Miss Fortune

A while ago, Roland Hunn sent me the photo below of his parents, Ethel (Toby) Hunn and Knute Hunn standing next to Toby's Moth, Miss Fortune, Nr 500.  The venue is the Riverton Yacht Club which is located on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, across from Philadelphia.  The date is some time in the immediate post WW II era.  Although the specific design and builder of the Moth are unknown, the sail number suggests that Miss Fortune was most likely built in 1938 or 1939.  Mrs. Hunn enthusiastically raced the boat with perhaps her best result being the third place she achieved in the women's division at the 1946 Nationals down at Elizabeth City, NC behind Peggy Kammerman (Evening Star YC) and Ruth Nickerson (Pasquotank River YC).

Knute Hunn reminds us that most Moth Boating problems can be resolved with the aid of a willing assistant, a couple bottles of beer, a good selection of hand saws and a big hammer.

Riverton is interesting in as much as it was a hot bed of dinghy racing activity, spurred by the presence of the Lippincott Boat Works. During the forty years spanning 1946 to 1986, Robert and Howard Lippincott built a number of class boats including Lightnings, Comets, Stars, and Dusters.   Howard's obituary, which briefly details the family business and involvement in one-design racing can be read here.  

I attended just one regatta for Moths and Comets in the early 1960s at RYC and in the end didn't race.  Here's why:  My father and I arrived early on the Saturday morning, for Riverton YC's annual two day invitational regatta, in order to register and put my boat together.  As it turned out registration had not yet opened so I wandered down to the docks in order to scope out the intended race area.  When I got to the pier I noticed that the water was fouled with heavy "Bunker C" fuel oil from one side of the river to the other.  I asked an elderly man what was up with that and he said "Boy, look across the river. Do you see the shipyard over on the Philly side?"  I nodded that I did.  He continued, "They salvage old Liberty ships for scrap over there and yesterday they cut one below the waterline."  I looked again at the river and said "I'm not going to put my boat into that mess."  A man using the chain hoist to launch his brand new fiberglass Comet overheard me and said "I need a crew.  Since you're not racing your Moth how about crewing for me?"  He then launched the Comet, and since it was light air, pushed off for a solo sail.  When he was several hundred feet away from the pier I heard him exclaim "I think my boat is dissolving!"   I looked at my Dad and said "Let's get out of here."  In all my years of racing small boats I've never been back to Riverton. 

Now this was years before environmental concerns where large in the public's mind and I'm sure the river is much cleaner now than then, but thinking back to that day I now appreciate why my father was fond of declaring that politicians should be tied up in bunches of three and thrown into the Delaware!

New Jerseyana, Exhibit 5: Love's Labor Lost?

I was down on the Jersey shore this past Labor Day weekend.  The family had departed and I was left alone waiting for a Home Despot crew that was supposed to install some replacement windows but never showed up.  So, after hanging up the telephone at the conclusion of an unprofitable conversation with HD home services, I went for a beach walk which is healthier than fuming about a crew of "no shows" that cost me a vacation day.  Now, as I walk the beach, I tend to look for interesting items:  odd sea shells, bits of stranded fishing gear, this and that; nothing particularly valuable has ever come from this but I always enjoy the walk and the excitement of finding "stuff".  Today was a bit different.  Today I found a message on a clam shell:

Well, hello indeed.

No doubt "Medic" Juan was hoping that his shell would be found by a beautiful and inquisitive young girl.  But as it is with the vagaries of both love and objet d'art left on the beach, it was found instead by a grumpy old diarist attempting to walk off his frustrations.   I stopped and picked it up.  After reading the message, I was tempted to see how well it would "skip" if I threw it against the incoming tide.  Instead I put it in my pocket for the ride home.  But what should I do with this special shell?  I could place it with the multitude of shells which my renters have collected and abandoned in my flower gardens.  My wife would probably say that it looks "cute" but the romantic in me suggests that I should put the shell back out on the beach, perhaps on a day filled with import for lovers like St. Valentine's Day.  But in February who would see it?  It would be a shame for Juan's shell to strike out twice, and perhaps permanently. Perhaps I'm over thinking this.  Perhaps Juan is already back in sunny Spain, drinking wine and breaking hearts.  What should I do?  What would you do?

New Jerseyana, Exhibit 4

This year's crop of Brigantine beach tags.  I'm geezer Nr 1156 this year.

One of the enduring rites of spring is to hot-foot it down to the city beach tag office before the 1st of June in order to buy one's seasonal beach tags at the pre-season rate ($15 smackers apiece this year).  After the 31st of May the price jumps to $18/tag for the inattentive.  The opportunity to buy the tags at a reduced fee is available to all, but basically a good will gesture by the City to residents.  Out of towners rarely arrive before the  price hike.   Seniors (65 and over), including your geezer diarist, get a free tag, as do active duty service members and their immediate family.  Some New Jersey towns, notably Cape May, extend free tags to veterans as well.  My island is a little behind the curve on that last item.

I well remember the days when we swam for free.  Early attempts to impose a fee to use the beach were met with derision and noncompliance by the town folk.  However, those were the days of "swim at your own risk" with life guards at only a few of the most popular locations along the island's Atlantic Ocean side.  With growing crowds coming to the beach, New Jersey communities were not only forced to increase life guard coverage but also had to shoulder the increased costs for beach clean up, and toilet facilities.  Faced with a choice of higher real estate taxes or a user fee, most municipalities opted for beach tags as the best way to pay for it all.  By the mid-1970s beach tags started becoming more and more common up and down the Jersey coast. Now, tags are almost universal.  Atlantic City is still a major hold out.  No beach tags are required for access to the sand or water.  I assume casino gambling helps defray the costs.  Beach tags are mostly associated with New Jersey.  One wonders how other states and their communities handle the costs?

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.

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.

Roadside New Jerseyana, Exhibit 3

Here for your viewing pleasure is a giant bottle of Champagne (oh, sorry, sparkling white wine).  Locally, in Atlantic and Ocean Counties, there used to be several of these huge bottles, dating to the 1920s, advertising the location of the winery started in 1864 by  Frenchman Louis Renault.  I think now there's just two left.  This one is located by the side of Route 30 (aka: the" White Horse Pike") not far from Egg Harbor City.  There's another one along side of Route 9 a few miles south of Tuckerton, a town best known for it's maritime museum.  At one time there were as many as 80 of these 25 foot tall bottles stretching across the county from New Jersey to California.  I read somewhere that the bottle near Fresno, California is still standing.  Amazing!