Bottoms Up!

Last night we finally got around to consuming this particular bottle of red.  It was quite satisfactory as Mary Poppins might say.  I bought this when we stopped at Ventimiglia Winery on the New Jersey wine trail.  Part of the charm was the boat on the label, which I believe is a surviving member of an ancient class of racing yachts still active, either somewhere on Barnegat Bay or perhaps southern New York (maybe the LYC on the main sail indicates Larchmont Yacht Club).  However, I can find nothing about this boat via the all knowing www..  Perhaps Baydog or one of my other fellow travelers can comment.

Drag Race.

If you are a betting person, which would you put your money on as the fastest?  An open 60 Ocean Racer, a hydrofoiling Moth, a windsurfer or a kite boarder?  Place your mental bet and then watch this video.

The answer is here

Sorry Tillerman, no foiling Lasers in this match up.

Fabricating small parts with carbon fiber: A John Zseleczky Production.

Dear constant reader, you may recall that I posted some pix of Mark Saunders' redecked Europe-Moth a few months ago.  Mark's spars featured some neat attachment pieces fabricated from G-10 fiberglass board and carbon fiber cloth set in epoxy.  You may be curious as to how those parts were made; your diarist certainly is.  What follows is John Zseleczky's step by step instructions for making a forestay tang which can be bonded to a carbon fiber mast thus avoiding drilling holes for pop rivets as would be the case if one was attaching a conventional stainless steel hounds fitting.  This same strategy can be used to fabricate other small parts to bond hardware items to carbon fiber components such as fairleads for boom blocks, vang attachment, etc. V. useful info! Enjoy.

The finished forestay tang installed on Mark's carbon mast

So much fun, we'll DO it again.

Another event which falls under the DO/AC umbrella is the annual Atlantic City air show.  This usually takes place in August but this year the organizers bumped it up to the last week in June, for reasons which escape me, and so I was around to see it.  It's just my luck that this year is also the one where our Congress has decided that sequestration is better than compromise and so the Navy Blue Angles and the other service demonstration squadrons such as the Air Force Thunderbirds were absent from this year's program.  The one semi-modern jet which did participate was a privately owner Soviet era MiG.  That said the organizers promised P-51 Mustangs, Supermarine Spitfires and a host of aerobatic planes.  Not wanting to buck the traffic in AC and suspecting that one could watch from the south end of Brigantine, we packed the station wagon full of beach chairs and visiting relatives and headed for the rock jetty at the south end of the island.

The view from the south end of Brigantine towards Atlantic City .  The intervening water between the two barrier islands is Absecon inlet.

We arrived early to get good spots on the jetty but there's always some interesting traffic in the inlet.  Here we see the stern trawler Michael Jr. heading out to sea.  The concrete uprights seen just in front of the seawall are the supports for what's left of the inlet section of the boardwall

Looking to the southwest we see the causeway bridge which connects Brigantine to the rest of the world.  The dredge has been moved closer to the bridge this summer to deal with the sand deposited by last year's hurricane.

Zooming in on the dredge.  Don't know if I'd want to engage in stand-up paddle boarding that close or not.

The Absecon lighthouse was once the tallest structure in AC!

It's show time.  I was hoping that the planes would do more flying over Brigantine (there was a restriction on kite flying from Brigantine to Longport that day) and they did so toward the end of the show, but mainly they performed over the casinos on the Atlantic City side. 

I quickly discovered the limtations of a hand held "point and shoot" digital camera--lots of pix with either vapour trails,

or empty sky!

Well, if you botch a shot of the planes there's always interesting boat traffic!

Things got a little better as I experimented with the camera.  I think this is a pair of T-6 Texans but I can't be certain.  There was a radio station broadcasting the show but we didn't think to pack the radio.

How'd you like to casually glance out your condo window while having breakfast coffee some morning and see a MiG fly by?!

Chopper 10 from the local tv affiliate had to nose in for a closer view.  They were relatively easy to photograph compared to the war birds.  The building is the Revel Casino

For God's sakes man, pull out!  The condo owners must have had a wonderful view.

