Kristen Berry's blog

SETTING SAIL ON SEA OF DISPOSABLE PLASTIC
A handful of young men and women are constructing one of the strangest vessels
ever seen on the San Francisco waterfront - a fantastic plastic catamaran made
of cast-off plastic bottles filled with dry ice. When it is finished, sometime
next month (in April 2009), the boat, a 60-foot catamaran named Plastiki, will
sail out the Golden Gate bound across the Pacific for Australia, a voyage that will be either an absolute disaster or a huge sensation.

Due to a recent sewage spill in Contra Costa County that dumped almost a
million gallons of raw and partially-treated sewage into the San Francisco
Bay, a county advisory regarding the water quality led to Richmond YC
cancelling two small boat events over last weekend. -- Latitude 38, full
story: http://linkbee.com/HO4H

By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 6, 2009; A02

Federal fisheries managers have voted to bar all commercial fishing in U.S. waters from north of the Bering Strait and east to the Canadian border in light of the rapid climate changes that are transforming the Arctic.

In a unanimous vote yesterday, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council ruled that scientists and policy-makers need to better assess how global warming is affecting the region before allowing fishing on stocks such as Arctic cod, saffron cod and snow crab.

Imagine my ear to ear grin when I woke up this morning to see on the front page (above the fold) of the the Washington Posts the following:

Bush to Protect Three Areas in Pacific

Apparently, President Bush woke up New Year's day and had the same thought I did:  I am going to fully live up to my Ocean Conservation Yacht Club Commodore status.  Well Mr. Bush... you've made a good start.

From the Washington Post:

Bush to Protect Three Areas in Pacific

Marine Monuments Burnish an Environmental Record That Is Seen as Mixed

Cold-water fjords in Patagonia, Chile. Credit: Oceana

Members of Oceana's Chile office just returned from an expedition to the Patagonian fjords in southern Chile, and they took some breathtaking photos, including the one you see here. The expedition was part of their ongoing efforts to study the marine wildlife of the Patagonian town of Tortel and the surrounding fjords. Oceana's goal is ultimately to establish a Marine Protected Area over 4.5 million acres.

Sailing Anarchy - a great sailor's resource - has posted the following bad news regarding the Volvo Ocean Race entry from Russia.

Ruskies Out

A press release that bums us and we're sure everyone else out too...

Team Russia today announced it has suspended racing upon arrival in Singapore at the end of Leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race due to insufficient funds to continue the campaign.

The team has been actively approaching sponsors in recent months to secure enough financial support to continue the Volvo Ocean Race onto Qingdao (China) and beyond. However no sponsorship has been forthcoming and the team has no alternative but to suspend racing until further financial support can be secured.

Sailing Anarchy - a great sailor site - reported the following today -

Ships Must Slow Down to Protect North Atlantic Right Whales

December 8, 2008

Right whale and calf.

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

Ships in southeastern Atlantic and mid-Atlantic U.S. waters must slow down to protect endangered right whales starting this week.

[Source: Vendée Globe] At around 13h00 (UTC) this afternoon, Loïck Peyron's IMOCA Open 60 racing in the Vendée Globe dismasted while sailing 180 miles south of the Crozet Islands and 650 miles from the Kerguelen Islands.

Peyron, the only skipper in the solo round the world race to have competed in the first edition of the race in 1989 , was in third place around fifteen miles from the new leader, Sébastien Josse (BT),

On newsstands right now is the December issue of Cruising World magazine with a fantastic section on "How To Sail Green."

 Check out their blogs too; the magazine has been giving good ink to ocean conservation issues and things that we sailors can do to improve our awareness and reduce our impact.  

Sailor's For The Sea is another ocean-conservation-for- sailors organization that has, in recent months, been doing more publicly.  The group is backed by former America's Cup sailor David Rockefeller Jr. and there is a great write-up about David and the group on the site.  Check it out here.

On Tuesday, November 25th Oceana and other partners, including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Native Village of Shishmaref, Alaska, petitioned the federal government to protect the health and welfare of the Arctic and, ultimately, the world by establishing comprehensive regulations for greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The petition brings forth extensive scientific information on climate change impacts already happening in the Arctic and how those impacts will affect the rest of the planet, and requests the Environmental Protection Agency take immediate actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions.