Boat

The race on the Schuylkill was nearing its end above the Columbia Railroad Bridge when the coxswain for the Drexel women's novice eight called out sharply, "Look at your ribbons! We're doing this!" The coxswain shouted a little more, about whom and what they were doing it for. At that point, Drexel was within range but still trailing a La Salle boat in the final of the Kerr Cup on April 20. "Everybody just let go, and we just picked it up and went," said Jordan Marinchak, in the No. 6 seat.

The Coast Guard yesterday released recordings of radio communications from the fatal Duck-boat crash in Philadelphia. The recordings were taken from the emergency channel recorded by the Coast Guard. A Duck boat with 37 people aboard became disabled in the Delaware River on July 7 and was struck by an unmanned city-owned barge being pushed by a tug. The Duck boat capsized and sank, killing two Hungarian tourists. Shortly before the crash, an unidentified man can be heard yelling for a boat to watch out. A few minutes later, the tug boat Caribbean Sea is heard telling the Coast Guard, "we are the ones that, I guess, capsized the Duck boat.

The first time Jon Wright sailed in an America's Cup yacht race - in 1974 - the entire affair lasted five months. "We had a $1.5 million budget, we built one boat and we put it in the water in May," said Wright, who lives in Rosemont and runs a boat business in West Conshohocken. "We defended the cup in September. " Wright's fifth cup race - in 1987, when the San Diego Yacht Club boat Stars & Stripes won the trophy from Royal Perth Yacht Club in a classic battle on the Indian Ocean at Fremantle, Australia - was something different.

HAS OP-ED writer Flavia Colgan ("Adrift in the Swift Boat Swamp") registered herself as a 527 yet? I looked high and low but couldn't find the same sort of column written by Flavia about the abundance of 527s that have spent the best part of $60 million and a full year waging the same sort of attacks on President Bush. Her selective amnesia about who is allowed free speech is mind-numbing. Where was she when a movie that, while striving to make salient points, has been debunked to the point where it will released and catagorized under "fiction" at Blockbuster.

Stormy weather has slowed down a Coast Guard cutter that is towing a stricken recreational boat with six men aboard back to safe harbor. David Umberger, a Coast Guard spokesman, said the cutter is not expected to arrive at Atlantic City until late this afternoon, not this morning, as originally thought. The stormy weather is the cause, he said. The 32-foot Black Magic was found adrift about 120 miles east of Atlantic City Monday evening, 24 hours after the mother of the boat's owner reported it missing.

Lyle and Cindy Crummond of Silver Spring, Md., canoe down the Brandywine River near the Route 1 overpass in Chadds Ford. They spent yesterday afternoon enjoying the great outdoors.

Gary Fox, captain of the duck boat sunk by a city barge in July - a tragedy that left two young tourists dead - thought that he, too, was going to die while trapped in the Delaware River, he said in a lawsuit filed this week in Common Pleas Court. Fox said that he was pushed under the hull of the barge and could see his passengers underwater as they struggled to swim out of the tourist boat's windows. He was running out of oxygen when he managed to swim out one of Duck Boat 34's windows after the July 7 crash, Fox said in a suit charging negligence.

The city plans to spend $500,000 this year to buy a state-of-the-art boat and accessories to scoop trash from the Delaware River, the Schuylkill and Tacony Creek. Water Department officials acknowledge that the timing is not great. The city is mired in a budget crisis, and in February, the Water Department proposed a nearly 43 percent water- and sewer-rate increase over the next three years. They insist that if more is not done to clean city waterways, the state Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency might require more drastic and costly measures.

A Delaware County motorcyclist, injured last night in a traffic accident, has died. Police said a 24-year-old man from Folsom was traveling southwest on McDade Boulevard in Glenolden around 9:43 p. m. when a truck towing a boat turned left into the intersection to enter Gardner Avenue. The motorcycle hit the boat ejecting the driver, according to police. The motorcyclist was pronounced died at Crozer-Chester Medical Center on Friday. The driver of the truck is a 54-year-old man from Darby Township, according to police.

If the Monsignor Bonner heavyweight eight rowing team doesn't fare well this season, it won't be because of the boat. Because of the trying circumstances of a Chinese national team competing in a worldwide competition in Yugoslavia last summer, the multilingual tongue of a U.S. coach and a generous Monsignor Bonner coaching staff, the Friars were able to buy a Chinese Empacagr racing shell for the forthcoming season. It started in August when Bonner crew coordinator Mike Cipollone was in Pescara, Italy, to watch a U.S. team in the World University Games.

