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Transatlantic Race Follow-Up

  

(CC/OP Staff) To the surprise of absolutely nobody who knows the players involved, George David’s Rambler 100 scorched across the North Atlantic in record time, gaining line honors and setting a new speed record of 6d:22h between Newport and the point of land of the southwest coast of England known as The Lizard. 

The second non-surprise was Puma’s Volvo 70 mar mostro nabbing the corrected time win over Rambler and the rest of the fleet. While mar mostro never physically led the race, they stayed close enough to Rambler and far enough ahead of the rest of the fleet to assure victory.

Radio Check Etiquette

 

(CC/OP Staff) We’ve all heard boaters on VHF channel 16, the hailing and distress channel, hailing “any vessel for a radio check.” Sometimes a reply is given, but more often than that a stern voice comes on, usually the Coast Guard, reminding the offender that channel 16 is for hailing and distress only. Chastened (hopefully) the offender realizes that his radio is obviously working and next time out takes his radio check traffic to the proper channel.

Texting as Bad on the Water as on the Road

  A year ago today, a barge towed by the tugboat Caribbean Sea ran over an amphibious "duck" boat in the Delaware River, killing two Hungarian tourists. The accident was another tragic demonstration of the deadliness of distraction.   In a recent meeting, the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the collision was caused by the tugboat mate's failure to maintain a proper lookout due to his repeated use of a cellphone and a laptop computer. Full story here.  

NTSB Faults Training, Oversight in Fatal San Diego USCG Crash.

(tradeonlytoday) The National Transportation Safety Board Tuesday determined that the probable cause of a 2009 collision in San Diego Bay between a Coast Guard patrol boat and a recreational powerboat was the excessive speed of the Coast Guard boat in nighttime conditions in an area of high vessel density. 

The board also attributed the accident to ineffective Coast Guard oversight of its small boat operations nationally and at Coast Guard Station San Diego.

Harassment on the Hudson?

(recordonline) The boaters say they want to navigate the Hudson River in peace, without running a gauntlet of safety checks. The police say they've got to safeguard the boats on the water and infrastructure on the shores from the threats of carelessness, drunkenness, smuggling and malice.

"Boaters are up in arms at this point," said Lex Filipowski, a longtime boater from Fishkill who is leading a nautical movement to combat what some boaters see as flat-out harassment and violations of their Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful searches. Full story here.

History's Ghosts, Part One: SS Kamloops

(wikipedia) The SS Kamloops was a lake freighter that was part of the fleet of Canada Steamship Lines from its launching in 1924 until it sank with all hands off Isle Royale in Lake Superior on or about 7 December 1927. Read Story.

No Warm Water For This Denizen of High Latitudes

 

 

(Gizmodo) Despite its ability to break through 20 vertical feet of ice at a time, the Yamal is effectively trapped in the Arctic. Because the reactors use the area's frigid water for cooling, the Yamal is physically incapable of traveling near (and definitely not past) the equator without overheating and melting down its fuel supply. Read more.

Inside Story of Classics Destroyed In Syracuse Last Winter

(Soundings) Mike Wright and Jody Reynolds were asleep at their home in Syracuse, N.Y., when a knock at the door awakened them at about 4:30 a.m. It was two police officers. “I wondered, What have I done now?”  says Wright, 64. The police wanted to know whether the couple owned a boat docked at McCotters Marina in Washington, N.C. Yes, they were storing a boat there for the winter. Read Story

Yacht Crew Rescued by AMVER Vessel off Mexico

 

(Latitude 38) After three years of cruising the Sea of Cortez out of San Carlos, Oregonians Doug Merrell, 52, and Trisha Kelsoe, 53, were sailing home from Cabo San Lucas via the clipper route when they lost steering and had to be rescued from their Bayliner Buccaneer 30 Ka-Em-Te. On June 27, the couple, along with Doug's sons Donald, 22, and Jonathon, 31, felt and heard the boat come into heavy contact with a submerged object. They checked for damage and leaks but everything seemed fine.

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