Sea-Fever blog

This guy’s insurance company gave him a very limited navigation warranty in his policy. I guess he can’t get into too much trouble but he still should probably wear a life jacket. Just another reason not to like jet ski’s. Hope he’s not your neighbor!

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ISO 50 The Visual Work of Scott Hansen brings us Kick Ass Speed Boats, a must see collection of photographs from the 1970’s.  When I was a kid I remember this being pretty popular; not quite up there with Evil Knievel but still exciting. Check it out!

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(58 minutes)

Download MP3:Messing About In Ships episode 26 (July 21, 2008 )

Subscribe Via iTunes HERE

Shownotes: Messing About In Ships blog

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Robert Frank has written an interesting page one article for today’s (June 17, 2008 ) Wall Street Journal entitled Smooth Sailing Gets Ugly With Russian Billionaire’s New Yacht. (subscription required)

The article profiles 36 year old Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko latest contribution to the SuperDuper yacht category and it’s another example that money does not necessarily equate with taste.

IMHO, this Philippe Starck designed yacht, which is simply named “A”, looks like a turtled battleship. I love a lot of Starck’s work including the classic Ara III he designed for his own use in Venice and which is named after his daughter but he should probably stick to projects on dry land because this is one of the most hideous vessels ever to sail the seas.

Frank writes:

While longer than a football field, A barely ranks among the 10 largest private yachts in the world, trailing just behind Octopus, the 416-footer owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The cost — at least $300 million — is also not a record. Eclipse, the unfinished yacht of fellow Russian Roman Abramovich, is more than 500 feet long and cost at least $100 million more. Mr. Melnichenko’s boat, at cruising speed, burns about 691 gallons of diesel fuel per hour.

The reason A is stirring up the boat world is its radical design. Created by Philippe Starck, the superstar French designer of lemon squeezers and luxury hotels, A is a deliberate slap in the face to an industry known for its classic conformity.

Here’s a YouTube video of “A”

One can only ask “Why?”

Photo credit: Monoco Eye

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It’s a proud accomplishment for any academic institution to make the front page of the NY Times. For me it’s even more exciting when it one that uses maritime culture and heritage to change the lives of inner city youth and it’s even better when I know some of the people involved.

Today’s NY Times (June 26, 2008 ) has a great front page article by Sara Rimer about the Urban Assembly’s New York Harbor School entitled Taking Lessons, and Confidence, From the Water. It’s a must read for anyone interested or involved in maritime education. Here’s a link to my previous post, The Privilege of Sailing, that I did on the Harbor School along with co-founder Murray Fisher adding a comment.

Outcomes are what matters in programs like this and here’s some interesting facts from the article:

The Harbor School has 390 students in grades 9 to 12, 70 percent Latino and 30 percent black, with many from the Caribbean. Last year’s graduation rate was 63 percent, Mr. Fisher said, nearly triple the rate of the old Bushwick High School, which once occupied the same building. The citywide average is about 50 percent.

But more importantly the voices and pictures bring this success story to life. Please don’t miss the audio clips or slide show! If you only have time to do one thing today, please listen to student Jennifer Mendez and teacher Melissa Franco and you will get a better understanding about the power of the sea to teach and change lives!

Yes, she, Jennifer Mendez, 15, the girl from Brooklyn who used to be afraid of the water and everything related to it — fish, boats, bugs — was steering the Lettie up the river, along the Upper West Side. The captain of the ship, Denise Meagher, was standing by. But with her hand on the wheel, Jennifer felt as if she were the captain, responsible for the ship and everyone on it — the crew, her ninth-grade classmates and their science teachers, Roy Arrezo and Ann Fraioli.

A little later, Jennifer would write in her class journal, “I feel as if I can do anything.” Even, she confided, make the honor roll.

“I feel so privileged to learn about the water,” Jennifer wrote in her journal. “The Hudson River is like an ancestor of our past, and if we listen to it, it just might tell tales.”

Congratulations to the Murray Fisher and Nathan Dudley and all of the professional and volunteer leadership of the Harbor School for creating something special for New York City youth and for a well deserved acknowledgement on the front page of the NY Times! Also, congratulations to all of the Harbor School students who work so hard to make this unique program a success! Like sailing a tall ship, you’re all in the same boat so keep up the great work!