The race on the Schuylkill was nearing its end above the Columbia Railroad Bridge when the coxswain for the Drexel women's novice eight called out sharply, "Look at your ribbons! We're doing this!" The coxswain shouted a little more, about whom and what they were doing it for. At that point, Drexel was within range but still trailing a La Salle boat in the final of the Kerr Cup on April 20. "Everybody just let go, and we just picked it up and went," said Jordan Marinchak, in the No. 6 seat.

A 72-foot-long Swedish sailboat capsized Thursday in San Francisco Bay while practicing for this summer's America's Cup races, leaving one sailor dead and another injured, authorities said. Artemis Racing said Andrew "Bart" Simpson , 36, of Britain died after the capsized boat's platform trapped him underwater for about 10 minutes. Simpson was the team's strategist and had won two Olympic gold medals. SOCCER: The job of coaching Manchester United has gone to David Moyes , 50, a former professional player who will have to step into the shoes of Alex Ferguson , 71. Man U awarded Moyes a six-year contract.

A 72-FOOT Swedish sailboat capsized yesterday while practicing for the upcoming America's Cup races in the San Francisco Bay, leaving one sailor dead and another injured, authorities said. San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said the two people were injured when the Artemis Racing catamaran capsized at about 1 p.m. near Treasure Island, a former naval station in the bay. Both were brought to shore and taken to the St. Francis Yacht Club, where paramedics performed CPR on one of the two, Talmadge said.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - A tow boat that recently sank off the southern New Jersey coast has been raised, but the man who was piloting the boat remains missing. The Press of Atlantic City reports the 49-foot-long Cape Hatteras was raised yesterday, five days after it sank off Ocean City. The vessel was discovered upside down and partially buried in sand Thursday night. The boat's captain, David McAuliffe, was making a short trip from Atlantic City to Somers Point when the vessel sank Tuesday.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A boat captain and his first mate swam through dangerous waters for nearly a day before they were rescued after a sinking that their two passengers also survived, authorities in St. Lucia said Friday. Marine Police Sgt. Finley Leonce told the Associated Press that the captain and first mate were rescued Monday by a private boat owner who was helping with the search. "They were waving their arms," he said. "They were still swimming to shore. " The two men are employees of a local company called Reel Irie, which owns the 31-foot boat that sank Sunday off the north coast of St. Lucia while on a fishing trip.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The fishing trip off the rugged north coast of St. Lucia was supposed to last all day, but about four hours into the journey, the boat's electric system crackled and popped. Dan Suski, 30, a business owner and information-technology expert from San Francisco, had been wrestling a 200-pound marlin in rough seas with help from his sister, Kate Suski, 39, an architect from Seattle. It was noon Sunday. He was still trying to reel in the fish when water rushed into the cabin and flooded the engine room, prompting the captain to radio for help as he yelled out their coordinates.

The 49-foot Cape Hatteras, a marine rescue boat that went missing Tuesday morning with one crewman aboard, was found Thursday night submerged near the Great Egg Harbor marker channel off Ocean City. The Coast Guard called off the search Wednesday night for boat captain David McAuliffe, 34, of Egg Harbor Township. But his family and colleagues from Sea Tow, a firm that aids distressed boaters in nonemergency situations, continued looking. A diver indentified the boat, which was discovered using sonar detection, in about 20 feet of water, upside down and partially buried beneath the sand in the heavily traveled channel, the Coast Guard said.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - The Coast Guard continued Wednesday to search a 30-square-mile area off the southern end of this Cape May County barrier island for a boat captain who went missing Tuesday. Investigators said the 50-degree water was being searched for David McAuliffe, 32, of Egg Harbor Township, N.J., after a distress signal was received about 10:35 Tuesday morning from the 45-foot Cape Hatteras. McAuliffe, an experienced captain, left Absecon Inlet about 7:45 a.m. and was en route to the Great Egg Harbor Inlet for an inspection of the boat, which is part of the Sea Tow fleet, a marine rescue franchise in Atlantic City.

A man has been cleared of all charges stemming from a 2008 New Jersey boat crash that killed one person and injured four. A Superior Court jury in Ocean County on Tuesday acquitted Anthony DiGilio of Brick of vehicular homicide and assault by vessel. Jurors started deliberations Monday afternoon. Prosecutors claimed that DiGilio's 27-foot speedboat ran over a 17-foot boat on the Metedeconk River, killing Robert Post, 49, of Essex Fells. DiGilio kept going and told officials later in the day that he thought he had hit a log. Testimony during the three-week-long trial often focused on whether DiGilio had turned on the light at the front of his boat.

TOMS RIVER, N.J. - Closing arguments began Friday at the trial of a man accused of a 2008 boat crash that killed a man. Anthony DiGilio of Brick is charged with vehicular homicide. Prosecutors say DiGilio's speedboat ran over a 17-foot boat on the Metedeconk River, killing Robert Post of Essex Fells.