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Celebrating and watching the Kingston Ontario waterfront

Full News Archive

"WATERFRONT ACCESS" FINALLY appears to mean more than a future proximate footpath in a City of Kingston planning document.

This may be the first time that accessibility for shore diving is mentioned in a City of Kingston planning document.

The latest Comprehensive Planning Report to Planning Committee about the proposed Queen's Performing Arts Building at the Tett Centre says the following:

...the residents of the City of Kingston have enjoyed access to the water from this location for many decades for both passive enjoyment and active recreation, such as scuba diving. The wreck of the HMS St. Lawrence, largest War of 1812 battleship to sail the great lakes is located in 2 metres of water in front of this property and has a close post war association with the subject property.

The easement for public access along the waterfront will be included as part of the Site Plan Control process.

It's one thing to compel others, like Queen's University in this case, to build-in waterfront access. It would be nice if The City of Kingston did likewise for its own waterfront properties.

Category: Diving

GREAT FORTNIGHT for Kingston's Berg Ellmers, 12-years old, who along with Ali Tenhove finished 12th overall in the 96-boat 420-class at CORK (for youth 19-and-under) and finished 10th overall at the 76-boat Optimist Canadian Championships (for youth aged 15-and-under) which just concluded in Hamilton.

Category: Racing

DETAILS AND DIAGRAMS of the proposed Main Duck Island wind farm.

Category: The region

CORK International gets underway this week, Monday through Thursday inclusive.

This is the youth portion of CORK, the first of three major CORK events this month. The forecast for the first two days is windy.

Here's how the race areas are split along the waterfront. Click the image below for a larger annotated version.

CORK Race Areas
  • The 420 class is on Course Bravo.
  • Laser, Laser 4.7 and all Byte classes are on Course Golf.
  • Optimist and O'Pen Bic are on courses Mike and Alpha
  • The 29er North Americans, this week's premier event, is on Course Echo.
  • The Laser Radial class is on Course Charlie.
Category: Racing

OPEN HOUSE at MetalCraft Marine on Friday August 20th 2010 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. The theme is working waterfront.

If you haven't seen what goes on this part of the Inner Harbour, you really should.

Category: Working waterfront

RFP FOR RICHARDSON BEACH RENOVATIONS (7.3Mb.zip file).

If you find anything in there related to improving swimming at Richardson Beach, do tell.

Category: Beaches

BRACE YOURSELF: Waterfront accessibility appears to take significant importance in the Application for Zoning Bylaw Amendment for the Tett Centre which is on the Cily's Planning Committee agenda for tonight, August 5th.

Unfortunately there is no mention of accessibility for SCUBA diving, given that the Tett Centre property has been used for years to access one of Kingston's best shore dives.

Category: Diving

DETAILS of the 2nd stage of the Third Crossing environmental assessment which will commence shortly.

Category: City Council

The latest WATER LEVEL REPORT from the US Army Corps of Engineers is up..

Levels are much better; we're at the the long-term average, still about 5" below last year at this time.

Category: Water levels

KINGSTON IN A NUTSHELL: you mismanage maintenance at Confed, then you fail to respond to a visitor, then the visitor runs aground, then the local rag puts him on the front page, complete with photo.

Bravo!

Category: City Marinas
SERIOUS CASH CRUNCH at the Marine Museum.
Category: Marine Museum

WE HAVE A WINNER!

"Poker boats bring three to five million bucks to the city in three days."

-- Bob Ackley, muscle boat owner.

There's your stereotype, right there.

Read the whole thing.

Category: Poker run

PRO-AM BASS DERBY IN TOWN through Saturday, from CKWS-TV News.

It's the Kingston Canadian Open of Fishing, also on Facebook.

Category: Fishing
Category: Diving

COVERAGE of last Saturday's fire at Rideau Marina that destroyed their maintenance shop from The Whig, CKWS-TV News, and MetalCraft Marine.

Category: Kingston Marina

WATERFRONT TRAIL PROPOSAL from downtown to Kingston Mills on the western shore of the Cataraqui River according to CKWS-TV News last week.

Never going to happen, at least not to the extent they imply in the news item. The Great Cataraqui Marsh is inviolable.

See for yourself the relationship between the water, the Marsh, and the CN tracks.

Category: Shoreline
NINE MILE POINT LIGHT in The Whig. Apparently it's the oldest Canadian lighthouse on the Great Lakes.
Category: The region

THE POKER RUN is on the FOCUS Kingston Steering Committee Agenda for their July 15th meeting.

It's amazing that a KEDCO report that KEDCO itself says is inaccurate and statistically insignificant is nonetheless touted, again, by City Staff apparently desperate to supinate for the BIA, greenwash the event, and give all this a positive cultural and historical spin.

Still no word on requiring Poker Runs America to purchase obnoxious-offset-credits.

Category: Poker run

Shorts:

KINGSTONIST on Token Park.

METALCRAFT MARINE just splashed a 69-foot red fireboat equipped with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) defenses. It's destined for Jacksonville but you'll be seeing its sea trials here in Kingston Harbour over the next few months.

The rather windy OPTIMIST NORTH AMERICANS, which wrapped last Sunday, was swept by Americans including two brothers, Christopher and Duncan Williford, who finnished top-two in the very strong 196-boat fleet. How strong? The top Canadian was 35th.

PHOTOS from the World Robotic Sailing Championships, which went under-the-radar in Kingston this Spring.

NICE WEATHER AHEAD.
Lovely forecast for Kingston

Last time this happened was mid-May and it didn't turn out that way.

GREAT REGATTA so far at the Optimist North American Championships.

See over 3,000 photos by Geoff Webster and David Hein. Wow.

Category: Racing

THE OPTIMIST NORTH AMERICANS get underway today. Very impressive list of 195 competitors from all over the world.

They will be racing on Course Alpha in Kingston Harbour. Here's a link to the sailing instructions.

Category: Racing

SATURDAY FOR KIDS each Saturday morning at the Marine Museum throughout the summer.

Category: Marine Museum

STALE SEWAGE BYPASS LOG, three months out of date, on the Utilities Kingston website.

See also our archive of sewer bypass news items. Utilities Kingston is a disgrace when it comes to reporting and disclosure.

Category: The environment

HIGH MUCKY-MUCKS set to unveil Token Park on Monday.

Presumably there will be much collegial back-slapping amongst those who've done a great job recently ruining Kingston's waterfront.

More details on the whole Token Park waterfront accessibility and functionality downgrade.

Category: Block D

A FIFTH of all Lake Ontario Beaches are currently posted unsafe according to Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Meanwhile, here in Kingston, there is still no beach report avaiable from our lard-ass Health Unit.

Category: The region

RECENTLY IN THE WHIG: Plans at CORK, Laser sailor Robert Davis, and a letter calling for more public waterfront access.

Category: Racing
Kingston's Lard Assed Health Unit
Category: The region

SEVERAL SPOTS still available at the Kingston Yacht Club Sailing School, even the July sessions, for both kid's and adult programs. This includes some openings on their well-known racing team.

Category: Sailing schools
High wind farm mortality on Wolfe Island

WINDFARM TURBINES on Wolfe Island are "shockingly" deadly for birds, bats from Wednesday's Globe and Mail.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

SCOOP: The Brown's Bay Inn was recently sold and apparently it's going to become a yoga resort.

Category: Working waterfront

NEARLY A THOUSAND LIGHTHOUSES declared surplus by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Kingston-area lights at Nine-mile Point on Simcoe Island, Quebec Head on Wolfe Island, False Duck Island, Main Duck Island, Nicholson's Point, and Pigeon Island are all on the list..

The surplus lighthouses are those that Canadian Coast Guard officials determined "could be replaced with simpler structures whose operation and maintenance would be more cost-effective..."

Category: Working waterfront

Shorts:

TWO ENGINEERING JOBS at MetalCraft Marine

STILL no beach report from our lard-ass Health Unit.

NAVAL RE-ENACTMENT this weekend.

KINGSTON'S FIREBOAT is named the Thomas H. Patterson.

Category: Working waterfront

RON BROWN on Kingston: catastrophe on the Cataraqui.

In his view, Kingston is a prime example of how not to treat a shoreline.

Category: City of Kingston

PHOTOGRAPHER IAN CORISTINE, who has made a career photographing the Thousand Islands region from the air, was featured in the Brockville Times Recorder last week.

Category: The region

KINGSTON ROWERS perform well at last weekend's World Cup event in Bled, Slovenia.

Bled, Slovenia, is the site of next year's World Rowing Championships.

Category: Rowing

700 KIDS is reportedly the turnout to last weekend's Perch Derby at Pourtsmouth Olympic Harbour. Excellent!. This event is surely one of the greatest things about Kingston waterfront.

Cute photos in The Whig.

Category: The region
Blank Beach Report

SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK because there's no beach report avaiable from our lard-ass Health Unit.

It's only 31 degrees outside today. This has been forecast for quite some time.

There's been no signal that the KFLA Health Unit will be making-up the miles they are behind Toronto in beach report timeliness and data quality.

Category: Beaches

WATER WARNING in last Saturday's Whig, about the police state that has become our local waterways.

How bad could this get? Remember this law enforcement theatre from early July 2007. That was pretty damn bad.

Category: The region
WIND INDUSTRY threatens navigable waters in today's Whig Standard letters to the editor.
Category: Wolfe Is windmills

134-PAGE KERFUFFLE for just one item on the Planning Committee agenda for May 20th. Baxter Farm Subdivision

It's about an Official Plan Amendment, a Zoning Bylaw Amendment and Draft Plan of Subdivision for Baxter Farm Subdivision on Hwy 15.

The western edge of this proposed subdivision would approach the Cataraqui River.

What's hilarious is the degree to which our country-bumpkin' politicians, staff, and some other morons are so conveniently, or so easily, UNESCOed.

Category: City of Kingston
NO SNOWBIRDS AIRSHOW for Kingston this year.
Category: The Snowbirds

SWEET FORECAST.
Lovely forecast for Kingston

Last time this happened was last August.

Major Kingston Regattas
YearWorldsN.As
201007
200917
200816
200774
200602
200511
200401
200315

KINGSTON'S 2010 REGATTA PICTURE looks good again this year.

No world championships this year, but seven North American Championships.

Here's how 2010 shapes-up compared to previous years.

More details in our list of major regattas in Kingston.

Category: Racing

REVISED DOWNWARD for May and June. Ouch!

Category: Water levels

REMINDER that April 30th is the deadline to fill-out the City of Kingston's truly asinine Poker Run Feedback form.

$1.5 BILLION is allegedly the cost of the proposed offshore wind project, in today's Whig. It's to be centred on Pigeon Island.

The article is actually funny, especially the the parts about KEDCO. Read the whole thing.

One possible interpretation of the article: arrogant city-slickers chatting-up a hick-town newspaper reporter.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

STILL BLEAK is the spring water level forecast.

Category: Water levels

PLEASURE CRAFT OPERATOR TESTING is available at the Marine Museum in partnership with the Kingston Power and Sail Squadron.

Further information: Ann Blake, Executive Director 613 542-2261 or ablake@marmuseum.ca.

Category: Boating

GONE WITH THE WIND by Waterkeeper Mark Mattson in The Mark.

The short takeaway: lobbying by industry has become much too powerful in the decision-making "process" in Ontario.

Category: The environment

THE APRIL ISSUE of the Thousand Islands Life e-zine is online. It includes an interesting story about phone service on Wolfe Island.

Category: The region

MOORING SEASON is off to a great start according to the Preserve Our Wrecks blog.

Category: Diving

DIRECT LINK to the City of Kingston's multiple-choice Poker Run Feedback survey.

It's a shame that the environmental aspect of the Poker Run seems to have singularly hijacked the conversation. "The environment" has always been a side-issue, and everybody knows it.

The survey offers no selection akin to "the Poker Run is OBNOXIOUS" which would be close to the median viewpoint on the matter.

Category: Poker run
STAGE-1 ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT for the third crossing.
Category: City Council

UNCHARTED TERRITORY: the province is supposedly working on standards for offshore wind projects, in today's Whig.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

300 MW WIND PROJECT APPROVED offshore of Wolfe Island in today's Globe and Mail.

Er, what??

Apparently this has been approved but nobody seems to know where, or any other details for that matter. For comparison, the existing wind turbines are rated at 197.8 MW.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

POKER RUN PUBLIC MEETING to...

...gauge community views regarding the cultural and social impacts of the Poker Run at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, in Memorial Hall, City Hall, 216 Ontario St.

A funny coincidence: April 22nd is Earth Day.

Given past Downtown Kingston shenanigans, it will be interesting to see who chairs the meeting.

Certainly the meeting location, and meeting start-time, are ideal for our self-serving report-publishing Downtown Kingston friends.

Category: Poker run

COLLINS BAY MARINA reports they started launching boats last Thursday, on April 1st.

That's ten-days earlier than their previous record of April 10th, back in 2006.

Category: Marinas

GOOD ATTENDANCE -- some 6,000 visitors -- at the first 1000 Islands Boat Show, from Boating Business.

Category: Working waterfront

SAVE KINGSTON'S WATERFRONT! is a new Facebook group you can join.

Currently the group appears focused on saving Douglas Fluhrer Park from the Wellington Street Extension though, certainly, there's more to save.

Category: Parks

AN ILLUSTRATION of something that's so-wrong with our waterfront. The shoreline is a continuous physical barrier, with no breaks with access in mind.

Category: Accessibility

CATHCART REDOUBT on Cedar Island is looking very, very good after its repointing and renovation.

Category: History

ESTIMATED ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT of the 2009 Thousand Islands Poker Run is on Council's next agenda. KEDCO report cover page

The KEDCO report is based on a survey (conducted by the Downtown BIA) and phone interviews (with spokespersons for Poker Runs America and Power Boating Canada).

All strong proponents of the Poker Run.

Despite the claim of attracting 14,500 spectators, KEDCO and the BIA could gather only 91 survey responses. These are noted as follows:

It should be noted that conclusions based on 91 results is "statistically insignificant" and does not adequately reflect the overall economic impact of the event. In this case, the economic impact report is inaccurate and would not be considered as part of a post-analysis report.

So the survey results are not reliable and are of no value. However, this doesn't prevent KEDCO from extrapolating conclusions and tabling them with six- and seven-digit precision.

Does the report contain some reliable information?

Apparently not. The report doesn't tell us how many boats were in in the 2009 Poker Run.

The number of boats according to The Whig last August, was "more than 60" which is far less than the hundred or hundreds usually touted by organizers.

Wouldn't you expect KEDCO to provide, at a minimum, data that could be used, for future comparisons?. By omitting the number of boats from this economic impact report -- one of the only available objective measures of event quality and scale -- KEDCO effectively delivers a report with little future-reference value.

The report claims that the 2009 event had 304 participants, or 360 participants depending on whether you read paragraph 3, or paragraph 4, on page 7 ( page 11 of the council PDF). How "more than 60-boats" turns into KEDCO's "304 participants" or "360 participants", including spouses and children, we do not know..

In view of the non-disclosure of the number of boats, the lumping of driver's spouses and children to inflate the number of "event participants", this all appears very suspicious.

Furthermore there's no mention of any negative survey responses. Several survey questions have "good" at the low-end of multiple-choice responses but a possible response of "poor" was only related to the questions related to "music quality" and "the variety of events".

In many respects this KEDCO report, as tabled, tells us a lot about KEDCO and the BIA in the Rosen-era.

In effect, the report says "we have no reliable data" and "we don't tell you even the easiest objective metrics" but, nonetheless, "the poker-run generates MILLIONS".

Related to that, the report's cover-page is notable because of its Disclaimer and the Release of Liability Statement, which we haven't seen before from KEDCO.

Do you think this might be, partly, because of fallout from KEDCO's Economic Benefits of the LVEC report from 2005?

Category: Poker run

HIGH LEVELS OF MERCURY found in sediment of the Cataraqui River, according to a Queen's University study.

Most of the western shore of the Cataraqui River south of Belle Park and above the LaSalle Causeway Bridge had levels of contamination, with the worst area around the Cataraqui Canoe Club, just south of the former Davis Tannery.

We're talking levels more than twice the federal government's most severe effect limits.

Here's a link to the report's abstract and the report itself can be purchased for US $31.50.

Oddly our once-venerable Whig gave this a completely different spin on March 18th. Their headline was: No longer a threat

CKWS-TV News gave us an apparently more balanced protrayal of the Queen's University report.

Category: The environment

SEVEN WEEKS AFTER THE FACT the Whig finally reports on Kingston's 118 million litre sewage dump into local waterways.

Category: The environment
THIS YEAR'S BOAT SHOW is in Gananoque.
Category: Working waterfront
PRESERVE OUR WRECKS' spring newsletter is online.
Category: Diving

KINGSTON FIGURES PROMINENTLY in the latest Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Podcast (in iTunes) and also avaiable here on their website

A comparison to previous years suggests that Kingston may be on its way to one of its worst sewage pollution years yet.

Category: The environment

METALCRAFT MARINE is featured in today's Report on Business.

Category: Working waterfront

SLOW, FRUSTRATING PROGRESS on deferred maintenance at Richardson Beach, in today's Whig.

Category: Beaches

THE FORECAST for spring water levels remains bleak.

Category: Water levels

LARGELY LOST IN THE EXCITEMENT of the recent Olympic coverage was the release of the City of Kingston's Official Plan.

Not much has changed since this post from January 2009, about the draft-version of this.

Waterfront doesn't factor for much beyond cursory platitudes. That's a shame.

Category: City Council
Paul Rushton

PAUL RUSHTON, perennial CORK volunteer and good friend of the waterfront, has passed away.

The memorial reception will be held on Saturday, March 6 from 5-7 pm at James Reid on Counter Blvd.

Category: Obituary
WHIG: RESIDENTS CRITICAL of the third-crossing proposal at the public meeting last night.
Category: City of Kingston

THE MARINE MUSEUM is on Facebook. This is a good thing because, like many organizations, it has been struggling with its website.

The best improvement is the coherent events page.

Category: Marine Museum

CONCEPT PLAN for Richardson Beach and Bath House in Tuesday's Council agenda. It's a 4-page PDF.

Category: Beaches

TWO TIER ENVIRONMENTALISM, the latest Lake Ontario Waterkeeper podcast, is excellent, excellent, excellent.

Category: The environment
Crossings

NINE OPTIONS for the third crossing in the EA update to Council next Tuesday night.

But that's probably theatre.

Tentatively, a report recommending the preferred option for the third crossing will be presented to Council on April 20th along with a staff briefing.

Can anyone imagine any recommendation other than the original route between Counter (Elliott) and Gore Road?

Category: City of Kingston

COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING REPORT for the River Park Subdivision on the Cataraqui River at Counter Blvd is before Council at the February 2nd meeting.

Looking at the document, is there a waterfront park planned for the River Park Subdivision? Not seeing it.

Category: City Council

THE POKER RUN is Bill Hutchins' subject in last week's issue of Kingston EMC. (Does anyone cover the Council beat better than Bill Hutchins?)

Category: Poker run

A "SAFETY AT SEA" SEMINAR is open to all sail or power boaters on April 10, 2010 at the OISE Auditorium in Toronto.

This information-rich, one day seminar, provides the training necessary to handle emergencies away from land and is an asset for offshore or short handed crews.

Presented and endorsed by, among others, the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, US Sailing, and the Lake Ontario 300.

Category: Safety

BUD GORMELY, past chairman of CORK, is to be inducted into the Kingston District Sports Hall of Fame later this Spring.

Quoting from the story in last week's Kingston EMC:

Marsha Gormley was happy to hear that her husband Russell "Bud" Gormley had been inducted into the Hall of Fame. She just wished that he could have been there to enjoy the honour.

Indeed. This honour is probably 20-years overdue.

Bud Gormley is remembered as a pioneer of the Canadian Olympic Regatta Kingston (CORK). During the 1976 Olympic Games, Gormley was known as the unofficial mayor of the Olympic Village at the Portsmouth Olympic Harbour. He was a key organizer of many other international sailing events in Kingston. Later in his life, Gormley carried out several humanitarian missions in the Dominican Republic.

Here's more on Bud Gormley.

Have a look at this sortable list of past HOF inductees. Rowing and sailing combined account for just six of 111 inductees. Baseball accounts for 28.

Category: Racing

IT'S THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY ALREADY.

Here is the status of online marketing efforts by several prominent waterfront-related organizations for the summer of 2010.

That's pathetic, no?

For the most part, 2010 dates should be posted within two weeks of the end of the 2009 boating season.

It's long-past the point of anybody caring about your Summer 2009 calendar.

HERE'S A LINK to a 44-page pollution report you may be hearing about over the next few days in the mainstream media.

Protecting the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin and Drinking Water Sources.

It's scary what gets dumped upstream and upwind of here.

Category: The environment

THE KINGSTON ROWING CLUB let their internet domain lapse and dodgy squatters have taken it over. No link because, well, you get the picture.

Category: Rowing

K.E.A.F. SPEAKS OUT about the Poker Run on the Council agenda for next Tuesday.

That's another report that's not available online for the public.

Category: Poker run

NOTHING SAYS "KINGSTON" like the document titled City of Kingston Waterfront Strategy - Past Directions which is part of the upcoming January 7th Planning Committee meeting agenda.

Firstly, the document is borderline unreadable! When did it ever become OK to post unreadable documents for the public? This has been going-on for years.

