Tag Archives: crash

A Sequence of Pain and Damage

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Motorsports are dramatic enough when things are going normally but there is also the scope for more drama if things end up going awry.  I saw a few of the riders end up on their sides as they came in to a sharp left hander with too much speed but these were normally relatively benign affairs with some bruises and scratched up panels on the bikes.  However, early in the day, I had one more dramatic event.

I was up near Turn 5 when I heard something going wrong.  I had the camera up already and the bike and rider came into the viewfinder without me really controlling things.  I did then manage to track them as they headed off into the grass separately and at some speed.  The bike cartwheeled around while the rider slid and rolled.  He did not spring back to his feet and it took a while for the marshals to get to him and to help him up.

He walked gingerly to the marshal station to await someone coming to pick him up later.  While he seemed basically intact, he certainly didn’t seem well after the incident.  I didn’t hear about his condition so I hope he was okay after a bit of time to recover.

Night Waves

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After dinner one night in Yachats, I decided to go out and see what I could make of the waves crashing on the shore at night.  A number of lights were trained on the shoreline from the local properties so it wasn’t too dark out there.  Even so, it certainly wasn’t very light.  Time to test the low light capabilities of the cameras.  The fact I was going to get slow shutter speeds didn’t bother me particularly as I was interested to see the effects that I could get showing the motion of the waves.

Light levels were indeed better than I had anticipated and I was able to get a lot of shots that came out okay.  There was a good element of luck involved too.  Waves are horribly unpredictable.  If you see something good, you can almost guarantee it won’t do it again and, even if it does, it will be ages before the next set of waves comes in and, even then, the big wave will break differently.  Also, some of the shapes they make turn out to look good in the shot and others are just indistinct messes.  Nothing to do but hang around for a long time and try and lot of different shots and see which ones work.  This randomness is a little frustrating as you feel you should be able to do something to improve but, in this case, it is a case of being there.

Farewell Vlado…

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There has been a string of losses in recent years of aviation individuals.  When you see that there is an accident and someone has died, you wonder whether it is someone you have known.  I wasn’t expecting it to be Vlado Lenoch.  Vlado always seemed to be on top of whatever he was flying.  A lot of my friends knew him a lot better than me but my time with him was always fun.  He always put on a great performance when he was displaying but, when he wasn’t flying, he was a fun guy to be with.

I remember chatting with him up at East Troy where he was undertaking the first flights post restoration of Baby Duck, the P-51 in which he was flying when he crashed.  The accident sadly claimed the life of his passenger too.  We were sitting in the hangar and he was handing around fries that he had bought from a local McDonalds.  He didn’t know me at that time but he was as friendly as someone I had known for ages.

On that day I was photographing the first two flights and he brought the P-51 down on a low pass giving me some great head on shots.  Afterwards I thanked him for missing me to which he raised his eyebrows and asked “Where you out there?”.  He always flew the plane with élan.  His takeoffs were always impressive and he was always offering a spare seat to someone he could share the fun of flying with.  Plenty who were closer to him will miss him more than me but I am very sad at his loss and that of his passenger.  Others will express thoughts about him more eloquently.  For me, it is just goodbye…

Don’t Lose Control of Your Tug Please!

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This is a bit of an old event but I thought it was worth a post.  A number of years ago we took a vacation to South Pender Island in British Columbia.  We stayed in a hotel by a little harbor called Poet’s Cove and I spent a lot of time watching the comings and goings of the boats and the floatplanes.  One afternoon, an old tug boat approached the harbor.  It was a rugged looking old beast of a boat but it looked like it had been restored for use as a private boat.  It came chugging in towards the harbor, apparently ready to moor up.

What happened next is not entirely clear to me.  Whether the person in charge didn’t really know what they were doing or whether there was a technical failure of some sort I do not know.  Whatever it was, the tug came in at a decent speed and didn’t show any signs of slowing down.  It was heading for a rather nice little cruiser that was on the end of one of the jetties and, sure enough, they plowed right into it.

The whole thing seemed to be in slow motion because, since they are boats, things don’t happen very fast but they don’t stop fast either.  The cruiser had a RIB mounted on the stern – at least it originally did – and this seemed to take a lot of the visible punishment.  However, judging by the sounds that were made on impact, I am imagining that some of the cruiser on the opposite side from me sustained damage I never saw.

Eventually, the tug crew got things slightly under control and backed out of the harbor and dropped anchor a short way offshore.  The people on the jetty seemed to be in shock (can’t say I blame them) and then a deputation motors out to the tug to “discuss” what had happened.  I watched things for a while but, once everything seemed to be under control, I retreated to the hotel to tell Nancy all about it over a beer!

Stormy Santa Cruz

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The Pacific Coast is picturesque at any time.  Add into the mix a decent swell and things start to look really cool.  We took a trip to Santa Cruz while my mum was staying and the waves were larger than we have seen on any of our previous visits.  The waves were running up to the shore and crashing against the rocks in a very dramatic way.  This wasn’t a stormy day.  There was some wind but the sun was out and it was a very pleasant temperature.  However, something out in the ocean was a bit more active and it had driven the big waves towards the shore.

Not only were the waves crashing into the rocks along the shore, they were also crashing into each other.  As one wave hit the shore, it would reflect back out to see.  There it would meet the next wave coming in.  Waves go in phases with times of small waves interspersed with times of big waves.  (An old Navy helicopter pilot friend of mine – used to landing on pitching decks – said they come in sevens.  I don’t know whether this is accurate but it seems about right.)  When a couple of big waves were together, the impact of the reflecting wave on the incoming wave was pretty dramatic with the water shooting vertically in the air.  I can stand and watch waves all day without any trouble.  Each one is slightly different and they are so full of power.  They are mesmerizing.

Farewell Alan

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This is a short but sad post.  I read the sad news of the death of Alan Purwin.  Alan was a pilot and entrepreneur who was involved in many fields but was well known for his working in filming movies from helicopters.  He was a genuinely friendly and welcoming person and had been involved in many interesting things.

Alan died in a plane crash in Columbia during the making of a film with Tom Cruise.  You may have seen the news mentioning a crash but that Tom was not involved.  Sadly Alan was, along with another two people, one of whom also died.  It is a very sad time for all involved.