with 许冰梅Xu Bingmei and Wang Xuemian.  我们也吃饭在福州饭馆。我吃了辣芥菜， 吃得很高兴。
The slide show is HERE.

Bode Miller - one of every color

I love skiing photography and I love watching Bode ski.  They all go fast and it all looks the same - but Bode's strength and balance are so great that he takes risks and recovers from mistakes that for others are ruinous.  go Bode!  


First he took the Bronze in the downhill, then a silver in the Super G, and now a Gold in the combined.


New Hampshire's finest.

Valentine's Day Weekend

Valentine's Day weekend - slideshow is HERE

春节好！情人节快乐！

爱人，朋友，女儿，儿子，同事，同学，学生：

我祝你们春节好！

情人节好！

我祝您和您的全家新年快乐！

万事如意

乔治

Ice Boating on the Hudson

From the Hudson River Ice Yachts Club
Thanks to Bowsprite, Frogma, and Tugster, a winter day on the Hudson

America's Cup - Livestream

Watch live streaming video from bmworacleracing at livestream.com

Grudge match set to start - The America's Cup

"I don't like him" said Larry Ellison of Ernesto Bertarelli, his rival, in the best of three grudge match in Valencia that is the most litigated America's Cup match in the race's 160 year history. Ellison wasn't even on stage at the owners pre-race press conference. It wasn't like this when Sir Thomas Lipton, the original tea bagger, wanted to take it from Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad baron.


In those days the Fife boatyard in Glasgow labored against the Herreshoff yard in Bristol, RI.


This one will be over soon.  I hope that BMW/Oracle wins so that the next race will be in San Francisco where they have wind, and the Golden Gate Bridge.  And mono-hulls.  Match racing in giant multi-hulls is no fun - close maneuvering is what makes match-racing.  And you can't do it with 90X90 catamarans.

Sir Ernest Shackleton: have another drink on me

 
Images: The New York Times

The Times reports that the estimable conservators at the Antarctic Heritage Trust have unearthed frozen treasure of the Austral desert left behind by the great explorers/adventurers who survived against all odds in the failed venture to cross the continent on dog sleds because, well, just, because why the hell bloody not.


And just what the hell would you want as you and your mates neared the last couple of hundred miles of your trek across the frozen continent on dog sleds, but a pause and a case of the best Scotch whisky?  The gentlemen at Whyte & Mackay, distillers of McKinlay's Rare whisky, made sure that Sir Ernest Shackleton and his fellow mushers  would have more than enough to wet their whiskers when they arrived at the supply hut provisioned by their crew on the far side.  Alas the Endurance was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea and Shackleton never got to put the dogs ashore.
Image: Frank Hurley


Image above: the voyages - as planned and as it happened from Wikipedia. The dark red line is the route of the supply depots laid down en route for the planned arrival of the continent-crossing dog sled teams.