Secondly, the online document is incomplete.

Exhibit 'A' -- 'Waterfront Strategy - Past Directions' which forms part of this report is being circulated under separate cover.

The public needn't concern itself with the specific contents of the "approximately 40 studies and reports (that) were undertaken during the past 30 years".

Thirdly, get this:

RECOMMENDATION:

That the "Waterfront Strategy - Past Directions" document be accepted as background information for the Waterfront Strategy, which will assist in the development of policies and recommendations to conserve and manage the City's waterfront.

Well, duh!

Progress on the waterfront file is here masquerading in the form of this totally obvious "report" from Cynthia Beach (Commissioner, Sustainability and Growth) that supposedly lists the details of 40 waterfront-related studies conducted over the past 30-years, suggesting that the Planning Committee should take time to accept the recommendation to consider recommendations arising from these studies when planning for the waterfront.

And so it goes.

Ever wonder how Kingston ended-up with a wasted waterfront? One reason is we have a Planning Committee that doesn't expect very much from City staff.

This endless visionless wheel-spinning helps ensure that money for the Downtown will indeed be amply available whenever needed. So, over time, we all end-up with, among other things, our fat-cat downtown and a shamefully wasted derelict waterfront.

Skeptical about that? Flashback to January 19th 2009. Read the whole thing.

Category: City of Kingston
BREAKING ICE in Kingston Marina last week so MetalCraft Marine could conduct late-season vessel sea-trials in open water.
Category: Marinas
UNDERWATER ADVENTURE IN KINGSTON is a short and very cool promotional video about wreck diving in Kingston. Produced by Travel Canada.
Category: Diving
THE DECEMBER 2009 Thousand Islands Life is now available.
Category: The region
DOCK UPGRADES AT CONFED are expected by springtime.
Category: Marinas
Bob Clark of MetalCraft Marine interview

INTERESTING INTERVIEW with MetalCraft Marine Contracts Manager Bob Clark from the tradeshow floor of the 2009 International WorkBoat Convention in New Orleans, LA.

In the interview Bob talks about the history of MetalCraft Marine, and the boats they design and build. Most people in Kingston don't realize the degree to which MetalCraft Marine is a player in the high-end fireboat and patrol boat markets.

HATTERS BAY PARK is still in jeopardy according to the Portmouth Villagers Association.

You may recall that the Coast Guard wants to shift their base from the west-side to the east-side of POH, clobbering the park, or access to the park, in the process.

Read more on the issue.

Category: Parks

SAILBOAT RIDE IN KINGSTON for the Olympic Torch relay on December 15th.

The torchbearer is Olympian and CORK chairman Tim Irwin.

Category: The region

SURPRISE, SURPRISE: more units, less parking requested by the Elevator Bay project proponents.

Here's a roundup of Elevator Bay-related news.

Category: City Council

THE BREAKWATER PARK RENAMING PROPOSAL is dead according to a City Staff report.

Category: Parks
West Streen Launch Ramp Renovations 2009

A NICE UPGRADE to the West Street Launch Ramp is presently underway.

Click here to see what it looked-like before.

Category: Shoreline

THE COMPANIONWAY is the quarterly newsletter of the Kingston Squadron of the Canadian Power and Sail Squadron. The latest issue is online now.

Here's some of what's interesting in this issue:

  • The Power Squadron offers a complete range of courses over the winter. There are no downsides to boating-related accreditation, it's all-good. A boating course makes a fine Christmas gift, and it's a nice shared activity.
  • You may be surprised to see the number of boating and waterfront-related advertisers in the newsletter. Times may be tough but, around these parts, local businesses are continuing to step-up in support of the Power Squadron.
  • Part-two of an interesting article about power boat planing hulls by E.B.(Red) Bowes. The first part of the article is here in the August issue.
Category: Boating
The shoreline at Token Park

HERE YOU ARE LOOKING southwest from a vantage upstairs at the Radisson Hotel. Click here for a much larger version of this photo.

What you see in the middle-distance is the tumble-stone breakwall of Confederation Basin. In the right-foreground is part of the 250 meters of new tumble-stone shoreline around Block-D's Token Park.

In the past this 250m of Block-D perimeter was a corrugated metal seawall where boats could tie-up. It was a pretty good place for boat-passenger dropoffs and pickups when the marina's docks were packed in the summertime. It was a fine venue for model-boat racing. It has been said that many late-summer-night skinny-dips took place there in the hours between closing-time and dawn.

This was, in short, usable shoreline which is in very short supply around here. But that was then.

Let history show that, in the Harvey Rosen era, the City of Kingston transformed this once-usable protected shoreline into severe inaccessible shoreline. Which begs the question: why? All this is on calm waters that are amply protected by the massive Confederation Basin breakwall.

This is another waterfront loss in Kingston, one of many that have recently occurred because of the raving lunatics who lead and manage this unfortunate city.

Thanks to Joanna Bull for the photo.

Category: Block D

STICKING-IT to the M.O.E. in the latest Lake Ontario Waterkeeper podcast.

It's about the Lafarge case in Bath, Ontario coming to an end. It's a most excellent 26-minute listen.

Category: The environment

THE BROWN'S BAY INN IS FOR SALE.

It's a gem on Wolfe Island, just 4-miles south-east of Confederation Basin by-boat, just east of the winter ferry dock.

Category: Working waterfront

THIS is scandalous. Get a load of this:

At the next Council meeting, senior city managers Cynthia Beach and Lanie Hurdle (remember the wonderful, wonderful LVEC project?) want to add $200,000 to the budget for Token Park to cover some glaring planning oversights. Like lighting, and accessibility.

To finance this, these people want to filch $55,000 from the city's waterfront improvement account, $55,000 from the cycling and pathway account, and $90,000 remaining in the City Park splash-pad account.

Because, you know, we're up-to-our-eyeballs in recreational infrastructure here in Kingston.

Category: Block D

THE NOVEMBER ISSUE of the Thousand Islands Life e-zine is out.

Of particular local interest: Wolfe Island's Lighthouses.

Category: The region

The St-Lawrence II is apparently due for NEW LIFE RAFTS. They're reaching-out for funding, in this case via the Aviva Community Fund.

The Brigantine always happily accepts donations.

Category: The Brigantine

TWO WATERFRONT ITEMS on Tuesday's Council agenda.

  • The city wants to renew a 5-year lease with The Crown for POH land and land underwater. The rental rate is ''20% of the marina's annual gross revenue'', or a payment of $75,848 in 2008.
  • Kingston & the lslands Boat Lines Ltd. will keep the Island Queen, Island Belle, and Island Star at POH this winter on account of the Lasalle Causeway lift-bridge being out-of-commission for repairs for the next several months.

It looks like a sweetheart deal for KBL. The city is applying the same linear-footage charge they use for non-commerical pleasure boats one-tenth the length of these vessels.

Winter storage fees ought to be a function of area occupied, not just nominal length.

KBL will be storing its three large wedding-cake vessels for about five-months, through April 30th, for the grand-total of, get this, $4,784 plus hydro for the bubblers.

The normal folks paying over $600 in POH winter storage fees for their relatively tiny 30x10-foot sailboats can read that again.

When it comes to selling waterfront short, when is the City of Kingston not a pushover?

PRESERVE OUR WRECKS, KINGSTON was featured on the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet last week.

Category: Diving

INADEQUACY of Wind Turbine Noise Regulations and their Application is an interesting paper recently presented by Queen's University Physics professor John P Harrison to the Annual Conference of the Canadian Acoustics Association.

It's an interesting technical read.

As you go through it, keep in mind that the Wolfe Island Wind Farm's minimum setback is only 400m.

The Ontario Government, in its recent Green Energy Act has proposed a minimum 550-metre setback from residences for wind projects involving five or fewer turbines, with greater setbacks -- up to 1,000 metres -- for projects of more than eight turbines.

Wolfe Island has 86 turbines.

Wolfe Island falls ridiculously short of the Ontario government's own proposed health and safety guidelines for wind industry development.

History already shows that Wolfe Island was a development pushover. Island leaders have a lot to answer for. And who was the Provincial Minister responsible for this? That would be Kingston's own John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment.

We've been pwned by our own.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills
Charity Shoal

FISHING FOR ANSWERS OFF KINGSTON'S SHORES in today's Whig, about an ongoing geophysical survey of Charity Shoal, thought to be a meteor impact crater.

One-mile diameter Charity Shoal is 11-miles due South of Portsmouth Olympic Harbour. Most of the crater is in Canadian waters.

Category: Lake Ontario

THE FINAL CONCEPT PLAN for Lake Ontario Park has been posted in the City's Arts, Recreation & Community Policies Committee agenda for its October 22 meeting.

Category: Parks

MARINE MUSEUM DRYDOCK finally gets between $2M and $5M for drydock repairs. Work may start before year-end, according to The Whig.

Category: Marine Museum

The OCTOBER EDITION of the Thousand Islands Life e-zine is out.

Local interest articles include Howe Island Vines on local grape-growing, A Muskie Jake Tribute about Clarence (Muskie Jake) Huntley who passed away last year, and a Brian Johnson article titled Silent Rapids of Long Sault.

Also interesting is Pauls Legacy, Judys Gift, TI Gold about what's become of the late Paul Malo's extensive archives.

Category: The region

THE EARLY FORECAST for next spring indicates lower-than-average levels for Lake Ontario.

Bear in mind this is the fourth year in a row that early forecasts predict low-water and it hasn't turned-out that way come springtime.

Category: Water levels

HOW TO RUN A RAILROAD, Kingston-style.

You require people to register 3-weeks in advance (deadline Nov. 7th) for Saturday Nov 28th information sessions about the so-called third-crossing of the Cataraqui River.

Category: City of Kingston

THREE NOTABLE ITEMS on City Council's agenda for the meeting of October 6 2009.

  1. Read the Recreation & Leisure Services Department 2009-2010 Priorities and observe the degree to which waterfront just isn't on the radar. What's waterfront-related is either stalled, or token.

    Waterfront items include:

    • "Design of the Breakwater beach area (2010)". The Mass Swim, the culmination of public disgust over how our waterfront is marginalized, was held July 22nd 2008.
    • "Window repairs at the Richardson Beach Bath house (2010)". That's routine deferred maintenance, long overdue, masquerading as a listable project serving the illusion of serving the waterfront.
    • "Final approval to the Lake Ontario Park Plan (November 2009)", the proximity of which signals that public outcry (also here) over the way overblown concept plan will be mostly ignored.
    • "Marinas Business Plan (February 2010)" which promises to be an eyeball-roller given all the evident shenanigans (and here) leading to that.
    • "Waterfront Plan (2010)", whatever that is. This is bundled with, and listed after items like "New outdoor rinks construction policy (2010)", "healthy food options (2010)", "Community gardens policy (November 200)", and "Sustainable food strategy (2010)". That's your Harvey-Rosen-era Kingston waterfront, right there.
  2. The City gets, gratis, a narrow-strip of adjacent land to allow widening the waterfront pathway between the West Street launch ramp and Simcoe Street. That's courtesy of Holmstead Land Holdings which, rest assured, will get-that-back in spades later.
  3. The 2006 agreement with the Kingston Brewing Company to operate 6 Clarence Street as a service centre for Confederation Basin Marina boaters is renewed and sweetened through 2012.
Category: City Council

METALCRAFT reports that the FireStorm-69 fireboat they've been building for Tampa Fire Rescue has arrived.

Evidently it was an impressive sight under the Sunshine Skyway bridge.

Prior to arrival, the delivery crew spent an unscheduled night on a shallow sandbar off St-Augustine, FL.

See the MetalCraft news item for a photo and a link to a very good YouTube video of the haul-off spectacle during the following morning's rising-tide.

Category: Working waterfront

KYC PHOTOS now being shared on Flickr.

Category: Photography

THE LIMITS OF SOFT CULTURAL POWER, from the September 10th edition of The Economist, about UNESCO and World Heritage Sites, which today number nearly 900.

Guarding precious and vulnerable places is one of the better things the UN's cultural agency does -- but it may topple over if it stretches too far

The article comments are interesting too. The ones pointing-out tourist-trappism certainly ring-true here.

Category: Tourism

PAUL DAVIS of Kingston, sailing with Bill and Joanne Abbott of Sarnia, won the Soling Worlds in Toronto.

It's the second Soling World Championship for a pair from the Abbott family and Paul Davis, the prior one being in 2002.

Category: Racing

AN UNBELIEVABLY STUPID IDEA, renaming Breakwater Park after a 1758 transient who couldn't possibly lose, gets moved forward.

To be crystal clear:

Between Bradstreet's departure in 1758 and the arrival of the first surveyors in 1783, there was no European settlement at Cataraqui. The French fort and outer buildings lay in ruins and the area was of little interest until the closing of the American War of Independence.

There is no truth to the popular claim that Bradstreet helped lay the foundation of Kingston. This is not to diminish the significance of his raid or his role during the Seven Years' War, but it took another conflict and the emergence of a new military and refugee problem for the British to gave Cataraqui a new lease on life, leading to the founding of "Kingstown."

The Kingston Historical Society, unable to prevent the perpetual renanaming of Market Square after modern-day narcissists, grasps at straws for relevance.

Category: Parks

MIXED REACTION at last night's Lake Ontario Park public meeting, from The Whig.

Category: Parks

THE SEPTEMBER THOUSAND ISLANDS LIFE is up.

It includes an article about the iconic Willow Island.

Category: The region

THE LAKE ONTARIO PARK RAILROAD rolls-on at a September 16th public meeting.

By now the recurring pattern is plainly evident:

  1. Defer maintenance of a municipal asset for decades.
  2. Spend megabucks on an one-time, ostentatious remediation plan.
  3. Repeat.

Previously: Paving paradise, to put up a 'fake' park from July, and How to run a railroad from last March.

Category: Parks

SAM LAZIER, a truly great friend of our waterfront, passed away earlier this week. He was 83 years old.

Funeral today at 2 PM at at St. George's Cathedral. Donations for those wishing may be made to the Kingston Marine Museum.

Category: Obituary

THE GREAT CANADIAN SHORELINE CLEANUP goes-down on Saturday September 19th at 9:00 am.

Kingston's official shoreline cleanup locations include

  • Breakwater Park and MacDonald Memorial Park
  • Doug Fluhrer Park, on the Cataraqui River
  • Marine Museum of the Great Lakes Shoreline and Dry Dock.

The official website appears very officious, with allusions that signing-up is required.

Don't be put-off by that. It's probably because they need to plan for the number of t-shirts, clipboards for the always-interesting tallies, garbage-bags, pick-up logistics, and whatnot.

Just show-up. If they don't have a TD-Bank-branded t-shirt for you, that's tough. It's well-worth doing. The area around the Marine Museum in particular needs some TLC.

Or, you could just grab a couple of green garbage bags and some gloves, don your boots, and head-down to your favorite stretch and make it a little better. Any day.

See photos from past cleanups. It looks like fun. The people you'll meet are all givers.

Category: The region

DROWNING IN SIMPLE-MINDEDNESS, great article by Andrew Coyne in MacLeans' Magazine in August.

Category: Safety

IDIOTIC BEACH REPORT from the KFLA Public Health Unit. Idiotic beach report

Go ahead, read it.

Who writes this crap? Who is it written-for? Er, which beaches are open, or closed, or what? This is bullshit.

Hey, KFLA Public Health unit, give us obvious in-context links to the complete list of beaches in the KFLA area posted as unsafe for swimmers.

Just like that.

Not long confusing link-free paragraphs then, far from there, a link that doesn't-look-like-a-link, out-of-context, which few people will scroll-to and find, and fewer will click. Can you find it? Look again.

Seriously, how hard could that be? This is so basic.

This isn't news. For too long the KFLA Public Health Unit has been an embarassment to our waterfront.

Dr Ian Gemill, enough self-serving verbiage about beaches. Do us a favour: either clean-house or retire.

Category: Beaches
Lovely forecast for Kingston

Just as summer holidays are over.

LIST OF MAJOR REGATTAS IN KINGSTON has just been updated with CORK results from the past week.

This year is notable because it's apparently the first time sailors from Asia have won major regattas here.

Terence Choo from Singapore won the Byte CII Canadians and, just this week Darren Choy, also from Singapore, won the Byte CII Worlds. Actually, Singapore dominated both events, placing four sailors in the top-5 in both events.

Category: Racing

IAN BRUCE featured in The Whig yesterday.

Category: Racing

GEOFF WEBSTER HAS NOW POSTED 801 CORK PHOTOS, and he's evidently not done. We're barely passed the halfway point.

See photos from the Hobie-16 North Americans (57 shots) in July, and more recently CORK INT (256 shots) and CORK OCR (488 shots and counting), all on Smugmug.com.

Web 2.0, meet CORK.

Category: Racing

AIRHEADS MANAGING OUR WATERFRONT in today's Whig.

At Lemoine Point, an orange lifesaving ring and rope hang from a steel post below a sign.

The sign warns that swimming is unsupervised and cautions that "strong winds and high waves cause dangerous conditions."

The sign and ring, however, are located roughly 100 metres from the waterfront, next to the gravel access road at the north end of the conservation area.

Category: City of Kingston
Bill Steenbakkers founds Collins bay Marina

BILL STEENBAKKERS, a Kingston waterfront pioneer who passed-away earlier this month, was the subject of a 1972 Kingston Whig-Standard article about the founding of Collins Bay Marina.

Reading the article, evidently Bill Steenbakkers' original vision for the marina remains intact nearly forty years later.

The suceess of Collins Bay Marina was never assured -- it's interesting that there were already two other marinas on the Bay when Collins Bay Marina was built.

Category: History

CORK 2009 PHOTOS are being posted by Geoff Webster. What's great is these can be zoomed to various sizes and the quality of the photos, regardless of size, is amazing.

Day-1 photos are all from the Byte C-II Canadian Championships.

Also, CORK IS STILL LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS. There are many different volunteer jobs available for sailors and non-sailors alike. Get out and have some fun! Contact the CORK office for more information: 613.545.1322 / sail@cork.org / www.cork.org.

Category: Racing
Major Kingston Regattas
YearWorldsN.As
200917
200816
200774
200602
200511
200401
200315
200211
200131
200005
199926
199801
199711

CORK 2009 gets underway in earnest today.

There's been zero-fuss about this, but this year is CORK's 40th anniversary.

The first four days are all about youth development classes. There's one Canadian Championship at stake, in the Byte CII class.

But starting Sunday August 23rd, the focus shifts to older sailors, with one World Championship, four North American Championships, and one Canadian Championship at stake.

Here's how the whole summer shakes-out compared to past years'. Kinston's never hosted so many North American Championships before.

Category: Racing
POC testing at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes

PLEASURE CRAFT OPERATOR CARD TESTING, a government scam if ever there was, is available at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes on Thursdays.

You have four weeks left to get yours. The deadline is September 15, 2009.

Email Ian Hood, the museum's congenial test proctor, to book yourself in.

Category: Boating
Great forecast!

The last time this happened was in February and, back then, these Environment Canada forecasts looked-ahead only 5-days.

BILL STEENBAKKERS, patriarch of Collins Bay Marina which he founded in 1971, passed away on Sunday. He was 82 years old.

Category: Obituary

CALLING ALL MARINE MUSEUM AND ALEXANDER HENRY FRIENDS - Plan to join us for a taste of 'Icebreaker Ale' on Monday, 17 August 2009, beginning at 6 pm, upstairs at the Kingston Brew Pub, 34 Clarence Street.

The Kingston Brewing Company has very generously agreed to brew a celebratory libation for the Alexander Henry's 50th, and it will be unveiled/untapped, or whatever one does to launch a beer, on the 17th. Fifty cents from the purchase of each glass of Icebreaker Ale will be donated to the Marine Museum.

Category: Marine Museum
Category: Poker run

INSTRUCTIONS FOR POKER RUNS AMERICA BOATS makes for interesting reading.

You have to call it for what this truly is: a gig monopolized into four downtown hotels -- Radisson, Holiday Inn, Confederation Place Hotel and Four Points Sheraton -- all of these are owned by the usual suspects.

Most meals and the entertainment package appear to be monopolized into those four hotels as well.

Read the whole thing.

Category: Poker run

LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVELS are currently above average, almost exactly where they were last year at this time.

The good news is the big-lakes upstream are replenishing. You may recall that upper-lake levels were bleak back in 2007. Lake Superior was about 18" below average in August 2007 and Lakes Michigan and Lake Huron were about 23" below average in December 2007.

Lake Superior has been, for most of the summer, above last-year's levels, generally about 5 to 7" below its long-term average levels. Lakes Michigan and Huron are a full 5 to 10" above last summer's levels, and currently within 6" of long-term averages.

Lake Ontario Levels

More history in the K7 Water Levels topic.

Category: Water levels
2009 Cassidys Bay Regatta

229 PHOTOS from last weekend's Cassidys Bay International-14 Regatta.

Did you know... volunteering to help run sailing regattas is a great way to get yourself on-water, or involved shore-side, and it's a ton of fun too.

Category: Racing

TOKEN PARK DETAILS have been published.

Note the tumble-rock perimiter. No connection to water whatsoever. Why???

All this sits behind the massive Confederation Basin tumble-rock breakwall already! A breakwall behind a breakwall; Brilliant!

The effing idiots who have screwed-up our waterfront for decades haven't learned a damn thing.

Read more on Token Park.

