Good Morning Gloucester

fair among the fairest, ….

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Kristine Matteo submits-

My 6 year old daughter Kiara Olson who is in Kindergarten at East Gloucester School has been chosen as a finalist for the Rotary Club of Stoneham’s “Stoneham’s Next Star.” The finals are on Tuesday, June 17^th, 2014 on the main stage of the Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main Street, Stoneham, Massachusetts.

Audience Tickets for the final performance will be $8.00 for children/students/seniors and $12.00 for adults.  Your family and friends can purchase tickets at Stoneham TV, 53 Central Street, Stoneham.  If you would like to schedule pick up of tickets contact  stonehamstar@gmail.com or by calling (781) 438-8340.  

They will be awarding  third ($200) and second place prize ($300), as well as the first place prize, “The Stoneham Star” award (which has a $1000 grand prize donated by Pizzarello & Silvestro Family Dentistry).

It will be filmed by Stoneham TV. Kiara is an excellent dancer and acrobat who is trained through Dawn’s Studio of Dance in Gloucester.

My son Brian had a nostalgic few hours yesterday when he and his wife Karen greeted and escorted the participants in the 2013-14 Clipper Round the World Yacht Race down New York Harbor to the start of the next leg of the competition which will terminate in Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland after an estimated 14 day crossing of the North Atlantic. The sailors will then go on to Dan Helder, Netherlands and back to London U.K for the finish next month.

In April and May, 2006, Brian crewed on the 68 foot New York Clipper on the leg of the race that took it from Quindao, China across the Pacific to Victoria, British Columbia; over 5,000 nautical miles and more than thirty days out of sight of land through rain, gales, sleet and sub freezing temperatures.

On Friday, Brian and Karen visited the fleet at North Cove, not far from the World Trade Center, as they laid over having completed the previous leg of the race which started in Jamaica. Yesterday, Brian and Karen fired up the trusty Honda on their 24 foot Nimble Nomad, Puffin, and steamed from its berth in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, to the Statue of Liberty where they had front row seats for the parade of visiting racing yachts as they departed New York. Puffin then escorted the racers to the Narrows  as the Brooklynites wished them fair winds.

Here are some of Brian’s photos.

Photos © Brian D Luster 2014

Brian hoses down Puffin while my grandson Yitzchak locks up (2012).