Month: October 2007

Ex-head of maritime museum may be heading up river for a long time

jailbird Today (Oct. 13, 2007) John Shiffman of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the federal prosecutor in the Independence Seaport Museum / John S. Carter case wants to send the ex-head of the museum up the river for a long time.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Pease said that after the FBI raided his Philadelphia home, tipping him to the investigation, Carter unsuccessfully tried to swindle $1 million worth of life insurance from the museum. And, Pease said, after Carter pleaded guilty, he obstructed justice by lying to a probation officer and the IRS about his assets, including a time-share in Mexico, a 1934 Buick, and property in Maine and Nova Scotia.

“This defendant is without any moral compass whatsoever,” the prosecutor said. “John Carter is an offender who has yet to come to grips with the serious nature of his crimes. He is in a class by himself.”

Carter, who ran the nonprofit museum for 17 years, lived rent-free in its Society Hill townhouse while also being paid about $350,000 annually.

Here’s some sad but fascinating reading. (federal indictment)

Sentencing is scheduled for October 22nd.

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iPod Shuffle Drawing Scheduled for Sunday, October 14th @ 7:30 pm on UStream.tv

The Sea-Fever iPod Shuffle contest closed on September 30th. If you registered and voted for one of my stories on gCaptain’s Discoverer news website by that date, you are eligible for the drawing for the iPod Shuffle which we will do from the Global HQ of Sea-Fever Consulting LLC tomorrow evening at 1930 (7:30 pm) EDT on UStream.tv. You can watch by clicking here or returning to this post where we have embedded the UStream player below.

The drawing will be conducted by 2 surprise special guests.

This is all an experiment so we appreciate you bearing with us.

Thanks for participating and good luck in the drawing!

Superharbour – The Movie

I found this interesting movie on the website of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the architecture firm that designed the Danish Maritime Museum that I posted about yesterday.

BIG’s website presents a lot of interesting projects including a number of maritime influenced ones. I guess that this is to be expected from a firm in a country with such an extensive coast line and rich maritime heritage. Some of my favorites include the Copenhagen Harbour Bath and Copenhagen Maritime Youth House, a youth and sailing center.

Copenhagen Harbour Pool

Maritime Youth House Copenhagen

This panoramic photo of the BIG staff is pretty cool too. Looks like a fun place to work!

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What can you do with an old Abandoned Drydock in the shadow of a Shakespearean Castle?

Build a cool maritime museum, of course!

Danish Maritime Museum - BIG

Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) unanimously won a recent design competition for a new Danish Maritime Museum in Elsinore, Denmark even though it did not adhere to the competition brief. The proposed site, which is within eyesight of Kronborg Castle, the setting of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a UNESCO World Heritage site, was subject to extreme design limitations including not being able to rise even a meter above ground in order to avoid interfering in any way with the view of the castle towers. From the architects:

We considered it architectural suicide to fill the dry dock with program and therefore decided to empty the dry dock and wrap it with the museum, making it the centerpiece of the exhibition. Instead of drowning the dry dock with galleries we would leave it open. A new kind of urban space – open for new ideas and life. An underwater oasis whose attraction would be its emptiness. As a response to Hamlet’s famous question: to be or not to be? We chose the latter.

The museum is placed around the dry dock and not within. This allows the preservation of the dry dock as an entirely empty space. A series of bridges span the dry dock providing visitors with short-cuts to other portions of the museum. One bridge in particular also serves to navigate visitors to the entrance. An auditorium also serves as a bridge providing access from Kronborg Castle to the harbour. The bridges create a dynamic tension between old and new.

For a great slideshow of the project concept, click here. Completion is scheduled for 2010.

(Thanks arcspace.com)

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Place your Bets – Tall Ships nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

sti_logo

According to Irish bookmaker / betting agent Paddy Power PLC, Sail Training International current odds of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this Friday are 50-1. This puts them slightly behind Muhammad Ali (40-1), even with Oprah Winfrey and ahead of Irish politician Bertie Ahern (60-1), US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (80-1), recent past British Prime Minister Tony Blair, American conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh (100-1), US President George Bush (250-1) and British reality television celebrity Jade Goody (?)(500-1). The current odds on favorite is former US Vice President and environmental advocate, Al Gore (5-2). You can find all of the published odds here.

nobel peace_faceFor the second year in a row the international tall ships organization, Sail Training International has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The award is scheduled to be announced Friday, October 12, 2007 at 11:00 am Oslo time. The competition is tough with 181 nominations including 46 organizations. 

Okay, it’s a real long shot but it’s an amazing accomplishment and honor just to be considered. The Nobel Committee strongly encourages all nominations to be kept confidential; however, each year, a few slip out which isn’t really a bad thing if you are a long shot. The publicity surrounding the awarding of this prestigious honor can really raise awareness of a cause or nonprofit organization like Sail Training International.

STI Cuahtomec Stockholm

Recent media:

I wrote about last year’s nomination in the American Sail Training Association’s now dormant blog, Tall Ships Today.

STI photo Stockhom Max

Wouldn’t it be great to see a sailing organization that positively influences thousands of young lives and brings together so many different nationalities for friendly competition, international understanding, camaraderie and goodwill?  One can only hope and dream. But it’s still all good for sail training and the maritime community in general.

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Tall Ship Semester for Girls – Changing Lives at Sea Under Sail

Tall Ship Education Academy logo Tall Ship Education Academy in San Francisco runs an amazing program called Tall Ship Semester for Girls. Here’s a great video about this powerful life changing experience.

From the July 2007 issue of San Francisco magazine:

Way to get kids sailing in the right direction
Future classic: Even better than getting away for an afternoon is sailing away for weeks on end. And what’s more worthy of escaping from than a difficult female adolescence? The San Francisco State University–accredited Tall Ship Education Academy takes about 15 disadvantaged high school girls from San Francisco and Oakland sailing for six weeks in the Caribbean during the school year and along the California coast for six weeks during the summer. Not running into a reef becomes an algebra lesson, and interviewing native people on remote islands becomes a history class. This out-of-the-classroom learning re-engages students who’ve lost interest in traditional education and gives them a reinvigorated sense of who they are and where they want to go in life.

Check out their 2006 voyage track and log and definitely read their trainee newsletter, The Bitter End, to get a good idea about how this incredible program changes young women’s lives.

In a world where media images of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton bombard us everyday, we need more programs like Tall Ship Education Academy’s Tall Ship Semester for Girls which provide experiences that build self efficacy, confidence and leadership skills in young women.

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