Category: Block D

GEOFF WEBSTER, longtime local sailing photographer, has just placed 23 photos from the 2009 Soling Bath Bowl and 57 photos from the Hobie-16 youth NA's online.

Category: Racing

RESULTS from the 2009 Shark Canadian championships, hosted by KYC, are posted.

Also the K7 List Of Major Regattas In Kingston has been updated.

Category: Racing
2009 Hobie 16 North Americans in Kingston

PHOTOS from the 2009 29er Canadian Championships and the 2009 Hobie-16 North Americans have been posted to Flickr.

Here are the 29er Canadian Championship results. Danielle Boyd of Kingston, sailing with Emily Hill, finished third, ending the 10-race regatta with three bullets. Ellie Clark and Rachael Boyd of Kingston finished 8th in the 26-boat fleet.

Category: Racing

THE HOBIE-16 NA'S ARE DONE and Enrique Figueroa with crew Victor Aponte of Puerto Rico won-it convincingly.

Up next: the 29er Canadian Championships hosted by KYC on Saturday and Sunday.

Category: Racing

HOW MANY COLOURFUL CATS do you think are required to make some people realize that there's a championship competition going on, and so it might be sensible to stay clear?

Below, some wanker in a large cruising sailboat, crossing, blanketing, and eventually splitting a 54-boat Hobie 16 North American Championship fleet a few moments after the start of race 2.

Other than that, the championship is going-off pretty well. Some more wind would be nice. Today (Monday) was saved by the usual Kingston Harbour sea breeze.

Photo: Christina Black
Category: Racing

VERY TIGHT 3-WAY TIE after day-1 at the Hobie 16 Women's North American Championship, and similarly there's a two-way tie at the top of the Youth division.

Category: Racing

EIGHT DAYS OF HOT CATS IN THE HARBOUR starting Friday as the 39th Hobie 16 North American Championship takes-over.

The event is hosted by CORK and sailed out of the Portsmouth Olympic Harbor.

The event starts with three days of racing for the Youth and Women's Championship followed by five days of racing for the Open Championship.

Competitors from six countries and eleven US states will take part in the event. The entry list includes five former Olympians and four past Hobie 16 North American Champions. The defending champions from Puerto Rico, Francisco Figueroa and Jolliam Berrios, will be defending their title.

Category: Racing

FILM REVIEW of Waterlife, a documentary by Kevin McMahon. Grim.

Category: The environment

EXCELLENT PHOTOSET (Kiteboarding).

Category: Kiteboarding

COMMENT ONLINE on the city website about the proposed renaming of Breakwater Park in honor of Lt.-Col John Bradstreet.

Renaming the park after John Bradstreet is a stupid idea. Here's why:

  • Bradstreet's troop-strength ratio was about 25-to-1, a significant fact the city never mentions in its 'comment-online' background information.
  • Bradstreet's troops quickly took Fort Frontenac, trashed it, then they departed.
  • Bradstreet never spent a single eighteenth-century winter here.
  • There's no evidence John Bradstreet ever built a damn thing here.

Any questions? See the Battle of Fort Frontenac and John Bradstreet's 2-paragraph article in Wikipedia.

Category: Parks

THE 8-PAGE SUMMER 2009 NEWSLETTER from Preserve Our Wrecks Kingston is now available.

Category: Diving

PAVING PARADISE, TO PUT UP A FAKE PARK is an interesting letter in the recent Kingston This Week about the proposed extensive Lake Ontario Park re-vamp.

Category: City of Kingston

ELEVATOR BAY DEVELOPMENT STUCK IN LIMBO in today's Whig.

A cursory check of City Planning Committee agendas shows the project has been in abeyance for quite some time. In other words, documents have not been filed.

Here are some photos of that proposed (er, stalled) development.

Category: City Council

OFFICER OF THE ORDER OF CANADA announced today for Ian Bruce of Dorval, QC.

For his contributions to the sport of sailing in Canada and abroad, notably for the design and development of high-performance crafts for young sailors.

OC is the 2nd highest rank. That's the same level among sportsmen as the likes of Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Steve Podborski, and Alex Bauman so this is a very big deal.

Update: Nice summary of Ian Bruce's career courtesy of the Montreal Sailing blog.

Category: Awards

FOUR DEAD AT KINGSTON MILLS in a car discovered in a lock Tuesday morning that was finally hoisted-out on Tuesday evening. More at CKWS-TV and The Whig also here and here.

As of 9:15 AM today there has still been no boat traffic through Kingston Mills locks since yesterday morning.

Category: Tragedy

DAVID TYNER, a talented photographer who has contributed fifteen K7Waterfront homepage photos over the past two years, has moved to Ottawa.

David is a wizard of night photography (among other things) and he will be missed!

Thanks David!

Thanks, David!

Above: photo of, and by, David Tyner.

Category: Photography

UNGENTLEMANLY CONDUCT via Preserve Our Wrecks, Kingston.

Category: Diving

KINGSTON'S ROBERT DAVIS FINISHED 12TH at the Laser North American Championships over the weekend.

(The results page is a mess and you may need to scroll to the table that lists all 10 races scored.)

Category: Racing

Does anybody know what this US Coast Guard vessel, and a barge, are doing at KPH?

One guess: it's the only available wharf in-town?

US Coast Guard vessel docked at KPH, June 2009

7-day Forecast

Hopefully this is just Environment Canada, low-balling the forecast, as they tend to.

Category: The region

THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL today filmed a segment about the archeological work going-on in Kingston harbour.

Category: Diving

DIVING INTO THE PAST in today's Whig, about the archeological work going-on in Kingston harbour.

See also CKWS-TV'S JUNE 4th REPORT, with video.

Category: Diving

THE FINAL CONCEPT PLAN FOR LAKE ONTARIO PARK has been released by the City.

More here.

Category: Parks
Shoreline restauration

YEARS OF DEFERRED MAINTENANCE has come to the point of requiring a public meeting about a small stretch of Kingston Waterfront.

The designs, to be implemented this summer, are the subject of an upcoming public information session on Monday, June 22, at 6:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall at City Hall, 216 Ontario St., and are now posted for review at www.cityofkingston.ca/waterfront/.

The improvements are moving forward based on the City's Waterfront Strategy now part of Kingston's Recommended Draft Official Plan (cityofkingston.ca/officialplan/).

We can't find any reference to this area of waterfront in Kingston's Recommended Draft Official Plan.

Here are some photos of the area taken from the water.

It looks like this has turned-into a major piece of work that can't be deferred any longer and will involve the closure of the West Street Launch Ramp for a period of time this summer.

Here's the deal: Instead of decades of neglect, how about regular required and preventive maintenance? Instead of doing nearly nothing for decades, why not fix problems as they occur? Each spring, improve things a little bit. After a major storm, go down and check if anything washed-away. If so, fix it immediately.

Deferred maintenance on the Kingston Ontarion shoreline Deferred maintenance on the Kingston Ontarion shoreline

Above: this is what gabion walls eventually look like when you don't maintain them.

As things appear now, with respect to the waterfront, Kingston's official plan isn't about better waterfront living or even clawing back what we've recently lost. The official plan is apparently more about doing obvious repairs, merely fixing things that should never have been permitted to remain broken in the first place.

Category: Shoreline

WATERFRONT ACCESSIBILITY DOWNGRADE according to a moronic report to Council last Tuesday night.

Get this:

Other City owned locations used by the public for swimming but not designated for swimming includes [sic]: Esplanade Park, Everitt Park, Patterson Park and Confederation Park..... In non-designated swimming areas the signs will indicate that swimming is not permitted. Both designated and non-designated swimming areas will restrict certain activities, such as diving, due the potential. [sic]

Swimming flat-out prohibited at Esplanade Park, Everitt Park, and Patterson Park. Can you imagine?

City Hall in the Harvey Rosen era is led by idiots!

Category: Beaches

THE JUNE 2009 THOUSAND ISLANDS LIFE is up.

Check out the terrific article titled The Wolfe Islander Is Missing, by current ferry captain Brian Johnson, about a gale in January 1950. Read the whole thing.

Category: The region

DOWNTOWN POKER RUN PLUG-UP planned between Friday Aug 7th at noon to Sunday Aug 9 at 6 PM.

Expect our spineless, gutless council to approve this.

Here's a summary of Poker Run-related news items here on K7 going back to 2006.

Category: Poker run
KFLA Beach Report

THERE'S APPARENTLY NO IMPROVEMENT since last July to the so-called "Beach Report" we're getting from the Health Unit.

What's worse, it's nearly mid-June and the City of Kingston is still not listing beach quality information, or links to beach quality information, on its Environment or Recreation landing pages.

The main problem with our Health Unit's Beach Report remains the lack of disclosure which is in stark contrast with the quality of beach information other areas are getting.

Here's the data we need to see:

  • The exact date the sample was collected.
  • The specific level of E.coli found, as they do in Hastings & Prince Edward Counties and Toronto.
  • How, exactly, was the sample collected? Was it from a boat perhaps hundreds of feet off-the-beach, or within a few yards of the waterline where children actually swim?
  • The sampling history for each location so the propensity and volatility of E.coli contamination can be reckoned.

Because just "Open" or "Closed" isn't nearly good enough.

Category: Beaches

CKWS-TV'S JUNE 4th REPORT about the Kingston Harbour wreck that made news last summer. (Via Preserve Our Wrecks Kingston.)

Category: Diving

MARINA WORLD has a really (really) great feature on Kingston's Collins Bay Marina in it's latest issue.

Wow.

Check-out either just the article or the impressive full-issue (8 MB) online.

Category: Marinas
Snowbirds safety exclusion zone

THE SNOWBIRDS PATROLLED SAFETY ZONE in Kingston Harbour is unchanged this year.

This year's 45-minute show goes-off on Wednesday May 27th at exactly 6 p.m.

Here's the Snowbirds' website

Category: The Snowbirds

ON ICE: ALEXANDER HENRY AT FIFTY is a new Marine Museum exhibit which opens tomorrow, Sunday May 24th, at 2 pm.

Guest speaker Captain Patrick Toomey, one of Canada's top marine ice experts, will speak about the Alexander Henry, the Canadian Coast Guard and the challenges of navigating in ice.

Category: Marine Museum

FINALLY the Whig publishes something about the pain surrounding the Belle Harbour / Morch Marine receivership in Belleville.

If the article is to be believed, apparently BDO Dunwoody has a harbour's worth of boat owners pissed-off at them, and now you know all about it too.

Category: Boating

AFTER A FEW DAYS AWAY sailing on Lake Erie including a transit through a sadly delapidated and disfunctional Welland Canal, some catching-up:

  • Morch Marine in Belleville, in its more-recent incarnation as a condo development corporation, is belly-up. The latest: at least boat owners were able to finally launch and get out-of-there.

  • Kingston's stalled beach dossier from The Whig on Wednesday. Some great comments from readers too.

  • Funding for the Tett Centre appears to be coming together.

    Looking at the concept drawing of a water-side perspective, there's apparently zero direct water-accessibility in the plans. One of Kingston's best shore-dives lies just off the property.

Category: Roundup
Wikipedia logo

LEMOINE POINT CONSERVATION AREA now has a Wikipedia page, thanks to the initiative of a user named SoftwareSimian, who created the page yesterday. This is great!

Whenever you Google something, have you noticed that Wikipedia always ranks very high in the list of returned results?

Wikipedia is highly authoritative in the eyes of Google. This means that if a Google search returns a million results, Wikipedia's entry is typically in the top-10, sometimes top-5.

Kingston's Waterfront continues to have a Wikipedia deficit. That needs to change.

If you care about something, document it. That, in and of itself, makes it harder for the clueless among us to mess with it.

Some existing Kingston waterfront-related Wikipedia articles that need work:

These articles exist already, but are sparse, mere shades of what they could be.

Some potential Kingston waterfront-related Wikipedia articles that don't exist yet:

There are currently no Wikipedia articles about any of the following:

  • Big Sandy Bay
  • Cedar Island.
  • Kingston Mills.
  • Kingston Harbour, as opposed to this other Kingston Harbour.
  • Kingston Rowing Club, as opposed to this other Kingston Rowing Club.
  • Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.
  • Melville Shoal, despite its considerable local lore.
  • Nine Mile Point Lighthouse.
  • Snake Island, the Brother Islands (Eastern_Lake_Ontario), and other cormorant-ravaged landscapes.
  • ... and surely others.
Category: The region

THE SITE PLAN FOR TOKEN PARK goes before the City Planning Committee on Thursday night.

Highlights:

  • No shoreline access. It's tumble-rock shoreline. Like we don't have enough of that.
  • No jetty access. The Confedration Basin breakwall remains a birds-only place.
  • A spot reserved for a marina building which makes no sense at all.

Related: Token Park news archive.

Category: Block D
Category: The region
Richardson Beach

A RICHARDSON BEACH UPDATE is on the Council agenda for next Tuesday. 12-pages in all.

The words "windsurf" and "sail", and any reference to current users of the beach, appear exactly zero-times.

So the railroad is running perfectly. How perfectly? The consultant's report is dated April 9th. What's a five-week disclosure delay when you and your plans aren't accountable to anyone in particular?

Oh, and the plan changes drastically. You thought maybe the old plan wasn't windsurfer-friendly? Here's the new (5-week-old) schematic.

This much appears certain: another summer will pass with no beach improvements in Kingston.

Category: Beaches

DontRockTheBoat.ca is the website for the annual Don't Rock the Boat Event, this year on May 23rd, at Collins Bay Marina.

Category: Boating

TWO EXCELLENT LETTERS this week in The Whig:

Here's a summary of Poker Run-related news items here on K7 going back to 2006.

See also the articles in this Whig-Standard search on 'Poker Run'.

Category: Poker run
Mayors action plan

MAYORS WANT GREAT LAKES BEACHES PROMOTED according to a report released today.

Here is a link to the 44-page report which, take note, isn't provided by any of the online "professional" mainstream media "covering" this today.

It's a 5-point plan.

  1. Create a Municipal-Provincial-Federal Great Lakes Table.
  2. Improve and promote beaches, natural areas, wetlands, trails and tourism.
  3. Attack nuisance and toxic algae.
  4. Reduce untreated sewage and stormwater discharges entering the great lakes, especially in light of climate change and technical innovations.
  5. Build a business case and measure results from Great Lakes investments.

There may be no better way to strengthen the public's connection to the Great Lakes than to enhance and promote beaches and other shoreline activities such as wetlands, natural areas and trails. Drawing more people to the shoreline can also boost local economies and contribute to healthier lifestyles. With a greater share of Great Lakes shoreline than any other jurisdiction, it makes sense to promote Ontario as a major beach and shoreline destination.

Mass swim 2008

One wonders about Harvey Rosen's role in all this.

When it comes to waterfront around here, it's been absolutely all-downhill during his tenure.

One can easily imagine Harvey Rosen, a minority dissenter, clinging instead to some half-baked plan to siphon more tax-dollars for his cronies Downtown.

Beaches? Trails? Parks and wetlands? Harvey Rosen? Please!

Remember this scene from the July 22 2008 Mass Swim (also here)? The event sought to raise awareness about our woefully neglected beaches.

All signs indicate that 2009 will be another summer woeful beach maintenance, woeful beach safety reporting (also here), and more of the usual Kingston recreational infrastruture degradation.

Scroll this page for the full-story on Kingston's beaches since 2006.

Category: Beaches

TWO SEPARATE REPORTS from last weekend's apparently very successful Nautical Archaeology course.

It's good to see such a strong level of interest in this.

KINGSTON ROWING CLUB'S 2009 PROGRAMS have been posted. Better late than never.

Category: Rowing

SWEET DEAL, CONTINUED at Crawford Wharf and Confederation Park for Kingston and the Islands Boat Lines.

Category: City Council

SMALL VESSEL REGULATIONS are being re-vamped. The Canada Gazette published the Small Vessel Regulations on April 25th. There is a 30 day comment period which ends May 25.

Here are some of the notable changes in the pleasure craft section of the proposed regulations:

  • A heavy-duty a marine emergency first-aid kit will be required.
  • Fire extinguishers will only be acceptable for a period of 6 years after date of manufacture.
  • Only Canadian approved PFDs and/or lifejackets are allowed - this is currently the case, a fine point that many don't realize.
  • A copy of a boat license must be on board. (This assumes a proper boat licensing system)
  • Boat licenses will have to renewed every 10 years.
  • If you are under 16, your lifejacket must be inherently buoyant (disallowing inflatables?)
  • You will need to have a magnetic compass.
  • They are making changes in the different size categories.
    • currently: <6, 6<8, 8<12m (3-categories)
    • proposed: <6, 6<9, 9<12, 12<24m (4-categories)

Read the proposed new regulations.

Category: Safety

AT COUNCIL TONIGHT, one of the In Camera items:

(b) Advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose - Clean-up of contaminated sites in the Inner Harbour

Anybody know what this might be about? The dump? Rosen-lands? Third-crossing-related?

Category: City Council

COLLINS BAY MARINA is again first in the region to commence serious boat launching operations.

This is just 5-days later than in 2006 which was the earliest-ever launch.

Category: Working waterfront

HERE'S THE LINEUP of exhibitors for the Kingston Boat Show this upcoming weekend at the Cataraqui Community Centre.

The number of exhibitors appears down somewhat, but not nearly as much as you might expect.

For comparison, here's last-year's K7 news item about the 2008 show, and the Official 2008 exhibitor's list is still online.

What's different this year? Commercially the show appears nearly as strong as last year. The difference between 2008 and 2009 is almost entirely due to local marinas, clubs and several non-profit organizations who are no-shows this year.

Category: Working waterfront

A NAUTICAL ARCHEOLOGY COURSE is being hosted by Preserve Our Wrecks Kingston on May 2-3 at the Military Sportsplex.

More information available from info@powkingston.org or by calling 613-767-7446

Category: Diving

HOLLY MORRISON is apparently the new Acting Supervisor of Kingston's municipal marinas, replacing Ed Leeman.

Category: Marinas

First-ever report from diving at the HIGHWAY 15 (CRUICKSHANK) QUARRY.

Category: Diving

ART PARK and ENVIRO PARK concept plans for Lake Ontario Park have (finally) been posted by the City.

See the City's project page. For now it's just diagrams, no details.

Category: City of Kingston

THE HIGHWAY 15 DIVE QUARRY is Kingston's newest recreational dive site.

The quarry also known as Pittsburgh quarry and Cruickshank quarry is just north of Gore Rd on Highway 15. It has a gravel bottom and crystal clear water. It is fairly well protected from any wind. It will be open for all types of diving and people are encouraged to come and enjoy the site for relaxation and training.

Category: Diving
Service from MarineTraffic.com

LOCAL SHIP TRAFFIC, live and online.

For the moment in the region it's just the Wolfe Islander III and the tug Vigilant I which is in-service on the Wolfe Island wind project.

You can zoom-out and pan to the St-Lawrence Seaway, whose activity is rapidly picking-up since yesterday's seaway opening at Montreal.

Category: The region

GRASPING AT STRAWS for Kingston waterfront promotion.

Category: Marinas

HOW TO RUN A RAILROAD. All aboard! The Lake Ontario Park express.

First you have a public meeting and THEN you post proposal details online.

This guarantees minimum buzz prior to the meeting, a low turnout, and uninformed attendees at the meeting itself.

All the better to ram-through pre-conceived plans with a minimum disruption like actual input.

This is how the people who have fucked-up our waterfront operate.

Related: The City's token 4-question online LOP survey from last January.

Category: City of Kingston
Divers at Morton Street

The QUEEN'S PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE DESIGN was unveiled earlier this week. According to The Whig, it's quite something.

A thoughtful reader points out that plans are unclear about its waterfront aspects. The waterfront here has long been a neighborhood and community park for the launch of kayaks, swimmers, windsurfers and scuba divers both east and west of the Stella Buck Building.

Now this area is controlled by Queen's. Here's hoping this doesn't turn into yet another loss of accessibility to the residents of Kingston.

Considering the number of CFB Kingston Scuba Club blog posts tagged with 'Tett Centre', this site is used 12-months a year, day or night, and it's evidently one of the nicer shore dive locations in the Kingston region.

Wouldn't it be great to see active waterfront accessibility built-into the project?

Category: Diving

ON TUESDAY'S COUNCIL AGENDA is the City Marinas Sustainable Strategy and Business Plan whose weeks-delayed public release was thoroughly botched last month following its truly bizarre August 2006 inception as a suspiciously narrowly-circulated RFI.

(Hey, you have to agree: it's a great way to run a railroad.)

FINALLY, for perhaps the first time in the seemingly endless Harvey Rosen era, Kingston waterfront takes a step that's NOT downright stupid, or ridiculously over-hyped, or shamefully stalled, or dirigiste, or laughably incomplete, or botched, or totally wasted, or commandeered by a raving bo-bo or otherwise seriously retrograde.

This bucks the unmistakable trend:

THAT the recommendation for the relocation of the Coast Guard at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour be exempted from the above clauses, and that it be referred back to staff for review and reconsideration in light of the community concerns raised within correspondence and through a delegation to the Committee on behalf of the Portsmouth Villagers Community Association.

Hallelujah.

Related: Anne Milina Outlook Point, the waterfront park that stands to be clobbered by said Coast Guard relocation.

Category: Marinas

LAKE ONTARIO SPRING WATER LEVELS are looking good after a winter with lots of precipitation in the Great Lakes Basin.

