Soundings June 2017

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.” — Lord Byron It was a tough winter. The weather gods went easy on us in the Northeast, but my two Jack Russell terriers — companions on many nautical and other adventures in the last 15 years — passed away within three months of each other. It’s possible I am taking it harder than I should, but we were a pack, and truth be told, I liked those two scruffy characters more than most of the people I’ve ever met. They were funny, affectionate, quirky, smart and loyal. Their absence is keenly…

I enjoyed the “Classics” article on the Sunfish [March]. I am told that when I was 2 weeks old, my dad took me sailing on our Sailfish. I later learned to sail on the same boat. It was a wooden, flat-topped boat. I believe that the name Sunfish first appeared with the fiberglass model that had a small cockpit. Thanks for the memories. Henry Hale Oxford, Maryland THE FINAL CHAPTER Paging through my April Soundings on the way in from the mailbox, my eyes stopped on Page 43 — the piece about the schooners Luther Little and Hesper. I think the more famous aspect of these two vessels was missed and should be shared with readers. Once they were no longer needed, Luther Little and Hesper were beached in Wiscasset,…

WHERE THERE’S WATER THERE’S ... The Cassini spacecraft’s ion and neutral mass spectrometer picked up evidence of hydrothermal activity in the ocean of Saturn’s Enceladus moon. As water circulates through the seafloor, it is heated and chemically interacts with rock, creating “chimney-like” vents when it’s released. Almost 98 percent of the gas in the plume is water vapor, about 1 percent is hydrogen, and the rest is a mixture of other molecules, including carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia, according to NASA. NASA’s findings indicate the possibility of other life in our solar system. You may not have heard of Canadian boatbuilder Rossiter, but chances are you’ll be seeing more of its runabouts and dayboats on the water in the future. Rossiter recently added two dealers to its U.S. network —…

Organizers of St. Vincent’s Swim Across the Sound can reel off plenty of numbers that are going up — dollars raised, cancer patients and families assisted, athletes who have participated, volunteers mobilized. But there’s a number that’s gone down in recent years, and only one demographic can turn it around: boaters. Owners who are willing to volunteer with their boats — sail or power, 22 feet and larger — are vital to the success of the 15.5-mile swim across Long Island Sound, which the World Open Water Swimming Association recognizes as one of the country’s top 100 open-water swims. “We can’t put swimmers in the water unless we know we’re going to have enough boats to protect them,” says Lyn McCarthy, executive director of St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation, which…

In late March, President Trump proposed a budget that would slash the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s funding by 17 percent and eliminate several educational and research programs, if Congress approves. One of the proposed cuts would eliminate NOAA’s $73 million National Sea Grant College Program, which supports coastal research conducted through 33 university programs across the country, including every coastal and Great Lakes state, Puerto Rico, Lake Champlain and Guam. The Sea Grant program, according to Trump’s budget plan, is a low priority that primarily has a state and local impact. “Mr. Trump is trying to eliminate us, but we are one of the solutions,” says Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant. “It’s pretty evident the process the administration has gone through to identify these cuts was not…

Skip Novak is a racing and adventure legend. He participated in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race four times, beginning in 1977, when he navigated the British cutter Kings Legend to a second-place finish at the age of 25. He skippered Independent Endeavour in 1979 to win the Parmelia Race from Plymouth, England, to Fremantle, Australia, and helmed Simon Le Bon’s Drum in the 1985/86 Whitbread, coming in third. In 1997 Novak navigated the French catamaran Explorer to a record in the Transpac Race, and in 1998 he co-skippered Explorer with Bruno Peyron, breaking the sailing record from Yokohama, Japan, to San Francisco. Novak co-skippered the 33-meter French catamaran Innovation Explorer in 2001 to a second place finish in the non-stop, no-limits circumnavigation called The Race. Novak embarked on…