Woodies: classic motor lifeboats

This is a wood 36 foot former Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat, photographed recently by Will Van Dorp on Staten Island.
Government Boats 28 | tugster: a waterblog:

Cold Comfort

Elvin's wharf, Salt Pond Road

mud flats, St. George River, Thomaston

Ice fishermen, the Creek, Thomaston

sunrise December 26, 2013

early morning

24 hours of happy - the last one to know

How far from the popular culture mainstream am I?  Only when I gets to the NY Times home page will I (maybe) notice.  That's how I found out about Gangnam Style.  So here's the Times capsule version of 24 hours of happy.  I'm posting it for those who are on other continents or in orbit. - gwc 

Holding Ground - Peter Ralston

I love the image and the metaphor, as year's end approaches.  The mastery of Peter Ralston continues to hold my imagination.  We all have to hold our ground.  Until that unpredictable day when we no longer can.

Temple: goodbye student athletes

If its name ain't football or basketball, forget it. Whatever happened to mens sana in corpore sano?- gwc

The spirit of amateurism - dead at Temple University // NY Times

Temple University is severing ties with that rich tradition. In a decision announced this month, less than 72 hours before final exams, university officials decided to cut the men’s and women’s crews and five other varsity sports, a move that affects more than 200 student-athletes. The savings for the university will be $3 million to $3.5 million a year, a small slice of the university’s $44 million athletics budget.Gone, starting July 1, will be the men’s gymnastics team, which has the highest grade point average of all teams on campus and the 2013 senior male athlete of the year. The program started in 1926. Gone also will be baseball and men’s track and field (indoor and outdoor), along with women’s softball.

Druid ruins in the Bronx at the winter solstice

click to enlarge

Bound is boatless man

A man remembers the boat he built, sailed around the world with his wife, raised his daughter aboard, returns to where it lies in ruins.  All at sea

Mt. Rainier from Crystal Mountain

Jesse took this picture of Mt. Rainier yesterday from the top of Crystal Mountain in the Cascades.

100 Years Ago Congress Flooded Hetch Hetchy - the other Yosemite Valley

Our "three gorges" were two - Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy.  100 years ago Congress passed and Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act.  It permitted the flooding of Hetch Hetchy to supply water for San Francisco.  That act of environmental destruction made possible today's San Francisco.  Should we have done it? Can we "undo" it?

Prof. Richard Frank (UC Davis Law) discusses the issues at Legal Planet:

"Contemporary accounts–including those of John Muir–attest to the stunning beauty of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. (Muir wrote: “Hetch Hetchy Valley is a grand landscape garden, one of Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples.”) In its natural state, Hetch Hetchy was considered an ecological twin of the world-renown Yosemite Valley that lies, relatively undisturbed, a few miles to the south.

San Francisco’s construction of the O’Shaughnessy Dam on the Tuolumne River flooded the Hetch Hetchy Valley under 300 feet of water, turning it into a municipal reservoir. Public access to this portion of Yosemite National Park has been limited for decades and, compared to its natural state, there’s not a lot see or enjoy there in any event. John Muir considered the destruction of the Hetch Hetchy Valley to be his biggest political failure, and a national tragedy. "

Frank goes on to discuss current debates about whether the dam should be dismantled and Hetch Hetchy restored.

h/t Environmental Law & History blog

The first Whitbread RTW race 1973-1974 Remastered

Thanks to the Volvo Ocean Race people for this remastering.  The next rendition will be a one-design in the new Volvo 65's.  Makes sense to me.