That's good because last November's forecast was bleak. The latest forecasts are a full-foot above that.

If water levels matter to you, don't miss the International St. Lawrence River Board of Control public teleconference tomorrow (Tuesday) between 7:00-8:30 pm.

Lake Ontario Levels

Category: Water levels

INFORMATION KIT from SPLASH, or "Sustainable Practices Leave A Sustainable Heritage", the group that seeks to reset Kingston about, among other things, the annual Poker Run.

More background on this here and there's a Facebook group you can and should join in support.

Category: Poker run
The ice moves out 2009

BIG BREEZE TODAY was the tipping point for ice-breakup in Kingston Harbour.

See these photos courtesy of Frances O'Neill of ice floes pushed-up on the shore at KYC.

Look closely: the ice pushed-up a large part of the rocky beach.

UPDATE: See also these photos from Chris Walmsley, also taken at KYC, including this one of the ice crumpling an iron fence. The photos also show yesterday's wind graph which peaks at 100 KM/H (60 MPH on the graph).

UPDATE: All this is reminiscent of this scene on February 17 2006, only this year is worse because thick ice floes are far more damaging than water. Peak wind on that day was 84 KM/H.

Category: Shoreline
AnneMilinaOutlookPoint

ANNE MILINA OUTLOOK POINT is the newest and possibly tinyest of Kingston's waterfront parks.

It sits on the southeastern edge of Portsmouth Olympic Harbour on land formerly controlled by Corrections Canada. It was opened in June 2008.

The point is also known as Hatters Bay Park

The recently released consultant's report, titled Kingston Marinas Sustainability and Development Strategy and Business Plan says this about the the Coast Guard building that sits on the Western edge of the POH property.

Current Coast Guard building inadequate for their needs considering relocation to east side of harbour at Hadders (sic) Bay Park.

Among the plan's recommendations for POH is number 7:

Recommendation POH7 : Collaborate with the Coast Guard to develop and implement a plan for relocating and enlarging their land-based facilities and berth, while relocating Hatters Bay Park to current Coast Guard location at southwest corner of site.

Financial Implications: Minimal or no cost to City of Kingston.

Timing: Q4 2008- Q2 2009 (sic)

Understandably, clobbering a beautiful waterfront park and moving it to a concrete-surrounded petrol-station-sign-dominated place in the shadow of tall condo buildings has folks in Portsmouth Village a little disturbed.

But more to the point, according to the consultant, all this is supposed to happen at minimal or no cost to City of Kingston.

  • Build a new house-sized structure, and running services to it,
  • build a parking lot at the new structure,
  • build substantial new berths for coast guard vessels on the East-side of POH,
  • pave and perpetually clear and maintain the road to the new structure,
  • demolish a smaller but still house-sized structure, and rip-up the extisting Coast Guard area and turn that into a "park".

Right!

It's a really stupid idea on so many levels. Still, it's out-there, floating-around as someone's bright idea for our waterfront.

Nevermind that there's no other publicly accessible waterfront between there and Breakwater Park, a full 1.2 kilometers to the east, as the crow flies.

Category: Parks

GROUP LOBBIES COUNCIL TO CANCEL POKER RUN from last Thursday's edition of Kingston EMC.

The Poker Run is obnoxious, and its promoter is full-of-himself. Read the whole thing. Yeah, we know, it's all about money. Now please take your freakshow elsewhere.

Category: Poker run

PRESERVE OUR WRECKS' Spring newsletter is out.

Category: Diving
North Block concept

NORTH BLOCK CONCEPT SKETCHES have been posted over at KCAL. These are larger and more accessible and comparable than the buried, popup-obfuscated ones posted by the City.

This city only seems to have "vision", for what that's worth, if it involves the downtown and, specifically, land owners who shilled and shelled for the mayor at the last election.

Meanwhile, another summer approaches with zero apparent progress on waterfront accessibility, no reversal of the unmistakable trend.

Category: City of Kingston

NATHAN BARON is back ashore in Miami after finishing a 1000-mile solo sail from Miami around the Bahamas, and back.

Category: Racing

PAUL WASH has just posted a photo sequence of the lifting and installation of the blades and hub assembly on a Siemens wind turbine on Wolfe Island. Turbine Blade Hoist Sequence by Paul Wash

As Paul suggests, in Flickr click the "all sizes" icon and view the largest versions available.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills
lovely forecast

The last time this happened was in late-August.

Update 3:16 PM: Finally a readable version of the City Marina Business Plan (57 pages, 12 Mb PDF) is posted by the web-bozos at the City of Kingston. It's an incomplete posting, lacking appendices.

Update 7:00 PM: Here's the original sloppy version (164 pages, 7 Mb PDF) first posted by the City. At least this one contains the appendices. It's just ridiculous how the public gets waxed by the systematic incompetence of the City of Kingston Communications Department.

The communications bozos at the City of Kingston have posted a sloppily-scanned borderline unreadable City Marina report.

I'm trying to obtain a readable version to post.

The report is dated January 5th. The City Committee meeting is tomorrow night. This smells exactly like the folks we all know running their usual railroad.

The screwing-up of Kingston's Waterfront is apparently continuing unabated. Early public participation and input in waterfront-related processes is clearly not in the cards, and marinas is no exception. Quite the opposite, evidently.

Category: Marinas

CITY CONSIDERING UPGRADES TO ITS MARINAS in today's Whig.

Contrary to what's printed in The Whig, the "the full consultant's report" is not online. Here's the four-page fluff-intro, which is all the city has released for now.

Category: Marinas
Category: The Brigantine

IT'S OFFICIAL Kingston is not the sailing venue in the Toronto 2015 Pan American games bid.

Category: KEDCO

AWESOME ICE BOATING CONDITIONS, according to those who know. Good skating too.

Be careful out there.

Category: Ice boating

CHECK OUT THESE PHOTOS of winter kiteboarding here in Kingston, posted by Kiteboarding Kingston.

More than ever, Kingston waterfront is active all year long.

Category: Kiteboarding

The K7 LIST OF MAJOR REGATTAS IN KINGSTON has just received a major functional upgrade.

You can now filter and search the list on any phrase you choose.

Kingston has hosted some 160 major events, defined as national championship or higher, over the past 35-years.

Category: K7Waterfront

THE FEBRUARY 2009 THOUSAND ISLANDS LIFE is online. It appears to be a most excellent issue, with lots of Canadian content and great photographs throughout.

Articles include The MacNair Forty-Acre Muskie about the recently celebrated world-record catch-and-release by Dale MacNair. There's an article about The Canadian Empress, a very interesting article about Winter Island Living, and an article about Snowsqualls that explains how nearby Pulaski NY gets so thoroughly buried each winter.

Important News for Brockville breaks very recent news about a Brockville waterfront condo development landing a government-goodie in the form of a two-thirds funding of a new $18M Maritime Discovery Centre. (Incidentally, reading this, how does Kingston's Token Park sit with you now?)

Category: The region
Major Kingston Regattas
YearWorldsN.As
200917
200816
200774
200602
200511
200401
200315

KINGSTON'S 2009 REGATTA PICTURE is firming-up and it looks really good.

This summer sees Kingston host The Byte CII World Championship and seven North American Championships including three from Olympic classes: Hobie 16 (women, youth, and open), Finn, 470, 29er, and 49er class sailboats.

Here's how 2009 shapes-up compared to previous years in the number of prestigious championship events hosted.

More details in our list of major regattas in Kingston.

Category: Racing
Nautical Archaeology Society

ANNOUNCEMENT BY SAVE ONTARIO SHIPWRECKS (SOS) that it has formed a partnership with the Nautical Archaeology Society of Portsmouth UK to deliver maritime archaeology education programs developed by the society.

A committee of instructors has been established. Training will begin in 2009. SOS aims to provide opportunities for training across the province.

Save Ontario Shipwrecks is a Provincial Heritage Organization dedicated to the study, preservation and promotion of an appreciation of Ontario's marine heritage.

Category: History

THE SNOWBIRDS AIR SHOW is coming to Kingston on Wednesday, May 27th.

Category: The Snowbirds

DEVELOPER DONATES $200,000 TO THE MARINE MUSEUM in today's Whig.

Update: apparently the Whig muffed the headline and the first paragraph of the story. The money isn't donated to the museum, it's earmarked for upgrading the dock, which is federally-owned.

Category: Marine Museum

PAN AM BID AIMS TO CONCENTRATE ON SUBURBS in today's National Post.

Toronto is lending its name recognition to the $1.7-billion bid backed by the provincial and federal governments, but events will be staged across the Golden Horseshoe region, from St. Catharines to Hamilton, to Barrie to Oshawa.

Which exactly matches what we've been hearing all along, and more recently from those in-the-know around the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games bid.

So Kingston's definitely left on the outside, looking-in.

Category: KEDCO

TWO WEEKS AGO, ON JANUARY 13TH the City of Kingston allegedly dumped 10 million litres of sewage into the St-Lawrence River during a power failure in the City's East end.

That's enough sewage to completely fill 280 of these wholesale-sized tanker trailers.

Here's a Whig article about it.

But there is still nothing tallied on the crappy Utilities Kingston sewer bypass log. Not even a note.

Jim Keech is President and CEO of Utilities Kingston. Mr Keech is well-aware of this and other past disclosure shenanigans by Utilities Kingston.

When you think of sewage in our waterways, and the health of Kingston waterfront, think of Jim Keech and Utilities Kingston. And remember: these are the same folks responsible for getting safe drinking water to your tap.

Related:

opa

AMHERST ISLAND IS NOT LISTED among six new wind projects announced for Ontario on Friday.

The closest to us is the proposed 64.5 MW Byran Wind Project in central Prince Edward County.

Does it seem bizarre that the announcement, totalling almost 500 MW in rated-capacity, is couched foremostly as a job creation initiative?

About the announcement, quoting the Amherst Island Wind Info website:

I assume the next RFP will have to pretty much start the process from scratch, as new proponents will be entering the bidding process. Hopefully this will take a year or so; the OPA hasn't announced its schedule yet.

Category: Amherst Island

TORONTO 2015 TO UNVEIL PAN AM BID PLAN SHORTLY, according to GamesBids.com.

Kingston is still in-the-hunt for the sailing events, though all the bid chatter continues to emphasize the "Golden Horseshoe" aspect of the bid.

But sailing is specialized-enough, quirky-enough, and sufficiently under-the-radar to be quietly extracted from there, and hosted in undisputedly the best venue: here in Kingston.

Related: This from October 23rd and this from November 10th.

Category: KEDCO

WORLD RECORD MUSKIE CATCH and its subsequent release are the subject of two interesting Whig articles this week.

Dale MacNair caught and released the 65-pound female muskellunge, measuring 57 inches with a girth of 33 inches, by the 40-Acres Shoal in November.

It's the largest catch-and-release muskie, and second-largest overall, ever. She's still out-there.

Category: Fishing

KYC WINS THREE TOP AWARDS at the Ontario Sailing awards presented at the Toronto Boatshow on Sunday January 18th.

  • Robert Davis is the Youth Athlete of the Year, for the 2nd year in a row.
  • Sam Crothers wins the Angus (Bud) Roulstone Leadership Award, presented to a certified CYA Instructor/Coach who has shown exceptional leadership in a learn-to-sail or racing program. This is the 2nd year in a row that a KYC-based instructor has won this award.
  • The Kingston Yacht Club wins the Unistrut Central Youth Performance Ranking Trophy, presented to the Club with the Best Results in the 16 & Under Ontario Sailing Provincial Youth Regatta Series.
Canadian Youth Sailing Team

Also the 2009 Canadian Youth Sailing Team has just been named and, of the 26 sailors named, 7 of them -- that's over a quarter of our National Team -- call Kingston Yacht Club either home or their training centre.

These sailors are:

  • Robert Davis, Laser class
  • Tom Ramshaw, Laser class
  • Charlotte Skinner, Laser Radial class
  • Samantha Rea, Laser Radial class
  • Peter and Paul Evhert, 29er Class
  • Danielle Boyd, 29er class
Category: Racing
Kingston Official Plan 2008 Documents

THE LATEST OFFICIAL PLAN for the City of Kingston contains much related to waterfront in its 35 PDF documents and hundreds of pages.

We're fast approaching the plan's "consultation" period, for what that's worth.

Looking through all the documents for its waterfront-related aspects, there are numerous general mentions of the recreational uses of our waterfront. Considering the vast majority of kingstonians have no meaningful relationship with the waterfront beyond the occasional glimpse, it all rings hollow.

The plan goes nowhere beyond cliches and platitudes as far as recreational waterfront is concerned.

For example, in the hundreds of pages of the plan, the words Swim, Sail, Row or Rowing, SCUBA, or Diving never appear. The word Wreck appears several times, always in reference to wrecking yards.

The word Beach appears just once in reference to Richardson Beach Bathouse but not in the context of swimming, its renovation, or any recreational aspect you might hope-for.

Don't look to the plan for mention of Ramps unless those ramps are for sidewalk accessibility.

The word Fishing appears once, in the context of some policy that would control fish farming -- probably text copied wholesale from some other municipality's plan.

The word Boating is used once, in a non-specific way, in one document titled " Downtown and Harbour Area Special Policy Area".

In that PDF you'll find doozies like this:

Public Access to the Water
10A.4.14. Access to the waterfront will be enhanced wherever possible, particularly at the ends of public rights of way. Publicly accessible docks also form character-defining elements of the Harbour Area and provide informal open space that will be preserved.

Bullshit!

Oh, there are good things in the plan. Lots of words about linking waterfront pathways, and acquiring waterfront properties. But everybody knows there will never be much money for that.

You can have a multi-faceted plan that makes everybody, especially its authors and the politicians, feel-good. But in the end, when it comes to implementation, there is only one group in Kingston that ALWAYS hoovers most of the money: Downtown Kingston. This plan ensures that this will continue.

The plan is crystal clear on this: the systematic and grotesque annual subsidies of Downtown Kingston, the land owners there, and those who run the related tourist-trappings, will continue unabated.

Looking for quality of life initiatives for the residents of the rest of amalgamated Kingston, especially addressing our waterfront-related recreational infrastructure deficit? Not in the plan.

Category: City Council

RETIREMENT HOME TO DISPLACE DIVE SHOP in Brockville.

There are appparently no great options in Brockville for Dive Brockville Adventure Centre.

It's the end-game for working waterfront in Brockville, or so it seems.

Working waterfront: once lost, it's gone forever.

This would never happen in Kingston, right? Ask MetalCraft Marine.

Category: Working waterfront

10-MILLION LITRES OF SEWAGE were dumped into the St-Lawrence River last Tuesday night during a lengthy power failure.

Nothing's tallied yet on the Utilities Kingston sewer bypass log. They call it a log. It's not a log at all. It's minimum-disclosure b.s., Kingston-style. Here's why.

For a sense of perspective, a very large tank truck, the sort used for wholesale fuel deliveries, can contain 36,000 litres. Imagine a line of 280 such tanker trucks, a queue over 5-kilometers long, lined-up to pump their entire contents in sewage into the water at the causeway. The equivalent of that happened this week in Kingston.

I repeat: Tuesday the City of Kingston dumped the full contents of 280 of these tanks worth of sewage into the St-Lawrence River.

Related:

Category: The environment

GOOD ARTICLE BY NATHAN BARON in today's Whig.

Nathan is currently in the midst of a 1000-mile solo-voyage in and around the Bahamas region to qualify for an upcoming single-handed Mini-Transat 6.50 race between France and Brazil.

Category: Racing
Category: The region
Kingston Boat Show

THE 2009 KINGSTON BOAT SHOW WEBSITE is up.

The show runs April 17-19 at the Cataraqui Community Centre, taking-over both rinks.

Category: Working waterfront

LASER CLASS RESULTS from the 2008 Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta where Kingston's Robert Davis podiumed in six of ten races, including two bullets, finishing second overall and top Canadian in a 39-boat fleet.

Category: Racing

PUBLIC ASKED FOR INPUT on Lake Ontario Park's master plan.

There's a token 4-question online survey, and two public meetings are planned, the first on January 21 and the second on March 25, 2009. The January 21 public meeting is between 7 to 9 PM at the Invista Centre.

Let's hope this isn't just public consultation theatre like we've seen with so many City and island projects in the recent past.

Category: City of Kingston

IDIOTIC EDITORIAL in the Whig last Saturday about how sinking millions into refurbishing the deep-water dock at the Marine Museum is a "no brainer".

This is a no-brainer, folks. A new pier would provide a tremendous boost to the city's tourism industry with little or no financial risk.

Read the whole thing.

Now read the related report by city staff to Council. Pay attention to the minuscule number of these vessels (one), the low number of expected stoppovers each year (under five), the small number of passengers aboard (which the Whig vastly overstates), and the actual time (a few hours) that ships are expected to be docked.

In real terms most cruise ships would start off by including Kingston as a port-of-call with a brief stay of several hours in port. This would offer the downtown merchants an opportunity to sell their wares and nearby and mid-distance attractions to be included in shore excursions.

(From page 8 of the report.)

Don't forget that these passengers arrive already sumptuously-fed with room-and-board aboard. Also consider city staff's record of vastly overstating the economic benefits of all the downtown-centric projects they endorse. Never a thumbs-down when it's downtown.

Here's what's really happening: The Whig is the boardroom-bulletin publisher for the Downtown Kingston BIA.

No subsidy for Downtown Kingston is ever panned, no matter how grotesque. In The Whig, and among city staff, the BIA always trumps the interests of the rest of amalgamated Kingston.

And City Council buys-in every time. Foremost, in this case, is Councillor Bill Glover who is all-in for a dock uber alles. Then there's Councillor Ed Smith is a full-bird member of the BIA's Executive Committee. In addition, we have three other City councillors (Councillors Hector, Hutchison, and Gerretsen) who are council-appointees to the BIA's board of directors and subject to systematic face-time and, therefore, pro-BIA sales pressure.

There's more: None of this includes Councillor Foster and Mayor Rosen who are certifiable Downtown Kingston BIA cronies.

That's how the systematic fleecing of the rest of amalgamated Kingston is engineered. Nevermind the influence of a sycophantic Whig-Standard and the City's mostly downtown-based staff, Council is effectively an arm of the BIA, as opposed to the other way around.

Maybe you thought the last council was bad?

Structurally, the current council is actually worse, and getting worse, because more potential fence-sitting councillors are co-opted into the BIA Board for systematic monthly face-time and indoctrination about the BIA's interests.

Do we need a deep-water dock? Absolutely. We had one but, like most things around town, we never properly maintained it. Should a deep-water dock today be our top infrastructure priority? Should a deep-water dock be Kingston's top waterfront-related priority?

If you had a few million dollars to spend on infrastructure, and assuming you wanted to spend it to improve Kingston's waterfront, would it go to help dock a ship with three-busloads-worth of tourists, three-times per year, for barely an afternoon each time? Or should that money first go towards accessibility and recreation opportunities for the people who actually live here?

Related: This K7 post from October 2008.

Category: City Council

RAISINGS AND SINKINGS PAST are the subject of two new Flickr photosets by Paul Wash. These are scans of original photographs by Max Pater who, thankfully, has agreed to share these online.

There are 12 photos from the Cuidad de Inca refloating incident in December 1984, and 20 photos of the Wolfe Islander II sinking in September 1985.

Nearly a quarter-century ago already!

Category: History

FIVE BRICKBATS TO KINGSTON CITY COUNCIL (2008) is an interesting post by an apparently very well-traveled Canadian.

Here's brickbat number four:

(4) the failure to create a walkable, enjoyable public downtown waterfront.

One of the more annoying aspects of the mismanagement of Kingston is the absolute disregard the city has for its downtown waterfront. Centennial park directly in front of City Hall doesn't cut it. Nor does the little bit of pathway/public space between City Park west beyond KGH. The absolute lack of interest in providing a walkable inviting downtown waterfront from Belle Isle down to the foot of Ontario St is an embarrassment and should shame each and every councillor. It's not difficult - just takes some leadership.

Amen, brother. Read the whole thing.

Category: Other viewpoints
High winds this week

PHOTOS FROM THIS WEEKEND'S HIGH WINDS have been posted by Chris Wamsley on Flickr. UPDATE: Check out this photo of the Confed breakwall and this Ferry carwash shot.

Also some members of the CFB Dolphins Scuba Club, which is active all winter long, went for a shore-dive to the KGH wreck.

Anyone else have photos to share?

Category: The region
Proposed obsolete Canadian Charts

LOCAL CANADIAN CHARTS ON THE OUTS?

That's the scoop according to an article by Ross Pollack in the latest Thousand Islands Life.

According to the article:

These Canadian charts are beautiful examples of the printers' art: at once highly readable and richly presented with great registration of the different colored inks. But government efficiency will soon eliminate the cross-checking possible with different US and Canadian charts of the same St. Lawrence River waters.

According to a spokesman for the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, navigational charts covering the same US-Canada border areas will no longer be produced by both nations, and water boundary areas will be divided between the nations for mapping purposes.

The plan is for the relevant stretch of the St. Lawrence River to be charted by the US alone. Eventually, these Canadian charts, numbers 1435 to 1439, will be obsolete and will be replaced by up-to-date versions of US charts 14770 to 14774 and 14802.

There's apparently nothing else online about this yet. There's something fundamentally repulsive about this.

Category: The region

READER COMMENTS can now be added to any news item or any article in this website.