Photo credit: Ruby Washington / NY Times

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Monday was a bad day for historic schooner groundings on both coasts of the United States.

First, the Adventuress ran aground off Orca Island while transiting Wasp Pass in the San Juans off Washington State. Our friend, marine salvor and fellow maritime blogger Captain Richard Rodriguez is all over this story, literally! As you can see from his above photo, his vessel and blog share the same name: Bitter End. Thankfully, that won’t be the result for the Adventuress; no injuries or serious hull damage has been reported. (KING 5 video report)

Tragically, another historic schooner, Robertson II, met her bitter end last year in similarly treacherous waters off the coast of Washington state.

Meanwhile on the Atlantic Coast, the Sylvina W. Beal, a Maine windjammer ran also ran aground yesterday. The Canadian Press reports:

The U.S. Coast Guard station in Eastport, Maine, says it received a report Monday night that the schooner Sylvina W. Beal had run aground near Indian Island in Head Harbor Passage and needed help. he Coast Guard evacuated the (41) passengers from the 25-metre-long vessel. No injuries or pollution are reported and the coast guard says the vessel is not taking on water.

The good news is that there were no reported injuries, significant damage or pollution in either incident.

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In 2007, the United States Coast Guard established the Deployable Operations Group (DOG)  From a press release:

A new Coast Guard command that would bring together the service’s various specialized incident response and security teams into adaptive force packages is expected to be up and running with an initial capability by next summer, according to Commandant Adm. Thad Allen.

The new command would create a single force structure for “surge operations,” Allen said in an interview with Defense Daily last Friday.

The Deployable Operations Group would mix and match elements of the service’s Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSST), hazardous material and oil spill response units, law enforcement detachments, port security units, Airborne Use of Force capabilities, and some of patrol boat capabilities, to be trained to respond to specific mission requirements, Allen said.

The DOG Seal / Patch:

Here’s another video about the DOG which is a bit longer than the one above.

Bio of the DOG’s Commanding Officer

Standard Government Issue PowerPoint on the DOG

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  I just got an email from one of my favorite maritime / environmental / youth development nonprofits, Rocking the Boat. I’ve previously posted about them here and here.

The email was about an opportunity they have to win a grant from Patagonia, one of the coolest, most environmentally conscious and socially responsible organizations on the planet. The program is called Voice Your Choice and this is from their website:

Activism takes many forms, but you can cast a vote at your neighborhood Patagonia store this summer as one way to get involved in local environmental issues, show support for your favorite environmental group or just warm up for the November elections.

Each store will profile five groups that have done something extraordinary to help restore and protect the local environment. These groups have been our partners, helping us to further our stated mission to "build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis."

Rocking the Boat has some stiff competition in their neighborhood with Riverkeeper, Bronx River Alliance, Newtown Creek Alliance, and Solar One, all worthy organizations.

So if by chance you read this and live in their “neighborhood” which is New York City, stop by the Upper West Side Patagonia store and voice your choice!

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There are some cool contemporary maritime influenced art projects currently on exhibit across the globe, so we’ve declared this Maritime Art Week on the Sea-Fever blog. Here’s the final and maybe most challenging and interesting installment of this series.

Lawrence Weiner was born in the Bronx, NY in 1942. Early in his life, Weiner had a variety of maritime jobs including working on an oil tanker and being a dock worker. In the early 1960’s he returned to New York where he began producing and exhibiting his art, the earliest of which included experiments with systematic approaches to shaped canvases. Weiner is considered one of the modern masters of conceptual art. Today he lives in New York and on a houseboat in Amsterdam. (Lawrence Weiner’s biography on the Guggenheim Museum’s website.)

In 2007, Weiner created an exhibit for the New Visions contemporary art program at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, titled Inherent in the Rhumb Line.

From the National Maritime Museum website:

The National Maritime Museum explores how human beings have sought meaning in the sea, time and the stars. At Greenwich the imponderables of time and space collide: this is the home of Longitude 0°, where one can stand on an arbitrary line marking out the starting point of each new day, year and millennium. Every place on the globe is measured east or west from this Prime Meridian, creating a framework for individuals to understand their place in the world. Lawrence Weiner’s artistic practice questions the subjectivities that create such constructs of understanding. Using observation and experiment, the artist interrogates the relationship of material objects to each other, and the relationship of material objects to individuals.

