LETTERS

Alan Logan mentioned the forthcoming BLUE ONEGA-96 celebrations in his "Access to Russian Waters" on page 122 of the last issue. They appear to be progressing well despite some bureaucratic obstacles:

According to Victor Dmitriev, President of the Polar Odyssey Club in Petrozavodsk, his municipality and the Autonomous Republic of Karelia are very serious about attracting foreign private vessels. They have spent a great deal of scarce money, time and effort in building a sailing centre in Petrozavodsk and are planning important celebrations this year to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the creation of the Russian fleet by Peter the Great. Central authorities in Moscow have issued a ministerial decree to permit foreign yachts to participate, hopefully with acceptable conditions and costs.

Blue Onega-96 will be held in Petrozavodsk from 29 June until 9 July. Foreign participants are to fill out questionnaires, upon which invitations will be arranged permitting issuance of visas for crew and vessels. Since it is difficult to communicate with Petrozavodsk, I enclose a copy of this form*, which I believe can be used for any entry into Russian waters, not just the festival. In addition to the crew list and information requested, the application should include a rough itinerary giving approximate dates of entry and exit and as many places to visit as possible. The information could be sent to any officially Russian entity authorized to invite foreigners, not just Karelia TAMP.

Dmitriev states that participating yachts should meet in St Petersburg and apparently Belomorsk/Kem on 8-9 June, 15-16 June and 22-23 June for passage in groups to Petrozavodsk. These dates may be changed slightly depending on the number of interested vessels ready to make the passage from the White Sea or St Petersburg. On their way to St Petersburg, vessels will be allowed to take shelter in the formerly closed islands of Gogland and Kronstadt, an important consideration in case of bad weather.

Vessels whose above-water height does not exceed 6m can pass St Petersburg without waiting for bridges to open. Apparently vessels with maximum height of 26m need not take their masts down, but have to wait for more bridge openings after St Petersburg if their above-water height exceeds 13.5m. (This may have to be double checked since I thought the maximum height under cables and road/rail bridges was about 14m). Maximum draft is 4.2m.

Navigation and permit fees, cost of fuel and, if necessary, stepping/unstepping masts appears generally reasonable. However, the central authorities have decreed that pilots are necessary for passage of small foreign vessels. The hourly fees for pilots can only be conservatively described as outrageous. The cost can be decreased by group travel since only one pilot is needed per group, but the principle is obnoxious and unnecessary. Dmitriev agrees that the fees are absurd but in a recent fax expresses some confidence that fees may be lowered. The Russian authorities do not seem to realize that, unlike their country, in the West little effort is made by central government to regiment the movement of small private vessels.

In his latest communication, Dmitriev states that local authorities also plan to organize festivals in the White Sea following Blue Onega-96 to celebrate the Russian fleet's creation; one in Belomorsk on 15 July and another in Kem on 22 July. Clubs have been established in both places to receive foreign vessels. There is also supposed to be a similar festival in Archangelsk on 28 July.

The Dutch Sailing Federation (NVvK), which succeeded in sailing from the White Sea to the Baltic in 1994, is also hoping to organize a major rally for 1996 entering from both the Baltic and the White Sea. This will occur after Blue Onega-96. The contact for this federation is: Michiel H Marien, NVvK, 7201 JE Zutphen, Berkelkade 10, Netherlands. (Tel/Fax: 31 575 5454 39). Jimmy Cornell of World Cruising in London and Heinz Colby of the TYvD sailing association in Ennigerloh, Germany, have also shown an interest.

The more vessels we can get knocking at the Russian door, the better chance the international cruising community will have to get that door slightly open legally, without subterfuge and on reasonable terms and costs. High level support is clearly important. Mayor Chekov of Volgograd has sent a supporting letter and I raised the subject with Mayor Sobchak of St Petersburg during a recent visit to New York.

Alan Logan

11 Andrews Road, Essex, CT 06426, USA

Tel: (860) 767-1913; Fax: 767-0857

Peter S Burch unwisely concludes the following letter regarding e-mail and the Internet with the sentence: `If I may be of assistance, please let me know'. OCC members happily surfing around the Internet is an intriguing thought, so write (or e-mail) Peter and I'll be fascinated to hear of developments:

While cruising the info highway of the Internet I ran across a reference from a fellow OCC member to a question on a sailing news server. The thought came to me that it would be quite nice to know whom among us have access to the Net and to be able to have an e-mail address listing.

As the Net is virtually worldwide and access becoming much more convenient, use of the Net could greatly enhance member communication. A prime example would be our around-the-world (or at very least very extended) cruisers looking for, arranging, and co-ordinating crew changes. Knowing a crew member has e-mail could save considerably on fax and telephone charges and be much more convenient between time zones.

In addition, it might be advantageous to consider setting up the cruising log/files on a server database with electronic access.

As a result of an enquiry to the respondent of the sailing news server, I've been introduced to fellow OCC member Richard Guckel of Fort Worth, Texas before our sailing season even starts.

Peter S Burch

132 Tidal Drive, Newport News, VA 23606-1953, USA

(pburch@infi.net)

John Maddox, Rear Commodore Australia, appears to have been nobbled by the `opposition' if the following is anything to go by:

Cruising women are well established on the ocean cruising scene -- the Editor and her sister and our Admiral, to mention only a few -- plus of course well known women non-members such as Jo Hunter, Naomi James and Kay Cottee, and ocean racing women are fast catching up.