If this works, this should vastly broaden the input from K7 readers.

This is still in the testing stage, so try it out and let me know what you think.

Just click the "Comments" link below and give it a whirl.

To post a comment, you only need to provide a name or an alias. All other information is voluntary.

Category: K7Waterfront

THE DECEMBER THOUSAND ISLANDS LIFE is online.

The zine now features an RSS feed and has a new look. Overall it's a very nice upgrade.

Update: Kingston's now included in their collection of Thousand Islands Communities.

Category: The region
proposed shoreline repairs around the West Street ramp

AT COUNCIL TUESDAY: a proposed $115,575 for shoreline repair around the West Street boat ramp, just east of Kingston Yacht Club.

While we're on the subject, here's our list of launch ramps in and around the city.

Category: City Council
Bow of Guernter's wreck

GUENTER'S WRECK is the subject of a new Preserve Our Wrecks photoset on Flickr.

The photos, which are excellent, were taken in November.

This wreck has been known to local divers since the 1960's, and it was catalogued by Parks Canada as early as 2002.

Last summer, a self-promoter "discovered" it. A lazy, impressionable, and non-fact-checking mainstream media bought-into the story, including CKWS-TV, The Whig, The Montreal Gazette and beyond.

Recently, according to Jonathan Moore, an underwater archeologist with Parks Canada:

We have no real archeological evidence that it is HMS Montreal.

Category: Diving

GONE ARE THE OLD-STYLE SHOAL MARKERS in Kingston Harbour. This summer, the M.O.T. replaced them with much smaller, and much lower, cylindrical ones.

Beyond arcane trivia, why would this matter?

There are many factors that make Kingston Harbour a great place to race sailboats. The axis of Lake Ontario, the narrowing and gradual funneling of the shorelines towards Kingston, the low-lying landmasses to the south and west, the landscapes inland that help generate thermal winds, these are all good.

New shoal mark in Kingston Harbour
The new Myles Shoal marker

For dinghy-racing sailors, another nice feature of Kingston Harbour is the fortunate positioning of both Myles Shoal and Penitentiary Shoal which, until this summer, were both marked with large green buoys that were easily visible at a mile distance. (See the chart below.)

Myles Shoal lies exactly 1/2 nautical mile off Kingston Yacht Club, almost directly into the teeth of prevailing breezes. Myles Shoal makes a perfect first-target for a group of practice-racing dinghies as they leave shore. The stretch between KYC and Myles Shoal has surely served for many-a-thousand dinghy tunings and warmups over the years.

From there, Penitentiary Shoal lies exactly one nautical mile from Myles Shoal, a perfect practice distance. This leg bears 272 degrees magnetic (ignoring magnetic anomalies), which is typically to the right of prevailing breezes, but this right-offset largely compensates for the left-side bias when racing in Kingston Harbour. The result is usually a tactically balanced upwind practice-leg for a group of racing dinghies. Perfect!

But the new shoal markers are smaller and lower, and can't be seen at a distance of one nautical mile when viewed from low on the water. The markers are in the same positions as always, but there has been a significant downgrade in their recreational utility. There are simply fewer obvious targets to sail-between now. Kingston Harbour lost a dinghy-sailing intangible this summer.

When the M.O.T. decided to swich-out the old shoal markers, it's likely nobody gave the dinghy-sailing aspect any thought whatsoever.

And so it goes: a really special waterfront slowly becomes an ordinary waterfront one step-at-a-time.

Constantly losing intangibles, each one perhaps "no big deal" taken individually, eventually adds-up on aggregate.

Myles Shoal and Penitentiary Shoal
Category: Navigation

HOPE FOR A BRUTAL WINTER because, if current forecasts hold, we may be facing low water in the spring, about a foot lower than in recent years.

Lake Ontario Levels

Moreover the water-level news from the big-lakes upstream isn't great. Throughout most of 2008 water levels on Lake Superior were rebounding towards normal. Now that gap appears to be widening again.

Downstream from Lake Superior, Lakes Michigan and Huron are still a full 15-inches below normal levels.

Lake Ontario Levels

Category: Water levels

LAFARGE LOSES APPEAL, which clears the way for a Environmental Review Tribunal hearing on burning tires at its cement plant in Bath.

So what does Lafarge plan to do? Rather than finally facing serious environmental scrutiny, and stepping-up to years of is own rhetoric, apparently Lafarge is scrapping its plans.

How whacked is that?

Category: The environment

K7 TURNS THREE this week.

Here's a big Thank You to some of the folks who've helped along the way with great photos, information, insight, scoops, concerns and corrections.

Amy Allcock
K Allo
David Athersych
Nathan Baron
Miranda Beninger
Ann Blake
Doug Burget
Craig Butler
Ross Cameron
Gord Campbell
Christopher Canning
Daniel Chamberlain
Bob Clark
Rob Colwell
Ian Coristine
Sandy Crothers
John Curtis
Gillian Dagg-Foster
Marianne Davis
Paul Davis
Robin Dawes
Diana Duerkop
John Duerkop
David Fairbairn
Didier Follain-Grisell
Jim Foster
Ted Goldring
Susie Hamberger
Phil Harvey
Chris Haslip
Wayne Hiebert
Michael Hill
Tim Irwin
Ted Ison
George Jackson
Jochebed Katan
Tom MacMillan
Stephanie Mah
Paul Malo
Mark Mattson
David Mody
Alida Moffatt
David More
Larry Newitt
Frances O'Neill
Lito Ochotorena
Carmen Olsen
David Page
Greg Pucher
Bruce Rand
Tom Rutledge
Vicki Schmolka
Keith Schneider
Greg Scott
Barry Smith
Maurice Smith
Sharon Snider-Wilkinson
Hub Steenbakkers
Miche Steenbakkers
Douglas Stewart
Mary Syrett
Ross Trethewey
Krystyn Tully
David Tyner
Jim Vance
Bill Visser
Evan Walmsley
Geoff Webster
Henk Wevers
Matt White
Shirley Wildenbeest
Tom Wroe
Andrew
Anonymous (several)
Category: K7Waterfront
Preserve Our Wrecks Stacked Hulls Brochure

GUIDE TO THE STACKED HULLS WRECK has just been posted by Preserve Our Wrecks, Kingston.

The 2-page PDF explains how to find the 3 wooden steamer hulls with a shore-dive off KPH.

Related to local diving is the upcoming Talk on the War of 1812 Wrecks. Jonathan Moore, a well-known author on the topic and member of Parks Canada's Underwater Archaeology Service, will be speaking at the Marine Museum in Kingston on Sunday, November 30th at 2 pm to launch his new book on "Shipwrecks from the War of 1812 at Kingston: A Look Beneath the Waves".

Category: Diving
Richardson Beach

THE GROYNE IS A DONE-DEAL, apparently.

Public consultation, Kingston-style: 1) Quickly conjure a single plan with no options, 2) pretend to listen to input, then 3) execute the plan.

Name a recent Kingston waterfront development that didn't follow this pattern, or this pattern minus step-2.

Category: Beaches
CORK

A NEW FORMAT FOR CORK is announced today.

According to the press release, CORK 2009 will play-out ike this:

  • August 19 - 22: CORK International Event for Youth and Development dinghy classes.
  • August 23 - 27: CORK Olympic Classes Event for high-performance competition in Olympic and invited "development" dinghy classes.
  • August 28 - 30: Offshore and One Design Keelboat and Dinghy Classes for Offshore (PHRF) classes, one design Keelboats, Able Sail, and international dinghy classes.

This is great news on a number of levels.

For example, for the first time in many years, there is no overlap between CORK events and the obnoxious 1000 Islands Kingston Poker Run, currently scheduled for August 7-8 2009.

Another plus: better segmenting the events means better cohesion amongst participants. Youth and young sailors together; high-performance sailors together; and keelboat with international-class dinghies all together. This makes planning the all-important social packages more straightforward.

Another plus: dates for the Keelboats and international-class dinghies -- generally older adult sailors -- dovetail with the 2009 Kingston Blues Festival.

Another plus: CORK 2009 spans just 12-days of competition, compared to 18-days for CORK 2008. This will be much easier on the volunteer-base, so better regattas for all-concerned are likely to result.

Any downsides? It's hard to quibble with any of this.

Also booked for 2009 so far: cats!

  • July 17-19 - Hobie 16 Women and Youth North American Championship
  • July 20-24 - Hobie 16 Open North American Championship
Category: Racing

THE 2015 PAN-AM GAMES BID goes to Toronto's City Council today.

If (Toronto) council endorses the bid, a more detailed report is expected in February that will help lay out a venue plan and a detailed look at the financial, social, economic and infrastructure implications of the 2015 games. A formal bid must be submitted to the Pan American Sports Organization by April.

So KEDCO is running out of time to get the Sailing event for Kingston.

Here's the 6-page City of Toronto Staff Report on the matter.

The (Toronto) City Manager recommends that (Toronto) City Council:

1. Endorse the City of Toronto's role as the host city and participant in a bid to be submitted by the Bid Corporation to host the 2015 Pan American/ParaPan American Games in Toronto and communities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region.

It's not looking good.

Category: KEDCO
first wind farm tower

PHOTOS OF NEW WIND FARM TOWERS can be viewed on Gordon Campbell's blog.

Kingston's Waterfront has changed, starting now.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills
Pearl Mist

AT COUNCIL this upcoming Tuesday, two related items about Crawford Wharf. Coincidence?

But,

In real terms most cruise ships would start off by including Kingston as a port-of-call with a brief stay of several hours in port. This would offer the downtown merchants an opportunity to sell their wares and nearby and mid-distance attractions to be included in shore excursions.

Therefore this is for quickies, the 200 passengers being roughly equivalent to just three busloads, a few times per year, for a few hours each time.

How Crawford Wharf trumps other deferred maintenance in Kingston, nevermind just waterfront-related deferred maintenance, is anybody's guess.

Category: City Council
First tower

THE FIRST WOLFE ISLAND WIND TURBINE, Tower 19, is on the north side of Reeds Bay.

It won't appear very large when viewed from Kingston. Some subsequent towers will be 3-miles closer to Kingston than this one.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills
Eastern shore of Navy Bay in Kingston

NAVY BAY'S EASTERN SHORE is a half-mile stretch of shoreline that runs from RMC to Point Henry.

It's less than a mile from downtown Kingston.

It's inaccessible, derelict and, when explored in mid-October 2008, trash-strewn.

Through various levels of government, taxpayers pump millions into Fort Henry each year. From a waterfront accessibility and recreation perspective, we get nothing back.

Kingston's Waterfront is all the poorer for that.

Category: Accessibility
CYA logo

A NEW WEBSITE for the Kingston-based Canadian Yachting Association. It's a huge improvement.

But there's no CYA blog, and no news syndication in RSS format. In that sense, it's also a disappointment.

Hopefully those relatively easy-gets are coming.

Category: The CYA

THE 2015 TORONTO PAN-AMERICAN GAMES BID, specifically the sailing event, is discussed in Wednesday's Whig.

What The Whig doesn't tell us is the Toronto bid has been highly public for three weeks already.

There's more: Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was on-hand in Acapulco, Mexico to launch the bid just prior to Thanksgiving. The Toronto bid is slick; their ducks are aligned. Harvey Rosen wasn't on the trip.

From The Globe and Mail, three weeks ago on October 3rd:

The bid is Toronto-branded, meaning organizers will peddle the Pan Am bid internationally using the country's largest city as a hook. However, Toronto's main events likely will be the opening and closing ceremonies. Sports venues are most likely to go into the region covered by the 905 area code: Vaughan, Markham, Durham, Peel-Halton and the Niagara Region.

Here's the bid home page. There's nothing specific there yet.

But there's definitely a sense that Kingston's on the outside, looking-in at this point.

More to the point: each time Toronto bids for a major games, why is Kingston always the supplicant for the sailing event? It's worth asking: Hey Toronto! what's your problem?

Maybe one reason Toronto seems to come-up short in its games bids is because of Toronto's inability to leverage its proven world-class, world-renowned assets, like Kingston for sailing, for example.

Another way to look at it is: if the Toronto 2015 bid doesn't showcase Kingston for sailing, then perhaps Toronto doesn't deserve to win. Certainly everyone will know, at least as far as sailing is concerned, that it's all about the politics, not the competitors.

What's not in doubt is this: Since 1976 Summer Games, Kingston hasn't been resting on its laurels. Kingston has earned it.

Category: KEDCO
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper podcasts

THE LIVING AT THE BARRICADES PODCAST from October 16, 2008 titled Landfills, Leachate and Law is very interesting because it contains a lengthy segment on the Belle Park leaching landfill case, which the City of Kingston fought for eight years all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

That was embarassing for the City of Kingston. Harvey Rosen was Mayor of Kingston through most of the the appeals.

The segment following Kingston's is about the City of Hamilton which pled guilty to similar charges at the first opportunity, wasting no time towards fixing the problem.

Category: The environment
Incomplete hull of HMS Detriot replica

THE 120-FOOT HMS DETROIT REPLICA, which berthed at Confed last week, is the subject of photos submitted by John Duerkop. The vessel is on its way to Newport, R.I..

This replica was the subject of a Whig aticle last week about long-ago scuttled plans for a waterfront heritage centre in Kingston. The Whig re-surfaces the notion of transforming the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes into a showpiece tourism attraction in this Monday's editorial.

To be blunt, it's a silly idea.

Considering the average Kingstonian has no relationship whatsoever with the waterfront, local-citizen access should come long before the so-called needs of hypothetical "wealthy european tourists". Kingston needs to become a better place to live, not a better tourist trap.

Category: Marine Museum
Lifting-out Island Belle for bottom cleaning & painting

STILL MORE IMPRESSIVE SIGHTS at Kingston Marina recently as they hoisted-out Island Belle for bottom cleaning and painting.

Thanks again to John Duerkop for these photos.

Category: Kingston Marina
underwater cable route

In The Whig today: Underwater wires connect Kingston, island.

Here's a link to a nice diagram of the cable's route.

Also, here are photos of the excavation activity in Sand Bay in August, where the cable lands on the Kingston-side.

And THIS IS AWESOME, especially the latter parts of the 53-pages titled "WOLFE ISLAND CABLE ROUTE SURVEY". C:\Wikis\K7Waterfront\FTPRoot\Files

Category: Wolfe Is windmills
MetalCraft Marine's latest Fireboat

IMPRESSIVE SIGHTS on Kingston's waterfront late last week. MetalCraft Marine rolled-out the hull of their largest fireboat ever.

The purpose of this was to mate it with its superstructure. Hulls are built upside-down so rotating the hull was part of the process.

This fireboat is destined for service in Tampa, Florida. Thanks to John Duerkop for the photos.

Category: Working waterfront

THE AMHERST ISLAND WIND INFORMATION WEB SITE seems worth bookmarking. It has an RSS feed as well.

Category: Amherst Island

THIS MONTH-OLD HALF-BAKED WATERFRONT-RELATED MOTION was again debated then soundy defeated at Council last night.

Category: City Council

GARISH NEW STREET LIGHTS, seven of them, on Point Frederick. They are spaced less than 30m apart.

These are a butt-ugly addition to a prime piece of Kingston Waterfront. New lights on Point Frederick (RMC)

Category: Shoreline
Black Angus haul-out

THE BLACK ANGUS was hauled-out for the winter on Tuesday at Kingston Marina. Click the photo to see more.

The Black Angus is the 100-year-old 28-foot wood double-ended clinker fishing boat restored by volunteers at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes and re-launched this August after 7,000 hours of restauration.

Thanks to John Duerkop for the photos.

Category: History

DIESEL FUEL SPILL, hundreds of litres worth, by a Wolfe Island wind project tug boat off Dawson point, which is the winter ferry dock on Wolfe Island.

Update: Thursday's Whig story.

Update: CBC.ca's report.

Update: More from CKWS-TV.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

THE BIG JIM SHOWDOWN, this weekend at POH, rises from the ashes of the WFN Canadian Open debacle.

This pro/am fishing event will run in support of well-known fisherman, Jim McLaughlin, and his battle with cancer, while also honouring our Canadian Forces.

It starts Friday at the Junior Officer's Mess at CFB Kingston, Saturday and Sunday at POH.

Category: Fishing

STUDYING THE LIFE OF THE LAKE in today's Whig, by Brian Johnson, about the research of nautical archeologist Ben Ford.

More about The Museum of Underwater Archaeology and The Lake Ontario Maritime Cultural Landscape Project.

Category: History

THE SEPTEMBER 2008 ISSUE OF THOUSAND ISLANDS LIFE is now online.

Susan W. Smith is the new editor replacing Paul Malo who recently passed away.

Inside, A trip to Kingston's Rosemount Inn, among other articles.

Category: The region

IT'S ALWAYS INTERESTING to read how visitors percieve Kingston.

Here's a narrative titled Day 77 Drive from Keeseville to Kingston, Ontario by a couple who arrived last week via Horne's Ferry towing a pop-up trailer.

Some of their photos are excellent, albums here and here, particularly this photo and this one.

Then there's this picture showing a rooftop air-conditioner on the Clarence Street Post Office destroying an otherwise enchanting sightline. That's Kingston.

Category: Tourism

TWO WATERFRONT-RELATED ITEMS ON THE AGENDA of the City's Arts, Recreation & Community Policies Committee meeting of Thursday September 25th.

Category: City of Kingston
Clean Marine

FIVE-ANCHOR ECO-RATINGS have finally been awarded to both POH and Confed by the Ontario Marina Operators Association's Clean Marine Program.

The City of Kingston-operated marinas join Collins Bay Marina which received its 5-anchor rating in 2005, one of the first in Ontario to achieve it.

Other local eco-rated marinas include Kingston Marina, Treasure Island Marina, and Loyalist Cove Marina.

Local OMOA-member marinas that have no eco-rating at all include Rideau Marina and Blue Woods Marina.

Category: Marinas

THE GREAT CANADIAN SHORELINE CLEANUP is the subject of a Whig article yesterday. The volunteer cleanup is between September 20 and 28th.

For more information about the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup call 1-877-427-2422, local co-ordinator Serge Landry at 541-6000, extension 3664. Volunteers can also go to www.vanaqua.org/cleanup.

Category: The environment
FANTASTIC 14-day outlook

NO RAIN in the latest 14-day outlook.

It surely won't turn-out that way, but it's a notable and rare forecast.

Summer's here.

CHRIS HARVEY, CKWS NEWSWATCH get suckered.

To be fair, it's all mainstream media reporting so far on the so-called HMCS Montreal and her sister ships.

Category: History

THE FINAL OF THE WFN 2008 BASS TOUR, THE CANADIAN OPEN, which was supposedly coming to Kingston September 19-21, isn't going to happen.

Apparently word of the cancellation has been known in fishing circles since late May.

By the looks of this, the folks at WFN are adept at self-congratulating press-releases announcing the event (November 2007), then later announcing sponsors (Lakeport Beer in March 2008).

But when things derail, mum's the word.

The event is still listed on the KEDCO website.

Related: K7's news item from last November.

Category: Fishing

A DISMAL WIND FORECAST FOR SATURDAY has prompted the organizers of the Pro-Am Canadian Freestyle Jam windsurfing championship to postpone until next weekend. Weekend wind forecast

Category: Boardsailing

THE PROPOSED RENAMING OF BREAKWATER PARK, a move by the Kingston Historical Society, is on the Municipal Heritage Committee agenda for the September 8th meeting.

Breakwater Park is the 8.4 acre waterfront park along King St West that today contains, among other things, the iconic sculpture named "Time". John Bradstreet

The proposal is to name the park after Lt.-Col. John Bradstreet, the British officer who led the "battle" to overthrow Fort Frontenac 250-years ago.

John Bradstreet had 3,000 men at his disposal against 110 French soldiers garrisoned inside the Fort. The French surrendered without a fight. Then Bradstreet plundered, burned, and demolished the fort. Then Bradstreet left town.

Which raises the questions: Why? Bradstreet, and why Kingston's premier waterfront park?

Should such honours be reserved for, say, people who actually lived here? Does Kingston's history not have valorous military commanders who didn't enjoy a 30-1 man advantage upon arrival? How about, say, somebody who actually built something? As opposed to John Bradstreet, who extracted a quick surrender, then plundered and demolished the place before immediately moving on.

More on John Bradstreet at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

Category: Parks

MILESTONE AT RAVENSVIEW, from Allen Lucas, Utilities Kingston engineer.

It gives me great pleasure to inform everyone that on September 4th at about 4:00 pm, wastewater was started flowing through the Biological Aerated Filters. This signifies the culmination of a lot of hard work and tremendous effort on the part of the construction team, the engineering team and Utilities Kingston operations staff.

Category: City of Kingston

GEOFF WEBSTER, official photographer for CORK, has posted 570 photos taken last month at the Contender World Championships here in Kingston.

This is, by far, the largest online collection of photos of a regatta in Kingston.

Geoff has some 80,000+ regatta photographs since 1980 in his archives. Geoff Webster's photos from the Contender Worlds

Category: Racing
Council Motion to grab waterfront

AT COUNCIL TONIGHT is a motion to...

"....prevent any development within 120 m of the high water mark of the Rideau waterway from the Lasalle Causeway to the northern boundary of the city without the permission of Council."

Most people don't realize the northern extent of the City of Kingston.

