SIGHTINGS challenge — cont’d
— cont’d last April killed the pilot, damaged homes and injured eight people on the ground. "Think about what would happen if there were a crash in San Francisco," said Daly in a Chronicle report. The measure was tabled in a 2-1 vote by the Government Audit and Oversight Committee. "The measure is a little flyby-night. Let's do this because we think it might not be safe," said Supervisor Michaela Alioto-Pier. Mayor Gavin Newsom also supports keeping the Blue Angels in the Fleet Week program.
Lakeport, CA 95453, Lake County representative Patty Berg at State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0001, the Sacramento Bee’s Assistant Managing Editor Scott Lebar at slebar@sacbee. com, and the Lake County Record-Bee at letters@record-bee.com. Some folks have asked us if we at Latitude are miffed that our extensive coverage of the Thornton death wasn’t mentioned in Noyes’ presentation. Not at all. Our only interest in this case is justice, to see that an innocent man is not wrongly charged, and to see that the one responsible has to face a jury, at the least. It’s also much more powerful that Noyes conducted a completely independent investigation. He also had the courtesy to call us prior to the first showing, and tell us he’d been tipped off to the story by a Latitude reader who had previously worked at Channel 7. We’re not in competition with Noyes, but rather working for the same goal of justice, so if his work and larger audience prove key for justice being done, we’d be delighted. Perhaps the most interesting email we’ve received in the last month was this: “I am the almost xwife [sic] of Russell Perdock, being an x [sic] does not have anything to do w/this accident. I wish I could say the right things to make her death easier for the family, but when you have a tragedy in that capacity, words from the opposite side don’t comfort. She was a beautiful person and this accident was so wrong, something is not right with this.” We couldn’t agree with her conclusion more. — richard
Mother Nature’s boat wash — Elizabeth Meyer and Mike McCaffrey’s gaff yawl ‘Seminole’ gets a real pressure wash under the falls in BC’s Toba Inlet.
ALL PHOTOS YVES TUSET
having a blast You may recall Elizabeth Meyer as the woman who rescued and restored the magnificent British J-Class yacht Endeavour. She continues to champion these splendid 130-ft sloops through Newport, RI-based J Class Management, which she founded. But Elizabeth is also an avid sailor and cruiser. She is presently on sabbatical from work, cruising the Pacific Northwest with husband Michael McCaffrey aboard their beautifully restored 1916 40-ft Lawley and Sons gaff yawl Seminole. Which brings us to the boat wash. This waterfall is located at Toba Inlet in British Columbia. “As soon as I saw it, I was inspired to drive under it,” she said. So she and her three-person crew (Mike was not aboard at the time) closed the boat up carefully, dogging down the portholes and skylights tight. Then the ones staying topside donned foulies. The main concern was possibly being pushed into the cliff behind the falls by a back eddy, so she approached carefully, holding the boat less than 10 feet from the rock face. She describes what happened next: “As you approach the fall, a powerful, cold wind blasts you in the face. The stupendous noise rivals a Van Halen concert (okay, I’m dating myself). The moment the bowsprit disappeared into the spray, I could feel the fall pushing Seminole sideways. I revved the engine Elizabeth and Mike. and held the helm hard over into the fall. I had to use full RPMs with the helm hard over to keep her under the fall. Water just thundered down on the boat and on us. We could not see, hear or think when we were under the crashing force of the fall until, suddenly, we were spat out the other side into the sunny fjord, yelling our heads off with joy. ‘Let’s do it again,’ everyone shouted, and so we did. Many times.” continued on outside column of next sightings page September, 2007 •
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