There was a lull in the airplane action but the dredge supply ship Candace helped relieve the monotony.  The low, red roofed building behind Candace is the Coast Guard station on Clam Creek.  Clam Creek was at one time the home of the old Evening Star Yacht Club which hosted Moth Boat Fleet Nr 1.  The old ESYC building lives on as Kammerman's Marina.

I think Olivia is also a dredge support vessel.

By this time a chop, driven by the afternoon sea breeze, was building.

The local tow company was having a busy day.

As was the Geico Insurance Company's sponsored speed boat.

To me this fisherman is being a bit foolhardy.  Along with fishhooks and other misc. fishing gear plus rocks to potentially tangle with, an eight knot currant runs through this inlet ( I couldn't swim against it--I doubt if Michael Phelps could swim against it).  The bay behind the Brigantine bridge is called "Mankiller" Bay for a reason.

Meanwhile, the next flight of planes arrived and I managed to get this group of pix while they performed a series of loops.

Here perhaps is my best shot of the afternoon. This group did fly directly at us and if it had been a strafing run we would have all been dead meat in our beach chairs.  Nothing quite like a squadron of vintage war birds diving down on you at 400+ knots.  A good day out!  Maybe next year we'll wander over to AC to watch but it sure was relaxing to laze away the day on the rocks!

DO/AC--Playing in the sand; signs of recovery on the Jersey shore

Back in June, your diarist took his annual vacation and as usual, this was time well spent on south Jersey shore.  One of several signs that the hard hit coast is coming back to life are the series of free to the public events in neighboring Atlantic City which fall under the comprehensive banner of "DO AC".  The next couple of posts will feature photos taken at a pair of events which we attended.  The first was a sand sculptor contest.

A World Championship right here in Atlantic City--who knew?

I don't know much about art but I'm all over the concept of "free".

Neptune looks slightly bemused by the proceedings.

"DO AC".  Several AC icons in this photo including Mr. Peanut (sadly, Planters Peanut shop is long gone from the broadwalk) and Uncle Pennybags from the children's game "Monopoly".  The original game featured well known Atlantic City street names.

This one was entitled Amazon's Pet, the artist was Karen Fralich from Canada.

"Watchers (privacy? What privacy)" by American Lucinda Wierenga

At first I thought he had his finger up his nose but on closer inspection (and after reading the sign) I discovered that I was looking at American Matt Long's entry "Shhh...The Gears'R Turning".

David Ducharme, down from Canada, puts the finishing touches to "Folded Memory".

Another view of Folded Memory.

One might wonder what artist Jooheng Tan (Singapore) is doing--spraying for weeds?  No silly, with strong afternoon T-storms in the forecast, he's spraying on a coating of Elmer's glue diluted with water in an attempt to protect "Ocean Symphony" from the expected deluge.

I'm amazed that this particular sculpture could some how support itself.  Jeff Strong (USA) works on "Dream Weaver".

I liked the wood-like details on the "planks" of Hemmingway's boat in this rendering of the old man and the sea entitled "The old sea and the man" by Belgian creator Enguerrand David.

Here we have the Biblical Eve offering us "The Last Apple" rendered by Karlis Ile from Lativa.

This enchanting wee beastie is "Pipistrellus (Madness)" by Bouke Atema from Kenya. I think the National Cathedral called and they'd like their gargoyle back...

This one was entitled "Russian Mermaid".  Apparently mermaids don't have tails where Nikolay Torkhov comes from.

Being something of a traditionalist, sand castles seemed appropriate to me and this one got my vote.

Zooming in on Stairs to Parsdise" by Brett Stocker from Mexico.

This looks like it was inspired by Easter Island's totems.  Canadian artist Damon Langlois called it "Unwind".

Here we see the back side of American Brian Turnbough's "Engine of the City".

I'll never complain about the awards at Moth Boat regattas again!  Well, the artists were also competiting for cash awards. 

Another look at "Amazon's Pet", the overall winner.