FYI, this motion includes:

  • The Cataraqui River (both shores)
  • Colonel By Lake (both shores)
  • The South shore of River Styx
  • The South Shore of Cranberry Lake
  • The South Shore of Little Cranberry Lake
  • The South Shore of part of Whitefish Lake
  • And both shores, or just the South shore, of all the waterways interconnecting the above.

This is a job for a proper Conservation Authority, one that doesn't give a rats-ass if your name is Brit Smith or Byron Springer.

Details in The Whig, but there is no sense therein of the full extent of this.

Category: City Council
New shore dive, off Kingston General Hospital

WE HAVE A NEW LOCAL SHORE DIVE off Kingston General Hospital.

Divers from Preserve Our Wrecks Kingston laid a line leading to the charted wreck yesterday. Quoting the POW Blog post about it:

The wreck is in very good condition; one of the more intact examples of what is certainly a sailing vessel and probably associated with use on the canal systems. It's almost a hundred feet long and about 24 feet wide. Care should be taken by visiting divers to avoid disturbing and damaging many upright features that have stood the test of time.

The wreck is well known already; it features on local charts, but it has not previously been of great interest, since it lies in the path of frequent boat traffic and didn't have any line to it from shore.

Update: New photos and video of this wreck.

See the updated List of Shore Dives near Kingston on the K7 "Wrecks" page. The list now contains 17 shore dives.

While you are there, there's a new Google Map pin on the position of the HMS Montreal which was supposedly "discovered" earlier this month leading to much fanfare in mainstream media.

Category: Diving
Large turbines are coming

EXTREME PRESSURE CHANGES NEAR WIND TURBINE BLADES injures bat lungs, according to a recent University of Calgary study.

A bat mortality study supervised by U of C biology professor Robert Barclay that began in 2006 has determined that the vast majority of bats found dead below turbines near Pincher Creek suffered severe injuries to their respiratory systems consistent with a sudden drop in air pressure -- called barotrauma -- that occurs when the animals get close to turbine blades...

The study shows that 90 per cent the bats examined after death showed signs of internal hemorrhaging consistent with barotraumas while only about half of the bats showed any evidence of direct contact with the blades.

So wind turbines are deadlier to flying animals than just the trauma of contact with the blades. Flying close to a blade can kill too.

Category: The environment
Rideau Lakes Region

RIDEAU LAKES MISS THE BOAT, according to the Saturday Ottawa Citizen.

Area has everything except a visible attempt to promote itself

This area between Smiths Falls and Kingston has lakes of all sizes, the Rideau Canal, the Cataraqui Trail, fine fishing, decent golf courses, excellent scenery and some quaint towns. What it doesn't have is any visible effort to promote or package all that attractive stuff.

That's so true. The Township of Rideau Lakes is an independent entity and, if the author is correct, then tourism-wise Kingston has an evidently weak northern neighbor with tons of potential.

Just like Quebec City benefits from Mt. Ste-Anne, and Montreal benefits from the Eastern Townships, Kingston stands to gain from having stronger tourism players in the region.

Not that Kingston currently contributes much regionally. Currently, Kingston's tourism "region", its sole focus, covers barely a square-mile.

If Kingston can shake its myopia and break free from the cult of Downtown Kingston, then maybe it could eventually help strengthen, and center, a vast and dynamic region.

Category: The region

VIDEO FROM THE CONTENDER WORLDS on YouTube.

Day 1 was sailed in light and shifty breezes.

Note the damage from Snake Island Shoal shown at the end of the video. The Contender Worlds, a 34-competitor event, are being sailed on Foxtrot course, out beyond Kingston Harbour.

While you are there, here's an interesting tour of Soren Andreasen's boat from Denmark.

Category: Racing
Lovely weather forecast

The last time this happened, back in April, it didn't turn out that way.

GRANDFATHER AND GRANDSON drown while swimming in big waves off Paterson Park from The Whig.
Category: Tragedy

THE BLACK ANGUS SAILS AGAIN in this weekend's edition of Kingston This Week.

It's about the successful 7,000-hour restoration of a 100-year-old 28-foot wood double-ended clinker fishing boat by volunteers at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.

Category: History

LOCAL SAILORS, and many sailors who regularly train here, posted some great results at the Canadian Youth National Sailing Championships -- see results for the Alpha and Bravo racing areas -- that ended yesterday in Halifax. In summary:

  • Robert Davis, Tom Ramshaw, Matthew Ryder, and Justin Norton were 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th of 25 boats in the Laser class.
  • Danielle Boyd (crew), and Peter and Paul Ehvert finished 1st and 2nd in the 29er class.
  • Charlotte Skinner finished 3rd in the 27-boat Laser Radial class.

Note the other good results by some of our younger up-and-comers.

Update: August 16th Whig Article on Danielle Boyd.

Category: Racing
Contenders for sale

CONTENDERS FOR SALE after the World Championships, which runs between August 19-23. The ask for these used single-handed trapeze boats from UK competitors ranges between $1,900 and $7,000.

Some older boats from Toronto are also available after the worlds. Contact Neil Smith (contenderkc62@yahoo.com).

Category: Racing

BARGE TRANSPORTATION AND OTHER LOGISTICS for the Wolfe Island Wind Project are the subject of an interesting article in today's Whig.

The large barge is loaded in Ogdensburg, NY, and unloads at the Wolfe Island winter ferry dock. Meanwhile, on Wolfe Island, lots of preparations are well underway.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

LYME DISEASE TICKS ARE SPREADING in the region, according to today's Whig Standard.

Related: prior posts on Lyme Disease.

Category: Lyme disease
At the SHARK WORLDS IN HAMILTON, Peter Van Rossem, Gord Greer, and Don Kerstens of Kingston finished 4th, just 2-points off the podium.
Category: Racing
Obnoxious poker run Obnoxious poker run

EXCELLENT OP-ED BY JAMIE SWIFT in today's Whig Standard about the obnoxious Poker Run, which is this weekend.

A group of concerned citizens has been distributing postcards around town protesting the poker run. Here you can download the front and the back of that postcard, which is addressed to Mayor Harvey Rosen.

Category: Poker run
Brochure

The "CITY OF KINGSTON 2008 WATERFRONT PATHWAY" is the subject of a pamphlet being distributed to tourists at all the usual places.

"Kingston's Waterfront Pathway" is also the subject of a web page in the "Visitors" area of the City of Kingston Website.

Only two-thirds of the 9 (not 8) Km suggested by the brochure could actually be considered "on waterfront".

Long stretches along King Street, with no water whatsoever in evidence, are part of the suggested "waterfront" pathway.

Look closely: they suggest you walk around the K-Rock Centre as part of the waterfront tour.

That's odd, because it steers walkers away from an exquisite stretch of our waterfront: the Lasalle Causeway, the RMC grounds, then Point Frederick, then Navy Bay and its very active boating facilities, Fort Henry of course, and then Point Henry all the way around behind the Fort. Then up and around for the best vista in town, from the very top of Fort Henry Hill.

Not a word about any of that. A full 5 Km continuously by the water, including majestic elevated views of the city and the harbour. All of it walkable and cycleable. This is easily the longest uninterrupted "waterfront pathway" we've got.

But it merits no mention whatsoever in the City of Kingston tourist brochure about our walkable waterfront.

They've printed some 14,000 copies over the past two years. Here's who's responsible for grossly misrepresenting our walkable waterfront to visitors.

Respect for waterfront means never, EVER selling it short. In this town, in the Harvey Rosen era, disrespect for our waterfront is rampant.

Category: City of Kingston
Laser Worlds 1980

THIS PHOTO from the 1980 Laser Worlds is worth checking out.

Tillerman is running a caption contest for it. Nevermind the captions suggested so far, some of the comments about Kingston and CORK are interesting. When it comes to reputation, infrastructure and attention to details count for a lot.

Click for a larger version.

Trivia: who won the 1980 Laser Worlds in Kingston, and who was the top Canadian? Answer. See also Women's Worlds results.

Category: Racing

WATER LEVELS ARE STILL ABOVE AVERAGE, about a foot above last year at this time, after peaking impressively in mid-May. Mid-summer Lake Ontario Levels

The big news is upstream: Lake Superior water levels have rebounded remarkably since this time last year. Mid-summer Lake Superior Levels

Category: Water levels
Health Unit Beach Report July 2008

FINALLY the KFL&A Health Unit has a dedicated beach report web page.

Getting that took over a year. Think: pulling teeth.

Another plus: The Health Unit's page lists 41 beaches, covering a wide area.

By contrast, the City of Kingston's "Environment" page lists just 11 city beaches plus Big Sandy Bay.

But the Health Unit lists four swimming spots in the City that, for some reason, don't appear on the City website:

  • The PUC dock at the foot of Collingwood street,
  • the Collins Bay Pier,
  • Lemoine Point which, oddly, the Health Unit classifies under "Cataraqui Conservation Authority". This area is within the City of Kingston, and should be listed as such.
  • What they call "Lake Ontario Hospital", which is either behind the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, or Breakwater Park. We're supposed to guess.

So the City and the Health Unit currently aren't on the same page when it comes to keeping swimmers healthy.

Downsides: The Health Unit and the City of Kingston can't seem to agree on names for some beaches. Respect for our beaches surely starts with referring to them properly in official communications.

Here's what needs to drastically improve next because this still isn't good enough. Vital information still isn't being disclosed, like:

  • The date of the sample was collected.
  • The specific level of E.coli found, as they do in Hastings & Prince Edward Counties.
  • How, exactly, was the sample collected? Was it from a boat perhaps hundreds of feet off the beach, or within a few yards of the waterline where children actually swim?

Related: A swimmable Lake Ontario, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Podcast from June 5, 2008. This covers, in detail, what's wrong with the current state of beach reporting around Lake Ontario.

The bottom line: thanks for finally creating a web page, but we really need way better information to make choices. See, for example, the Hastings & Prince Edward Counties Health Unit beach report.

Category: Beaches

MASS-SWIM ROUNDUP

The mass swim, a wakeup call in support of Richardson Beach, happened last Tuesday, July 22nd.

Category: Beaches

GORDON ISLAND IS CLOSED TEMPORARILY because the racoon population is posing a serious threat to public safety. The island will be closed to the public from 1 p.m. on Sunday, July 27, 2008 until 11 a.m. on Friday, August 1, 2008.

Gordon Island, part of the St. Lawrence Islands National Park of Canada, is 3-miles east of Gananoque.

Category: The environment

RICHARDSON BEACH PRELIMINARY PLANS are posted. So far it's just sketches, no text.

It also appears to be mostly not about the beach, but about landscaping above the beach in the form of pathways and lookouts.

What's with the rock-bounded funnel-shaped groin in the water? The rationale for that will be interesting to hear. Someone should probably ask if the designer has ever been to a beach people actually use for swimming. Note there's no roped-off swimming area, no swimmers, and no windsurfers shown in any of the drawings.

Updated: Mixed reaction from members of on the Kingston Boardsailing Association. Boardsailors are the folks who currently use Richardson Beach the most. Among other points, the current drawings show drastic cuts to the area they need for rigging and laying-out sailboards. Richardson Beach Concept

Category: Beaches
Lake Ontario Park RFP

THE 25-PAGE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL for consulting services for the development of a master plan for Lake Ontario Park has been released by the City.

The RFP is due Wednesday, August 13, 2008.

Related:

Category: City of Kingston

EDITORIAL AND OP-ED pieces about Richardson Beach in today's Whig.

Category: Beaches
Kingston sewer bypass log from July 2008

BEACH CLOSURES are the subject of front-page stories in both The Whig and Kingston This Week today.

Read them both.

Jim Keech, president of Utilities Kingston, must think we're all stupid.

He certainly knows that Osprey Media reporters are pushovers.

Here we have the City of Kingston bypassing over 7,000 cubic meters of sewage -- over 1.5 million imperial gallons -- into our local waterways all within the past 10-days and we're led to believe the e.coli fouling our beaches must be due to birds.

It gets worse: they aren't actually metering all the City's sewer bypass points.

And our mainstream media just parrots what these ass-covering municipal suits say. Kingston: a sewage dumping municipality

For perspective, imagine 300 tanker trucks, each with 5,000 gallon capacity exactly like the one pictured here, lined-up taking turns pumping their full contents of sewage into the water. That's what 1.5 million gallons looks like. The equivalent of that happened this past week in Kingston, by the City of Kingston itself. And big-cheese Jim Keech says that e.coli has "...nothing to do with sewage" and "...the by-passes that we've had have been relatively insignificant".

Related:

Category: Beaches

THE SUMMER 2008 NEWSLETTER from Preserve Our Wrecks Kingston is available for download. Therein, among other things, is acknowledgement of the condiderable volunteer work done by the local dive community to the benefit of local tourism.

You'll also find information on the Kingston Underwater Event to be held August 8-10 at the Marine Museum and at City Hall. This is a showcase of Kingston's role as a premier freshwater dive location with a focus on diving, maritime heritage, conservation, and environmental issues.

Category: Diving
Deserted Richardson Beach, mid-afternoon, during the August 2006 heat wave

GROUP SEEKS BEACH CLEANUP is front-page in The Whig today, about the awareness-raising Mass Swim planned for July 22nd at Richardson Beach.

It's amazing that it has come to this.

The decrepit state of Richardson Beach is plainly evident to anyone who cares to look, and the outcry over our neglected beaches was widely acknowledged in the last municipal election campaign.

Category: Beaches

AT COUNCIL THIS TUESDAY: a 5-year Crawford Wharf docking agreement with St. Lawrence Cruise Lines Inc, which includes their ticket booth, for $2,200/year.

St. Larence Cruise Lines has called Kingston home since 1982. The vessel in question is the M/V Canadian Empress, a 66 passenger replica steamboat built in 1981, pictured here.

Category: City Council

GREAT RESULTS BY LOCAL ATHLETES:

Category: Racing

THIS SUMMER'S MAJOR ONE-DESIGN CHAMPIONSHIP REGATTAS are as follows:

World Championships
Contender Worlds (CORK August 18 - 23)
North American Championships
29er (CORK August 16 - 20)
470 (CORK August 17 - 20)
Flying Dutchman (CORK August 21 - 24)
Canadian Championships
29er (KYC July 26-27)
Etchells (CORK August 7-10)
Contender (CORK August 16 - 17)
F18 (CORK August 21 - 24)
49er (CORK August 21 - 24)
Albacore (CORK September 19 - 21)

This is somewhat different than the list posted back on February 29th; then the Laser, Laser Radial, and Laser 4.7 North Americans were thought to be coming here, but end-up in San Fransico. Also in the interim, the 49er North Americans turned into the 49er Canadians.

Category: Racing
Screwed-up beach report

The CITY OF KINGSTON BEACH REPORT continues to be a complete screwup.

Boys and girls, how hard is it to maintain a simple list, as inadequate as that is compared to the extensive service lake swimmers get in Toronto?

Moreover the City of Kingston's beach report is still linking to a non-existent page at the Health Unit's old website address.

Related: Another summer of ad-hoc Kingston beach reports from June 23rd.

Category: Beaches

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES AT CORK.

Volunteering at CORK is always special. Many CORK volunteers gladly return year after year. Everyone you'll meet there is a giver.

Category: Racing

STILL SOME JUNIOR SAILING CAMP OPENINGS AT KYC for the White Sail I & II sailing program for the 2-week session beginning June 30th. Pass the word.

AT THE KINGSTON PUBLIC HEARING of the International Board of Control, which was held Tuesday evening at City Hall, speakers expressed overwhelming support in favour of Plan B+.

Plan B+ is the lake water-level management scheme which would see generally more water retained in Lake Ontario, for longer periods, under a wide range of conditions, especially during fair weather seasons.

Call it "the keep more water here plan". It's also the plan computer models show as having the higher range of water levels -- the highest highs, but also the lowest lows -- during the boating season. It's also the plan favoured by many environmental groups.

But many who have built in places that prudence would never advise aren't keen on Plan B+. Some were here in Kingston City Hall on Tuesday night too.

Plan B+ and Plan 2007 compared under average and extreme high and low-water conditions.

Category: Water levels
KLFA Health Unit home page

ANOTHER SUMMER OF AD-HOC KINGSTON BEACH REPORTS, it seems.

The Health Unit Communications Officer, Mr Justin Chenier, has made it very clear: there are currently no plans for a link, nevermind a dedicated page, about local beaches on the Health Unit website. Don't even think about it; it's not on the radar.

If you need the latest on local beaches, you'll need to root through the Health Unit's news dispatches, essentially fending for yourself, interpreting the fragmentary disclosures therein. Assuming you find it at all.

Also, this Health Unit declares beaches unsafe, but does not explicitly declare them safe again. So faced with, say, a 5-day old beach report, what should one conclude?

Alternately, you could consult this City of Kingston web page (found via "Residents", then "Environment", not "Recreation") which provides a list, but with no date-of-update and no other cues, so information freshness is always in doubt here. This same page showed Lake Ontario Park Beach and Rotary Park Beach closed for most of the winter, a sign that keeping this list fresh certainly wasn't any sort of priority last year.

The City web page currently links to the Health Unit's old website address (http://www.healthunit.on.ca/programs/environ.html) which, like all references to the old website, redirects to the current home page where, assuming the beach news hasn't scrolled-off, you might find more beach-related information in the 4-item news-area found there.

This is all very sloppy. There's no possible excuse for this.

Now look at Toronto: they do it better. Toronto has:

Here in Kingston, don't even think of making suggestions for the Health Unit website: they are evidently only interested in hearing themselves tell you how great the KFL&A Health Unit website is. You'll be talking with God's gift to local beach users. That's got to change.

Related:

All this is emblematic of how much our municipal and local bureaucracies, at every level, need a swift kick-in-the-butt when it comes to respecting our waterfront and its users.

See also: You snooze, you lose -- Kingston's disappearing waterfront. This beach-report situation is more evidence that some nine-to-fivers among us are evidently auto-stumbling through their waterfront-related dossiers.

Category: Beaches
THE RAVENSVIEW PROJECT JUNE 2008 NEWSLETTER is available. These are always interesting; this one is four pages with lots of pictures.
Category: City of Kingston

THE EASTERN ONTARIO ARTIFICIAL REEF ASSOCIATION seeks on-line petition signatures in support of the sinking of the destroyer HMCS Terra Nova which, apparently, isn't a done-deal yet.

The scuttling is supposed to be just off Browns Bay Provincial Park, near Mallorytown on the 1000 Islands Parkway.

Add your name to the list of signators and support this.

Category: Diving

ROTATED AND UNREADABLE is Major Capital Projects (Schedule B) in this week's Council documents. Inside, zooming-in and squinting, are the following tallies:

JK Tett Building$13.0 million in 2010
Lake Ontario Park upgrades$8.5 millionthrough 2013
Deep Sea Dock$7.0 million through 2012
Waterfront land aquisition/trail development$3.0 million through 2011
9 North Street, the Imperial Warehouse$1.5 million through 2010

If you could, how would you allocate $30 over 5-years? How much of that would you put on the Tett Centre? Lake Ontario Park? Waterfront acquisition? Some major capital projects near Kingston's waterfront

Updated: The city cleaned-up and re-posted the document, and readability is much improved.

Category: City of Kingston
Kingston Ontario waterfront exclusion zone for the 2008 Snowbirds airshow

HERE'S THE SNOWBIRDS AIRSHOW SAFETY ZONE in Kingston Harbour.

The airshow is scheduled for Wednesday, June 18 from 6:30 to 7:15 p.m. exactly.

The exclusion zone isn't boater friendly; it prevents virtually all boat circulation near Kingston.

Click for a larger version.

Category: The Snowbirds

Here are visitation and service details for Bud Gormley, past chairman of CORK and past commodore of KYC, who passed away June 9th.

Bud Gormley was 72 years-old.

Category: Obituary

The Waterfront Challenge is a national [ed: actually, North American] competition to encourage people who care about their local waterfront, to improve their local waterfront.

The Challenge is designed for any group of three or more people who want to spend a minimum of two days of their lives improving their local waterfront and encouraging others to do the same. Projects should be new, and make some part of your waterfront an environmentally better place.

Seven regional awards of $5,000 each will be presented, along with a separate grand prize of $25,000. Canada is considered a region. Projects must be completed by November 5 2008.

Category: The environment
Museum of Underwatre Archaeology

THE MUSEUM OF UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY is a cool outreach by underwater archaeologists and maritime historians. It's an example of how the web is bringing otherwise obscure science and history to a wider audience.

They are currently conducting research in Lake Ontario on wrecks near Kingston. A recent jourunal entry from May 2008 describes work off Carleton Island, on the other side of Wolfe Island near Cape Vincent.

This entry from July 2007 has an intriguing drawing of Kingston waterfront circa 1813, looking from downtown over to RMC and Fort-Henry hill, pre-fort. Here's the larger version of the drawing.

Category: History

In the Whig today, this story about a move by the Kingston Historical Society to rename Breakwater Park after Lt.-Col. John Bradstreet, the British officer who led the battle to overthrow Fort Frontenac 250-years ago this August.

The French among us may not be amused by this idea. John Bradstreet had 3,000 men at his disposal against 110 French soldiers garrisoned inside the Fort.

Maybe this park could be renamed in perpetuity after present-day narcissists for the equivalent of one-sixth the cost of a single renovation. Like what's happened to Market Square. Here's a reminder how that went down. For history's sake.