In 1966 I raced to Hobart with former OCC Port Officer John Lidgard from Auckland in Taonui with Heather Lidgard as navigator. In 1994 Heather was navigator on one of the New Zealand all-women entries.

Recently, some of the top foredeck hands on good yachts have been young women (tall so they can reach the release clip at the end of the spinnaker pole), such as Chris from Amp Wild Oats and Jodie on Hogsbreath Witchdoctor (formerly Sweet Caroline). Mention should also be made of the WOW syndicate (Women on Water) and other all-female crews.

At the bar in the Eden Fisherman's Club where the crews of Henry Kendall Akubra and Witchdoctor were relaxing after crossing Bass Strait, Jodie was asked what the letters `FDU 1993' printed on her white T-shirt meant. (Your Rear Commodore Australia was navigator on Akubra's delivery from Hobart back to Sydney). Jodie explained that she had founded the Foredeckie's Union, open to all foredeck hands who wished to `join' in solidarity against the `afterguard'.

In jest she said that there were, in ascending order, the following other crew: worst were those who never went forward of the wheel (except to go below) and never let the sheets and braces go at the call to free them to set the kite (spinnaker); the next were the winchers who never went forward of the mainsheet traveller, while the most co-operative and appreciative of the efforts of the foredeckies were the mastmen (or mast persons) who at least took notice of the foredeckies when the time came to set or douse headsails or spinnakers.

Always on the lookout for new members of the FDU (to buy a T-shirt), whenever a tall crew member approached the bar, the cry went up from Jodie and her fellow FDU members `you're so tall you must be a foredeckie -- join the FDU!'.

John Maddox, Sydney

Michael Poole previously wrote to Flying Fish in 1993, requesting information from members cruising in the Pacific:

You might remember that I wrote to you a few years ago requesting information from your readers about their sightings of dolphins and whales. Well THANK YOU for publishing my letter, because my network has been quite successful. I have received over 500 reports on over twenty species of dolphins and whales which were sighted at or near over thirty islands throughout all five archipelagoes of French Polynesia. Based on the reports which I received from both boats and local inhabitants, in November 1993 I presented a scientific paper, A Sighting/Stranding Network in French Polynesia, 1988-93, at the Tenth Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Galveston, Texas. This conference was sponsored by the International Society for Marine Mammalogy. And this last year I completed my PhD (through the University of California, Santa Cruz), based on six of my seven years of research here.

I have now been a resident of Moorea for the past seven years, and my Tahitian wife, Mareva, and I are the proud parents of two very healthy boys, Temoana and Tearenui. We plan to remain in French Polynesia, and I have high aspirations for my career here. About one-third of all the world's species of dolphins and whales come into our waters during some part of their life cycle, and thus I have an unprecedented opportunity for significant research.

I would like to invite your readers to help me once again with my sighting and stranding network. Would you please publicize the fact that your readers can send me reports of their sightings? Many thanks! If anyone will be cruising anywhere through the waters of French Polynesia, and should they observe dolphins, whales, or seals, please ask them to contact me here at the Biological Station and give me a report. I suggest that all boats carry a good field guide, such as The Sierra Club Handbook of Whales and Dolphins by Leatherwood and Reeves, 1983. Reports should include, if possible, the following information: date, location (latitude and longitude, along with a verbal description), time of day, environmental conditions, number of animals (and calves), behaviour exhibited and physical appearance. The single best thing is to photograph or videotape the animals. That will allow me to identify the species, and perhaps even some of the individual animals (using marks on their dorsal fins or tails).

Reports can be mailed or faxed to me, and if your readers come here to Moorea, then we can get together personally. I'd be more than happy to show them around the Biological Station, and I can tell them of Moorea and its better anchorages, its inhabitants (human and dolphin both), its good hiking trails, and some interesting Tahitian legends.

Thanks for helping me in the past -- I'd really appreciate your assistance once again.

Mauru'uru roa,

M Michael Poole PhD

BP 698, Maharepa, Moorea, FRENCH POLYNESIA

Tel: (689) 56 16 94; Fax: (689) 56 13 74

Five years ago (Flying Fish 1991/2) Clio Smeeton described the setting up of WHALEFORCE, the Cetacean Survey run by the Cochrane Ecological Institute of which she is President. It seemed about time to remind members of how they might help:

WHALEFORCE is an international cetacean survey kindly undertaken by racing and cruising yachtsmen and women. Both blue water and coastal sailors are an essential part of WHALEFORCE, and have been since 1987. Its aim is to keep an unbiased eye on the sea, to monitor its health through tracking its most visible and vulnerable species -- whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Yachtsmen and women do not have an axe to grind, they do not stand to gain through the exploitation of these great mammals, they sail the seas only for pleasure. A sailor has one eye for the boat and one of the sea. This means that the first two essentials of the WHALEFORCE survey are assured, consistency and neutrality.

The sea is owned by no one -- that is one of the wonderful things about it. The drawback is that the sea, and the species which live in it, are protected by no one. The importance of the WHALEFORCE survey data is that it can provide the solid evidence needed to show the impact of man upon the sea. That is the only way to gain protection for the seas in an international forum.

All the information provided is maintained in a database at the Cochrane Ecological Institute. WHALEFORCE Situation and Sighting Slips can be obtained from the Cochrane Ecological Institute, PO Box 484, Cochrane, Alberta, Canada TOL OWO; or Anne Hammick, Editor of Flying Fish*. Please participate, you are needed.

* Please enclose an sae, and preferably something towards photocopying if requiring more than one form (stamps would be fine).