Like Simon Patterson, another Maritime Art Week artist as well as an New Vision’s artist, Weiner medium is often language and ideas.

Much of Lawrence Weiner’s artistic practice takes the form of language and his statements have been inscribed as text inside and outside the gallery, as well as taking the form of spoken words and printed matter. At the centre of this exhibition the words to a somewhat romantic song, Sailing Sailing, point elsewhere: songs, after all, are designed to be sung and heard, rather than read. Shown beside Weiner’s 2005 film Inherent in the Rhumb Line from which this exhibition takes its name, this song alludes to the freedom of the seas and navigating over the bounding main. As with traditional songs of the sea, Sailing Sailing has been handed down, passed around, reinterpreted and repeated, with each version as true as the next.

Currently, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is exhibiting a career retrospective of Weiner’s work which is titled AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. (through July 14, 2008 )

MOCA Guide to Lawrence Weiner’s AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE (download)

Tate Online Events (Video Interview) – Lawrence Weiner talking art – February 2, 2008

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Here’s a link to another great article by Bermuda Sun senior writer Meredith Ebbin about the youth maritime education program that I’ve been working on for the past six months with Northeast Maritime Institute.

Course opens up waterways of the world for students (June 13, 2008 )

Here’s a link In case you missed Ms. Ebbins first article, Pilot programme to train young seaman (May 23, 2008 )

This is a very exciting project. Ten young men and one young woman, between the ages of 16 and 30, most of whom dropped out of Bermuda’s traditional education system, have embarked on an educational journey which will ultimately give them the knowledge, skills, experience, credentials and confidence to launch professional maritime careers at home or around the world.

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Arden Scott, a life long sailor who actually built her 28’ schooner herself, is a contemporary artist who’s beautiful works are both modern and ancient at the same time. The following 2 pictures are from an exhibition this summer at the Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY.  (June 1 – August 10, 2008 )

From the Garrison Art Center website:

Arden Scott’s love of the sea and a good yarn has informed her sculpture for many years. The lyrical curves prevalent in her boat effigies allow them to float through space and offer the imagination infinite nautical stories. Although primarily built in heavy materials, her boats retain a delicacy that seems as much like a three-dimensional drawing as a sculpture. Scott began her career as an artist in the sixties, pioneering in the urban wilderness that is now known as Tribeca. She made sculpture out of found materials from constructions sites: the World Trade Center, as it was being built, was an especially fruitful landscape and much debris has been elevated into a position of artistic value in the hands of Scott. Her artwork has been shown in galleries, museums, public spaces and outdoor sites all over the world. Scott has received numerous grants including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has been featured in renowned publications throughout her long career. When she is not in her Long Island studio working on her boats, Scott is sailing the 28′ wooden schooner she built for herself, the Annie.

Here’s a very interesting artist interview by David Swatling:

Amei Wallach profile of the artist in The New York Times (Sept. 1, 2002) - Far From Midtown, She’s Fallen in Love With the Sea

I love everything about this artist work!

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Since there are some cool contemporary maritime influenced art projects currently on exhibit across the globe, we’ve declared this Maritime Art Week. Here’s a peak at a another.

“That boat is a work of art.” No I’m not talking about one of the classic yachts designed by Olin Stephens, who by the way turned 100 years old on April 13. It’s the Tate to Tate Boat whose exterior and interior were designed by British artist Damien Hirst.

While yesterday’s artist, Simon Patterson, was a Turner Prize shortlister, Hirst actually took the award home in 1995. Even if you don’t know anything about contemporary art you might have heard of Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull which last year reportedly sold for $100 million.

From the New York Times (July 13, 2003):

The new 220-seat catamaran, Hurricane Clipper, has been festively decorated by the British artist Damien Hirst, with dots in 35 colors. ”It’s a bit of fun,” said Mr. Hirst. ”Happy, optimistic, bright. If I’d done sharks, then people might not have wanted to get on.”

It is the fastest tour boat operating on the Thames, cruising at 27 knots. Video guides to Tate Modern and Tate Britain by the artists Anish Kapoor and Sam Taylor-Wood are shown on board.