Category: Parks
Kingston Ontario third crossing RFI

HERE'S THE ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT R.F.I. for the third crossing of the Great Cataraqui River (10 pages). Submissions are due by June 25th.

The proposed period of environmental assessment is between November 2008 and December 2010, which ends just beyond this term of Council.

Category: City of Kingston

AN ONGOING WRECK SURVEY IN NAVY BAY, from the Dolphins Scuba Club, and more from Preserve Our Wrecks.

Category: History

TOKEN PARK PROPOSAL IS A WATERFRONT DOWNGRADE, says a thoughtful reader commenting on Kingston's Disappearing Waterfront. Block D docking, pre Token Park

Here's the problem:

In prior years, the seawalls of Block D, some 200 linear meters worth, were commonly used for docking, including docking very large boats. The Block D seawall was also used for RC model boat competitions.

The current proposal for Token Park has the seawall finished with stone boulders, just like most of Kingston's waterfront.

Which begs these questions:

  1. Why does this shoreline, already well under cover of the Confederation Basin boulder breakwall, need to have a boulder-block finish?

  2. Doesn't Kingston have enough inacessible boulder seawalls already?
  3. Why is the City of Kingston apparently settling for the minimum-cost-to-Brit-Smith option while rendering 200m of shoreline completely inaccessible and dysfunctional?
Detail of Token Park seawalls
Category: Block D
Kingston's disappearing waterfront

KINGSTON'S DISAPPEARING WATERFRONT is the subject of a new K7 article that lists Kingston public waterfront attributes recently lost, at risk of loss, or in flux.

It's not pretty; it's all happening fast.

You snooze, you lose.

See for yourself.

Category: Accessibility
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper

FISHING AT THE BARRICADES PART 1 and PART 2 are two interesting recent podcasts from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper on the state of fishing in Lake Ontario.

Lake Ontario covers 7,540 square miles. There is very little commercial fishery activity on the Canadian side, and no commercial fishery at all based on the the American side. Not so long ago, there was lots.

Subscribe to the Living At the Barricades Podcast via iTunes.

Category: The environment
Don't rock the boat event 2008

LITO OCHOTORENA'S FLICKR PAGE has some good photos of yesterday's annual "Don't Rock the Boat" water safety event at Collins Bay Marina.

On K7's Flickr page you can find a photo of the event's man-overboard demonstration, as well as pictures of last weekend's visit by HMCS Kingston taken by Mike Hill and Geoff Webster.

Category: Boating
Category: Water levels

UPDATE: Here's a photo, courtesy of photographer Geoff Webster, of yesterday's christening of Nathan Baron's boat "number 680" in honour of The Boys and Girls Club of Canada.

Here are recent photos of the boat in the shop for its winter re-fit.

The Mini Transat is a single-handed yacht race from La Rochelle France to Salvador Brazil. Current plans have the team soon training in Annapolis and racing in the double-handed race from Annapolis to Bermuda Ocean Race (BOR), which starts June 13th, with Nathan Baron and Greg van Rossem aboard.

Category: Racing

A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TENDER to repair "St. Lawrence Seawall" at CFB Kingston.

Does anybody know the location of this particular seawall? E-mail.

Category: Shoreline

INSIDE LOOK AT THE LAFARGE TIRE-BURNING CASE is a very interesting podcast from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. A good summary of where we stand, and don't stand.

Download the 12.5 Mb MP3 file which runs 27:19 minutes. You can also subscribe to Lake Ontario Waterkeeper podcasts with iTunes.

Category: The environment
IJC Plans

A PRIMER ON IJC PLANS is a new K7 page that shows how Lake Ontario water levels in two plans still under consideration by the International Joint Commission differ from the plan we've had for the past 50 years.

Category: Water levels

THE SPINY WATER FLEA is the subject of an interesting article in The Whig yesterday.

Anglers on local lakes are being asked to let their lines, nets and other gear dry completely between fishing expeditions to prevent the spread of a parasite that a Queen's University researcher (Dr. Shelley Arnott) fears is taking over Ontario's lakes.

The same proscription presumably applies to boats and trailers.

Category: The environment
Students building the Phoebe exhibit shelter

A HOME FOR THE PHOEBE is the title for a front-page colour photo in Friday's Kingston This Week.

Students in the Building Construction Internship Program heritage carpentry class secure a piece onto one of four large timber trusses that will support the roof of a 22x60 foot exhibit pavillion. The shelter at the rear of the Pump House Stream Museum will house the restored steamboat Phoebe. The group of 12 students should have the building complete by the end of the school year.

Related: This diagram of the exhibit shelter from last September.

Category: History
Confederation Basin Marina B-Dock

AT COUNCIL ON TUESDAY is the recommendation to use Black Bird Holding, LTD of Belleville for replacing B-dock at Confederation Basin.

They beat other bids from Goderich and Peterborough.

Category: Marinas
MetalCraft Marne FS 30 Victoria BC

METALCRAFT MARINE'S NEW FIREBOAT FOR VICTORIA is their first fireboat built for service in Canada.

One fireboat in forty built so far. All told, MetalCraft Marine have built over 500 hulls.

Category: Working waterfront

IT'S BEEN A WHILE, likely since 1998, that we've had such high water on Lake Ontario.

High Lake Ontario water levels

Category: Water levels

A FRESH MAKEOVER for the CORK website.

Category: Racing

LAKE ONTARIO PARK CLEANUP, by the Friends of Lake Ontario Park and all interested volunteers, is planned for this Friday (April 25) from 1 to 4 pm.

It's 37 acres, and it's worth doing.

Bags and gloves are available at the 'long house' anytime after 1 pm.

Related: Lake Ontario Park, looking for a plan from March 23rd.

Category: Parks
New shed for Ahoy Rentals under construction

THE NEW SHED FOR AHOY RENTALS is currently under construction behind the Marine Museum.

Ahoy Rentals' new shed is shifted West to accommodate a new timber frame exhibit shelter for the Phoebe.

Here are links to the Ahoy Rentals and the Phoebe restauration project websites.

Category: Working waterfront

SCUBA DIVING MAGAZINE has a brief article on diving near Kingston, now online from its March issue. The article covers three wrecks: The George A. Marsh, The Comet, and The Wolfe Islander II.

From the introduction:

With upward of 24 known moored wrecks, including schooners, barges and passenger ships, Kingston, Ontario, is a tempting destination for cold-water wreck divers. In fact, more than 400 ships are known to have wrecked in the area.

Category: Diving

Well worth reading each spring: SHOCKING NEWS ABOUT COLD WATER.

  • Nine elite marines, water survival instructors, capsized in 36 degree water wearing sweatsuits and no PFDs. None of them survived the attempted 100 yard swim to shore.
  • Sixteen (16) Danish fishermen jumped into the icy waters of the North Sea when their trawler sank in a storm. They were in the water for a 2 - 3 hours before being rescued. They walked across the deck of the rescue vessel and went down into the galley to warm up. Each and every one collapsed and died in the galley.
  • An average adult person has a 50/50 chance of surviving a 50 yard swim in 50F water.
  • A 50 year-old person in 50F water has a 50/50 chance of surviving for 50 minutes.

The water temperature in Kingston Harbour is currently about 40F.

Read the whole thing. Stay safe.

Category: Boating

TWO LOCAL SAILORS, Audrey Kobayashi and Robert Davis, recently learned they'll receive Quest for Gold Carding and funding from the provinvial Ministry of Health Promotion.

Category: Racing
Molly Brant stamp

JOSEPH AND MOLLY BRANT are subjects in the latest Thousand Island Life, now online.

This is circa 1783. Relatively recent by some local waterfront standards.

Category: The region

IDLING BOATS are covered in a proposed by-law to control the idling of vehicles and boats, still in committee at City Hall.

They've received several comments about how boats, with no breaks, need to idle engines to a warm state for safety reasons, since stalling leaves few options. So here's the exemption that addresses that:

4.4 Vehicles or boats where idling is required to repair or prepare the vehicle or boat for service

Category: City Council

NEW WEBSITE for Preserve Our Wrecks, Kingston. Adjust your bookmarks, the URL is new: http://powkingston.org

Related: Preserve Our Wrecks, Kingston blog.

Category: Diving
Utilities Kingston Bypass Log

ON THE LEFT you see the Bypass Log For The City of Kingston.

It's reduced to 500 pixels high so you can see it in one view.

The red box is where they put the "news" about the immense sewer dumping tally of the past three weeks.

Visitors need to scroll way down to see it, past several cues that suggest the page is stale, two months out of date.

Pollution disclosure, City of Kingston-style:

Bypass table 3 April 3 2008

Right:"Table 3" from April 3.
It lists 5 events.

( See it full-size here, from our April 4th news item.)

Bypass table 3 April 7 2008

Right:"Table 3" from April 7.
It now lists just 4 events.

One new row has appeared, a small spill, but two rows have scrolled-off.

Vanished: 57,000 m^3 -- 12.5 MILLION gallons of sewage dumped barely 2-weeks ago.

Category: The environment

THE BRIGANTINE St Lawrence II is busy, judging by their Spring work program.

The Summer 2008 schedule starts on Lake Erie and extends to Lake Huron and Georgian Bay before sailing back to Kingston in August.

Category: The Brigantine
City of Kingston recent sewage dumps into Lake Ontario

MASSIVE SEWAGE DUMPING by the City of Kingston over the past several days.

The dumping of the past few days has exceeded the tally for all of 2007 by a considerable margin.

Dumping for 2008 year-to-date is way ahead of ALL of 2006 and 2007 combined.

Word from the Dolphins Scuba club is, at West Street, this is a visibly nasty flow of immense quantities of fecal matter, toilet paper and sanitary supplies.

Shame on the City of Kingston for its massive spending on things like OHL arenas, squares, and theatres, and so today we continue to despoil a natural lake.

No word yet about this from local mainstream media.

Finally, shame on Utilities Kingston for placing this information way down on their combined sewer overflows bypass log.

When you look at the initial viewpane for that page, you see nothing recent worthy of note. You need to scroll way down to see the real news.

They call it a "bypass log". It's nothing like a bypass log. It's a selective and obfuscated tally, with no links to details.

Related: don't barf when you read this.

Category: The environment
Category: Diving
Hub Steenbakkers, CMM

HUB STEENBAKKERS DESIGNATED AS A CERTIFIED MARINA MANAGER.

From Boating Industry Canada:

The CMM designation is a professional qualification and certification program assuring marina customers, investors, bankers, insurers and the public that marina properties are professionally managed and run. The award follows his completion of the Advanced Marina Management course, providing training in site planning, marina-development skills, marina-operation techniques, business strategies, risks and liabilities and environmental policies. Hub becomes only the 4th person in Canada and the 212th person in the world to attain this certification since the programs inception in 1992.

Hub owns and operates Collins Bay Marina.

Category: Marinas

POSTPONED: The Crew overboard! seminar, originally scheduled for March 28th, is postponed to May 31. The new programme will include on-water practice following the seminar.

Category: Lectures
LOP Terms of Reference

LAKE ONTARIO PARK MASTER PLAN - TERMS OF REFERENCE is a 7-page report just released by the City staff for a committee meeting later this week.

The Terms of Reference for the next phase are focused on finding a viable way of putting in place the vision and planning principles agreed to in the visioning exercise. The Phase I Planning Study achieved its goal of reaching a consensus on the future of Lake Ontario Park. Phase 2 of the park redevelopment process has three objectives which are:

  • To develop and recommend a multi-year strategic direction and plan for the revitalization and rejuvenation of the park as a public community facility;
  • To ensure ongoing and inclusive community consultation throughout the development of the plan and the related implementation strategy; and
  • To develop and recommend a long-term financing and budget strategy for the capital construction and operating costs necessary to implement and maintain the recommended development plan.

Totally unlike, say, City marinas.

Category: Parks
Kingston Marinas RFP

Request for proposal: MARINA SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY AND BUSINESS PLAN (29 pages) released by The City of Kingston 9 days ago (March 10th).

But the RFP is still not posted on the City of Kingston Tenders, RFPs and RFIs web page.

Update: The RFP was finally posted sometime after 3:30 PM on March 19th.

When it comes to City Marinas we've seen BS like this before.

Category: Marinas

NOTES FROM THE TELECONFERENCE held yesterday evening, March 18th, 2008 which was very well run by the International St Lawrence River Board of Control from a central meeting place in Rochester.

Thanks to Mike Hill of the Dolphins for providing the notes.

Category: Water levels

THE PRESERVE OUR WRECKS, KINGSTON BLOG was just launched today.

This is the first post to what I hope will become an active and informative resource for everyone interested in respecting and protecting the maritime heritage of Kingston, Ontario and neighbouring waters.

Mike Hill

Mike is also one of the folks behind the truly excellent Kingston Dolphins Scuba Club Blog.

Don't be surprised to see the important work of Preserve Our Wrecks brought squarely to the forefront of the ongoing public conversations about our waterfront.

Category: Diving
Category: The region
MetalCraft Marine MLB on Global-TV

FROM METALCRAFT MARINE NEWS: A new TV series on Global-TV titled The Guard features, in a very big way, a 47-foot MetalCraft Marine-built search and rescue motor life boat.

From the MetalCraft website:

The aluminum MLB is a 26 knot self-righting seach and rescue craft designed for Sea State 8.

Category: Working waterfront
Confederation Basin Marina B-Dock

CITY OF KINGSTON REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL for partial dock replacement of "B" Dock at Confederation Basin Marina.

Interestingly this item apparently doesn't appear in the marinas section of the 2007-08 Municipal Capital Budget.

A a six-year Confederation Basin refurbishment program began in 2006.

Category: Marinas
Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame logo

THE KINGSTON AND DISTRICT SPORTS HALL OF FAME WEBSITE is online, featuring 111 inductees since its establishment in 1996.

You might prefer its Wikipedia article if being spoon-fed the list 20-inductees at a time isn't your bag.

Of the 111 inductees, just 6 have been elected for performance in, or contributions to, waterfront-related sports and, of those, just 2 are inducted as athletes.

Rowing

Sailing

Here's the Nominations page.

Category: History
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper

WE ALL NEED CERTAINTY...AND A SWIMABLE, DRINKABLE, FISHABLE KINGSTON is a wrap of recent Lake Ontario Waterkeeper activity in the area, including the Lafarge tire-burning issue.

Bet you didn't know that Lake Ontario Waterkeeper started in Kingston.

Category: The environment
Ian Coristine desktop image March 2008

A STUNNING DESKTOP IMAGE from Ian Coristine, available for download in the following screen sizes: 1152 x 864, 1280 x 800 or 1680 x 1050.

The best story which also explains its location will earn a set of 6 prints.

Read more on the photography of Ian Coristine, who's been capturing the Thousand Islands region for more than 15 years.

Related: the photos festooned throughout the Thousand Islands Life e-zine.

Category: The region

SILVER for Canada's Oskar Johansson and Kevin Stittle at the Tornado Worlds in New Zeland.

Ahead: Hyeres (April), Medemblik (May), Kiel (June) and Qingdao for the Olympic regatta in August.

Category: Racing

THIS YEAR'S LIST OF KINGSTON'S NOTABLE SAILING REGATTAS is looking very good indeed.

KYC is hosting EYC for keelboats in July, and CORK has posted this list of 2008 regattas booked so far:

World Championships
Contender Worlds (August 16 - 23)
North American Championships
Laser (August 16 - 20)
Laser Radial (August 16 - 20)
29er (August 16 - 20)
470 (August 17 - 20)
Flying Dutchman (August 21 - 24)
49er (August 21 - 24)
Canadian Championships
Contender (August 16 - 17)
F18 (August 21 - 24)
Albacore (September 19 - 21)
49er (August 21 - 24)

The last time Kingston hosted so many North American Championships was in 1999.

Is there a city in Canada that hosts more international sporting championships than Kingston?

Category: Racing
A Challenge from Collins Bay Marina

A CHALLENGE FROM COLLINS BAY MARINA in support of the International Water Levels Coalition (IWLC).

The IWLC is a citizens group that acts as a watchdog and advocate on water level issues to the International Joint Commission (IJC) and International St. Lawrence River Board of Control (ISLRBC).

The IWLC mission is tremendously important, but their membership, especially in Canada, is quite small. This year, Collins Bay Marina took steps to help expand that membership and strengthen their voice on our behalf.

The challenge is to other marinas and clubs to urge their members to support the IWLC.

We would like to challenge each marina, association, boating business and yacht club on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario to mount a similar membership drive for the IWLC. Aware citizens, active in making our needs known to government, are the only route we have to protecting our waters, our recreation and our businesses.

Read the challenge and sign-up to become a IWLC member (Cost: $10).

Category: The environment

THE 1000 ISLANDS POKER RUN is currently scheduled for Friday and Saturday August 8-9.

That's just two days, compared to last year's 3-days.

As usual, it overlaps with the CORK PHRF and One-Design Keelboat Regatta, which makes no sense whatsoever.

It is also immediately prior to the CORK Optimist Dinghy Championship, when lots of youth sailors are on the water practicing. For many young sailors and their parents, it's an obnoxious introduction to Kingston's waterfront.

Category: Poker run
LAKE ONTARIO WATERKEEPER IN KINGSTON on Friday and Saturday. Live at the barricades
  • This Friday, February, 22, 2008, from 2:00-3:00pm, Waterkeeper brings its weekly radio show - Living at the Barricades - to The Grad Club in Kingston, ON. Very special guests and musicians will join hosts Mark Mattson and Krystyn Tully for an exciting and inspiring live broadcast entitled: "Beyond the Barricades: The promise of a swimable, drinkable, fishable Kingston."

    Free Admittance. Please join us!
    162 Barrie St. in Kingston, 2:00-3:00pm
    Contact: Avi Grand (Producer)
    barricades@waterkeeper.ca

  • Saturday February 23, Waterkeeper will have a booth at the Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre where The Tragically Hip will play the venue's first live concert. Enter a draw for a signed Kingston Frontenacs jersey, pick up a copy of At the Barricades: Volume 1, chat with Waterkeeper staff, and enjoy the show!
Category: The environment
Spy satellite track

DECAYING SPY SATELLITE USA 193 was shot-down by the US military on Wednesday night.

Just two and a half orbits prior to its scheduled demise, USA 193 had a 1.3 magnitude visible pass almost directly over Kingston.

To the right is USA 193's location just after the pass.

Category: The sky
Thousand Islands Life

THE FEBRUARY 2008 EDITION OF THOUSAND ISLANDS LIFE is online with, as usual, some stunning photographs.

Notable articles this month include Ghosts of Fort Henry, Elusive Eels, and Island Names.

Looking back in the archive we see in January: Sinking a Scuba Mecca about HMCS Terra Nova, New Gananoque Boat Museum which is on hold, and Low Water.

Excellent.

Category: The region

LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVELS are looking good again, especially considering all the snow on the ground in the Great Lakes basin.

Currently Lake Ontario levels are about average for this time of year, after a period of abnormally low water last fall.

The good news is Lake Ontario levels are 10-inches above predictions from three months ago.

The bad news: the big lakes upstream are still far below their seasonal averages. Lake Superior is 10-inches below average, and lakes Michigan and Huron are about 20-inches low. Lake Ontario Water Levels, February 2008 Upper Great Lake Water Levels, February 2008

Category: The environment
Cartright Point

CARTWRIGHT POINT IS ON COUNCIL AGENDA for the Tuesday February 5th meeting.

The purpose of the application is to allow the adjustment of property boundaries with the effect of reducing the number of lots from 37 lots to 14 parcels in order to recognize the location of homes, water wells, septic systems and vehicle paths. Lots are being merged, lot lines are being adjusted and rights-of-way are being created. No new homes or building lots are being created. However, the legal descriptions of the properties will result in a form that is suitable for convenient conveyance.

That's really sweet waterfront, right there.

There's a sweetner involved, though why it's there isn't mentioned. Moreover its location isn't marked in the exhibits.

The Owner also proposes to donate a parcel of land to the City in order to allow access to the shore line of Deadman's Bay. The site is acceptable to the Parks Department.

Category: City Council
Contender World Championships 2008 in Kingston

CONTENDER WORLDS 2008 is a new blog about the International Contender Class world championship regatta which will be held here this August.

Their dates are:

  • August 16-17 - Contender Canadians
  • August 18 - Measurement
  • August 19-23 - Contender Worlds

Here are the results for the 2001 Contender Worlds in Kingston which was a 31-boat event won by Arthur Brett of Australia, with the top North American finishing 14th.

Category: Racing

IT'S NOT TOO COLD TO DIVE, or to partake in an ice diving course.

Category: Diving
Point Pleasant Water Treatment Plant

NOTICE FROM THE CITY about the expansion of the Point Pleasant water treatment plant.

A Public Information Centre will be held at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour Press Lounge from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, January 30, 2008, to allow the public to meet the project team, discuss the study objectives and to receive comments and input.

See also What's behind and under these ugly buildings? from April 2007, and the Urban Area Water Supply Master Plan which is a comprehensive overview with many interesting charts and diagrams.

Category: The environment

KEDCO'S KINGSTON ONTARIO WATERFRONT WEBSITE IS BACK ONLINE.

Here's the current home page.

Your tax dollars at work; five-figure dollars worth.

Apparently nothing's changed since last November when this first came to light, then immediately taken offline.

It would be interesting to find out: who is well-served by misleading potential visitors to Kingston?

Note the adult and two kids, in a what appears to be a 15-foot canoe, mid-Harbour at dusk in imminent weather. Seriously, how improbable is that? How wise is that?

