The James Robert Hanssen is going into dock for it’s refit. Finally the day has arrived where we will begin to strip down the boat to the bones, repair any damage from the last 5000 miles of rowing, and assemble the coolest, most innovative rowing/research package ANYONE has ever attempted to mount on a vessel of this type.
More will follow in the next week. If anyone is interested in the project, is local, and wants to involve themselves in this process, check out this link, or get ahold of us via the interwebs or Facepage thingy.
During the last couple weeks Jordan and I got to take out my friends Derek and Jeany for an evening cruise out on Lake Union. We rowed right up to the Salmon House, walked in the front door, and ordered dinner. We then rowed back at night with large bellies full of fish and beer…it felt like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t. If you’re ever in the Lake Union area, this is definitely a great place to go for food and drinks.
Here’s a look at those two….notice the city lights and Space Needle in the background.
Two Friday’s ago the boat came out of the water. My co-worker and friend Tom (Tango Alpha Alpha, as he is known in the flight test world) came out and gave me a hand rowing the boat from Eastlake in south Lake Union over to the boat launch on the west side. Tom went to a presentation by Roz Savage at Beneroya Hall a couple years back. I am happy I got him out to experience even just a tiny fragment of what ocean rowing is all about. Tom’s an athlete himself (he’s blazed hardened dirt paths around Boeing Field on his daily lunch time runs over the years since the 1970s), and was very quick to rowing properly and pretty adept with the oars in his hands.
Finally, I wanted to share a little incident we observed over at the Eastlake dock in early October. I’ll let the video speak for itself. Gorman, this is right next to the boat you were on this Friday. Note I have used my fourth rate, terrible video editing skills. It’s a little long, and I “bleeped” out two bad words, but it should be kid friendly.
http://youtu.be/WzBF1_5RM3I