International-14 class sailboats haven't actively sailed here for quite some time; all "14" sailboats come here from out-of-town, and they are here maybe one-weekend a year. The boat pictured here is Toronto-based, shown in no-wind, flat-calm conditions, which is insulting, a bit like picturing a slalom skier in a farmer's field.

Underwater here isn't blue, it's green or, if anything, it's dark green. There's blue-water diving, but certainly not anywhere near here.

Adding just one more link-button to that web page looks very expensive. Guess how many files you'd need to touch to add another little box to the left of the canoe.

Is the KEDCO "blue belt" website like other websites KEDCO isn't able to maintain?

Take a guess: what percentage of visitors to Kingston ever get their feet wet in Kingston Harbour? A single-digit percentage? One-in-fifty, perhaps?

Take another guess: what percentage of Kingston residents ever get their feet wet in Kingston Harbour over the course of a typical year?

Do you suppose it might be because of fundamental waterfront inaccessibilities that exist here? Just who is KEDCO trying to kid?

It's one thing to try and lure visitors here, but it's quite another to be overtly dishonest about what we really have to offer.

The movers behind this "blue belt" website, Ross Cameron, Don Curtis, and KEDCO, are the very same folks who thought putting the LVEC on waterfront, expropriating MetalCraft Marine, totally eliminating Kingston Marina, and comandeering part of Fluhrer Park for the LVEC was a fine idea.

Category: KEDCO

A TOKEN PARK IDEA from a reader. This is downtown Budapest, on the Danube. Token Park Idea Token Park Idea

At the moment, the plan for Token Park is for a large rubble-rock shoreline, which is inaccessible, ugly, and ubiquitous around here.

In addition to adding a real sense of connection to the water, steps would make Token Park a little bigger, and opens the possibility of using the large, wide-open anchorage as a staging area, or as a competition area complete with viewing stands of sorts.

More on Token Park here.

Category: Block D

THE AGM OF PRESERVE OUR WRECKS, KINGSTON is to be held at 1 pm on Sunday, March 2nd in the Ft Henry Room of the Day's Inn at Hwy 401 off Division St.

Light refreshments will be served to members attending.

Category: Diving

THE ONTARIO SAILING AGM, held at the Toronto Boat Show last weekend, brought some good news and accolades for sailors from Kingston:

  • The Kingston Yacht Club was named as one of three province-wide High Performance Centres and Centres of Excellence. This is an effort to raise the bar and provide a better service to athletes and help them achieve their goals with the ultimate goal of the association to graduate sailors to the National Olympic Team.
  • Robert Davis (his biography here) of the Kingston Yacht Club was named 2007 Youth Sailor of the Year.
  • Corey Lynam of the Kingston Yacht Club is the 2007 recipient of the Angus (Bud) Roulstone Leadership Award, presented to a (current) certified CYA Instructor/Coach who has shown exceptional leadership in a learn-to-sail or racing program.
Category: Racing

AN EVENING OF CANOE STORIES WITH JAMES RAFFAN, is a free lecture sponsored by the Friends of Frontenac Park, on Thursday February 7th in the Wilson Room, Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Central Branch, 130 Johnson Street, at 7 pm. All are welcome.

James Raffan is a respected author and outdoor educator who has written and edited numerous best-selling books, including " Fire in the Bones: Bill Mason and the Canadian Canoeing Tradition" and " Deep Waters".

The canoe stories will be about Herb Pohl and Sir George Simpson, two iconic Canadian canoeists who are the subjects of " The Lure of Faraway Places: Reflections on Wilderness and Solitude" and "Solitude and Emperor of the North", his two most recent books, published in 2007

Category: History

TOKEN PARK CONCEPT PLANS have finally been posted on the City website.

Download the Phase 1 concepts and the Phase 2 concepts.

Observation: You've got to love how this city does business.

  • It plans a public meeting with no documents posted online beforehand.
  • At the meeting, attendees must queue to have a brief chance to look at diagrams.
  • Then attendees must sit-through the orchestrated sales-pitch.

By not posting plans before the meeting, this assures an unprepared and uninformed audience at the meeting, all the better minimize the chance of derailing pre-conceived development plans.

This is really how our waterfront got so ruined: one step at a time. That's how Block-D got stuffed with tall buildings, and that's how the rest of us ended-up with a token-park.

Token Park Phase I concept Token Park Phase II concept

Here we have a "proposed marina building" with no connection whatsoever to the marina. The foot of the nearest dock, on the west-side of the Radisson Hotel, is 245 m away. The foot of the main docks, on Clarence Street, is over 520m away. That's going to be a great marina building, don't you think? Token Park Marina Building Walk

Here is detail of the juncture between Token Park and the stone breakwater that surrounds Confederation Marina. Note the utter lack of vision: there's plenty of usable space on the stone breakwater. Waterfront cities world-wide that "get it" have piers and breakwalls people can walk on. But in Kingston? Nah! Token Park is really a dog park, a place where the condo owner's pets can "go", nevermind that there's acres of great waterfront space out on the stone breakwall. Token Park Marina Stone Breakwater

Category: Block D

ACCOUNT OF THE TOKEN PARK (BLOCK-D) PUBLIC MEETING in Thursday's Whig Standard.

Update: Here's a transcript of an item titled Block Park from CKWS-TV News.

Category: Block D

FRIENDS OF THE PHOEBE 10TH ANNIVERSARY, Sunday January 27th, 2-4, at the Kingston Public Library, Johnson Street.

Music, Silent Auction, Exhibits, Refreshments, Door Prizes, anniversary gift for every ticket holder.

Tickets $5.00 per person, phone 613-4154 or at the door.

Category: History
planning for wind turbines on Front Road in Kingston

STILL IN PLANNING: This is not new, but a reminder about three waterside 100-meter wind turbines being proposed for the Invista property at 455 Front Road. This item appears on the agenda for the next City of Kingston Planning Committee meeting.

It seems surprising that, in the context of the large Invista plant and the location of the turbines, that a noise report would be required here.

Category: City Council
Brigantine Inc Documentary trailer

MOVIE TRAILER FOR ST-LAWRENCE II, THE MOVIE
(turn-up the audio).

It's a soon-to-be-released documentary about Brigantine Inc's St-Lawrence II.

Also visit The Brigantine's donations page. In addition to cash donations, they can use all of the follwing things that might be cluttering your home or office:

  • laser printer, TV & VCR for classroom, digital slide projector
  • sextant, 3-arm protractors (x 4)
  • paint, line, flashlights, buckets, scrub brushes, sand paper, and flares.

Update: The sound track in the trailer is Sleepy Maggie by Ashley Macisaac.

Category: The Brigantine

A PUBLIC MEETING ABOUT TOKEN PARK (BLOCK D) is to be held January 16, 2008, Memorial Hall, City Hall, 7 p.m.

There's nothing new on the City website other than the meeting announcement. Nonetheless,

Written comments will be received at blockdpark@cityofkingston.ca until Friday, Feb. 15.

Here's the only concept ever posted on the Internet.

A concept diagram for a new park on the Kingston Ontario waterfront, at the Block D site

Here's the wider context, which was never presented in the Token Park process. Kingston Block D in 2004

Category: Block D

THE ORANGE BOWL INTERNATIONAL YOUTH REGATTA RESULTS show Greg Clunies and Robert Davis, both sailing for KYC, finishing 5th and 7th respectively in a 40-boat fleet, with each scoring a bullet in the 9-race series.

Category: Racing

HERE'S A STATUS REPORT from Nathan Baron.

Category: Racing

The CFB KINGSTON DOLPHIN SCUBA CLUB remains very active with diving throughout the winter.

Yesterday, for example, members dove off the Kingston Yacht Club during the day and then practiced in the KMCSC pool in the evening.

The Dolphins regularly post accounts and photos on their blog, and they occasionally update their photo gallery on Flickr which has, among other things, a photoset of members ice diving in Kingston Harbour last February.

Incidentally, though it's a military club, it's membership is open to all Kingston residents. A yearly associate membership costs $65.00 for civilians, $45.00 if you're between 14 and 21.

The CFB Kingston Dolphin Scuba Club is one of the truly great things about the Kingston waterfront. Active year-round, its members always seem to be collaborating with others on the waterfront, and they have been systematically sharing what they do, see, and find.

Category: Diving
Kiteboarding Kingston - Riding Map

Someone created a Google KITEBOARDING KINGSTON - RIDING MAP. Big Sandy Bay is mis-identified, but the rest is great.

For example:

PUC Dock

Kingston's most popular summer launch site, good from east through west on the south side of the compass, best in SW winds...but it really comes to life in a true west once the swell gets bigger and cleans up a bit. Best catagorized as "bump and jump" with a nice little carvatorium on the inside at the pipe.

Though this is a very accessible launch it is an intermediate level spot at least. There is a slight current, and limited landing spots downwind. Jump off the dock to launch, but make sure you make it in before the last little beach upwind of the hospital! If you miss that your best bet is to ride it out and come in WAAAAY downwind at the base of Fort Henry. Not a bad planned downwinder for those on the early stages of the learning curve. Bring a quarter and call a cab from the pay phone at the entrance to the fort to get back to the PUC docks.

Wild.

Related: Here's a Google Earth File of Lake Ontario Windsurf Spots compiled by Evan Wamsley.

Category: Boardsailing

APPROVAL OF 2008 CITY MARINA FEES is also on Council's agenda for Tuesday evening. It's on page 38 of the report if the link doesn't bring you directly there.

Category: Marinas

THE LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH AHOY RENTALS LTD. is on Council's agenda for Tuesday evening.

It appears that the timber frame exhibit shelter for the Phoebe is to be placed near where Ahoy Rentals is currently, so Ahoy will move southwest somewhat, with a new structure to be built there.

Ahoy will be licensed to rent out a maximum of twenty kayaks, six canoes, six sail boats (12'-16') and twelve bicycles, whereas under the former agreement eight kayaks, four canoes, eight sail boats, two windsurfers and an unspecified number of bicycles were rented from the site.

Here's the Phoebe restoration project home page and the Ahoy Rentals home page.

Category: Boating

$220,000 FOR MARINA REPAIRS IN 2008 in a Whig story today. It's all about who should ultimately pay.

But the city's deputy mayor said Kingston has to accept the fact that it is not a waterfront city.

Deputy Mayor Bill Glover said the city has ignored waterfront development and a full range of services for citizens and boaters to enjoy.

Read the whole thing.

Category: Marinas

THE SNOWBIRDS AIRSHOW is coming back to Kingston on Wednesday June 18th 2008.

Category: The Snowbirds
MetalCraft Marine fireboats featured in the Miami-Herald

MetalCraft Marine's fireboats were FRONT-PAGE NEWS IN THE MIAMI-HERALD on Friday.

Also, MetalCraft Marine's news page is quite active, and you can subscribe to its RSS feed Live bookmark.

Category: Working waterfront
Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Study Final Report, Fall 2007

The latest GREAT LAKES ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY STUDY has just been released, and it's fascinating reading.

The 128-page PDF is full of interesting discussion and schematics on the economic importance of the Seaway, environmental considerations, infrastructure, and various aspects and challenges of keeping the Seaway in operation.

In Kingston it's easy to forget about the Seaway because its shipping channel passes South of Wolfe Island, so we don't see it on a daily basis. The Seaway is just 8 1/2 miles, as the crow files, from City Hall.

Category: The seaway

Yesterday CKWS-TV News reported this:

CLEAN RIDEAU

The Rideau waterway has scored high marks in a just-released survey on water quality.

Environment Canada compiled samples from rivers across the country. And it gives the Rideau a 75 out of 100.

Memo to CKWS-TV News: That's not what the report says. Canadian Environmental Sustainabiolity Indicators 2007

You can find the 67-page report here: Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators -- released Dec 6 2007.

Assuming that CKWS-TV News is accurate about the rideau scoring "75 out of 100", then qualifying that as "high marks" is drastically overstating the findings of the report.

If you read the report, which CKWS-TV News evidently didn't do, here is how the Water Qualitry Index (WQI) is interpreted:

Water Quality Index ratings

Rating

Interpretation

Excellent (95.0 to 100.0)

Water quality measurements never or very rarely exceed water quality guidelines.

Good (80.0 to 94.9)

Measurements rarely exceed water quality guidelines and, usually, by a narrow margin.

Fair (65.0 to 79.9)

Measurements sometimes exceed water quality guidelines and, possibly, by a wide margin.

Marginal (45.0 to 64.9)

Measurements often exceed water quality guidelines and/or by a considerable margin.

Poor (0 to 44.9)

Measurements usually exceed water quality guidelines and/or by a considerable margin.

Therefore, the proper conclusion is that the Water Quality Index (WQI) for Rideau waterway is fair.

Here's the distribution of "scores" for the 359 waterways tested by Environment Canada in this report. The Rideau Waterway is close to average at best.

The Rideau Waterway is in this grouping

Category: The environment

HMCS TERRA NOVA, a 366-foot Canadian Restigouche-class destroyer escort, is to be scuttled to create an artificial reef for diving near Gananoque.

The target-time for that is late 2009.

The claim that "the sunken ship will attract some 10,000 recreational scuba divers to the region in the first year" seems implausible.

Update A meeting account from Chris of the CFB Dolphins SCUBA Club. The scuttling is planned to be just off Browns Bay Provincial Park, near Mallorytown on the 1000 Islands Parkway. That's about 60 km from Kingston.

Category: Diving

THE ADMIRAL'S WALK APPLICATION FOR DRAFT PLAN OF SUBDIVISION is included in the documents for this week's City of Kingston Planning Committee meeting.

Therein is a lousy-quality scan of a "concept site plan", shown below; click the image to go to the source document.

The new theme appears to be, "maximum marina". How such a facility might work in practice, given the extremely limited shoreside space, certainly isn't clear.

A notable oddity: the diagram appears dated July 2006, which is surprising since we've not been shown anything remotely resembling this before.

Admiral's Walk Site Plan, December 6 2007

Related:

Category: Elevator Bay
Wikipedia logo

Have you noticed how Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, dominates Google search result pages?

For example, consider these Google search results:

  • Google " Kingston, Ontario", and Wikipedia ranks as the first entry after the City of Kingston's website, and ahead of all the websites belonging to Queen's, Fort Henry, CFB Kingston, KEDCO, all the hotels, all real-estate brokers, the Chamber of Commerce, all the other directories, everthing.
  • Googling Queens University returns Wikipedia as the first Canadian non-Queen's entry.
  • Googling Royal Military College: Wikipedia ranks second behind the RMC website.
  • Wolfe Island returns Wikipedia in fifth spot, but still ahead of 312,995 others.

Like it or not, Google considers Wikipedia as authoritative. When someone wants a general overview of something notable, Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start.

It is therefore in our interest to ensure that Wikipedia articles about notable things in our midst exist, are rich and accurate, are properly categorized and linked, and thereafter are watched in perpetuity.

Our waterfront is woefully underrepresented in Wikipedia. That needs to change.

Some existing Kingston waterfront-related Wikipedia articles that need work:

These articles exist already, but are sparse, mere shades of what they could be.

Some potential Kingston waterfront-related Wikipedia articles that don't exist yet:

There are currently no Wikipedia articles about any of the following:

  • Marine Museum of the Great Lakes. That's really bad.
  • The Kingston Yacht Club.
  • Kingston Rowing Club, as opposed to this other Kingston Rowing Club.
  • Two of our local towers: Cathcart Redoubt, and Shoal Tower. Articles on Murney Tower and Fort Frederick tower exist already.
  • Melville Shoal, despite its local lore.
  • Snake Island, the Brother Islands (Eastern_Lake_Ontario), and other cormorant-ravaged landscapes.
  • Nine Mile Point Lighthouse.
  • Big Sandy Bay
  • ... and surely others.

So pick a notable piece of your physical environment and see to documenting it in Wikipedia. It won't cost you a dime, and it will get viewed far more, and be trusted far more, than almost anything else you can do on the web, at any price.

Category: The region

KEDCO'S KINGSTON ONTARIO WATERFRONT WEBSITE IS EVOLVING.

Here's the current home page.

Note the adult and two kids, in a what appears to be a 15-foot canoe, mid-Harbour at dusk in imminent weather. Seriously, how improbable is that? How wise is that?

International-14 class sailboats haven't actively sailed here for quite some time. The boat pictured here is Toronto-based, shown in no-wind, flat calm conditions.

Underwater here isn't blue, it's green or, if anything, it's dark green.

Adding just one more link-button to that web page looks very expensive. Guess how many files you'd need to touch to add another little box to the left of the canoe.

Is the KEDCO "blue belt" website like another website KEDCO isn't able to maintain?

Update Saturday Dec 1st: Inter Kingston Web Design has taken the website offline. Evidently the "blue-belt" website project, as currently conceived, has some serious content, presentation, and governance issues.

Category: KEDCO

A GLANCE AT LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVELS tells us that sometime on Thursday November 22nd levels measured at Kingston dipped below chart datum.

Currently we're a full 2-feet below last year's levels.

Here is a historical graph of Great Lakes' water levels dating back to 1918. Here's the same data in tabular form. The last time Lake Ontario was below datum was in 1965, though we've been very close to chart-datum twice in the past 8-years.

Lake Ontario Water Levels, Nov 2007 Lake Ontario Water Levels, Nov 2007 Graph of historic Lake Ontario water levels
Category: Water levels
Category: Marine Museum

The WOLFE ISLAND WIND PROJECT ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW REPORT is online.

There are several very interesting attachments to the report. Among them:

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

Nathan Baron: ONE LAST LAP.

Category: Racing

THE FINAL OF THE WFN 2008 BASS TOUR, THE CANADIAN OPEN, IS COMING TO KINGSTON, September 19-21 2008. There is $1,000,000 in prize money up for grabs.

Here's a press release with the fishing tournament's prize structure.

The lead-up events are in Georgina (Jul 4-6), Sarnia (Jul 25-27), Port Colborne (Aug 22-24), and Gravenhurst in the Muskokas (Sep 5-7), before the final in Kingston September 19-21.

Unlike the Poker Run, which occurs on an August weekend that would be sold-out in any event, this event is in mid-fall, when our waterfront facilities and accommodations in town have lots of excess capacity. Smart!

WFN.TV is a slick operation, and entering the event is not cheap. A professional angler, competing only in Kingston, must pay a $3,500 entry fee, while amateur anglers are in for $850 apiece.

If you're in, register here.

Category: Fishing
Comet Holmes is easily visible in the North East

COMET 17P/HOLMES, which recently brightened from magnitude 17 to magnitude 2.5 in just a few hours, is an easy sighting with binoculars, or with the naked-eye from darker viewing sites.

After sunset, look for it in the north-east sky, one and a half palm-widths up from bright star Capella. It is currently the third brightest "star" in the constellation of Perseus. It's visible all night.

Comet Holmes was first discovered in 1892 and has an orbital period of 6.9 years. It's interesting that Holmes reached perihelion in early May, and is currently on its way away from the Sun. It's distance from the Earth is at its minimum now, at 1.62 AU, so this is likely as good as it will get. Here's an interactive orbit diagram from NASA.

Category: The sky

Marine Museum: STILL IN LIMBO, from CKWS-TV news.

Update: Here's the situation as described by the Marine Museum.

Category: Marine Museum
Category: Working waterfront
Firestorm 30

The BMCM CARL BRASHEAR, Newport News' new Firestorm 30 fireboat from MetalCraft Marine, is now in service on the waters of Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay.

Recall that this was the vessel that mysteriously sank at the dock overnight at the Leeward Municipal Marina on March 21st, 2007.

Here's the marine surveyor's assessment of what happened that night.

Category: Working waterfront
Category: The environment
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper 2007 Beach Report

BEACH REPORT 2007 is a 36-page PDF just released by Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Seven of the Kingston-area beaches are covered in the report:

  • Richardson Beach (they call it "Murney Tower")
  • Grass Creek
  • Rotary Park, (incorrectly identified as part of "Collins Bay Marina")
  • Lemoine Beach
  • Arrowhead Beach
  • Crerar Beach
  • Everitt Beach
  • Lake Ontario Park (they call it "Lake Ontario Municipal Beach")

Oddly Big Sandy Bay, one of Lake Ontrario's most beautiful beaches, isn't included.

Kingston Ontario waterfront beach report

Many of the observations arise from the abject neglect by our municipality for our beaches.

That's not the only beach-related thing that's neglected by the City.

On August 24th we were pleased to report that FINALLY WE HAVE AN ONLINE BEACH REPORT.

But our fears were well-founded: as it turns out, that online beach report is just another web page the City is unable to properly maintain. There has been no update in the two months since August 24th when the information was first posted.

Category: The environment

NATHAN BARON has been working hard towards his goal of qualifying and sailing in next year's solo Transat 650 race. He's often out in Kingston Harbour practicing, and he recently completed a Toronto Training Run.

He's also documenting his journey with over 120 photos so far in this Flickr photoset.

Nathan plans an "Open Boat" event on October 21st from 1-3pm at KYC where people can come down to see the boat up-close and get a taste of what life aboard a mini is like.

Category: Racing

MEET THE CITY'S NEW FIREBOAT, formerly known as the CCGC Bittern: Good article today in The Whig about the refit project, which was done here in Kingston at MetalCraft Marine.

You can see the vessel at today's MetalCraft Marine Open House which runs from 1-4 pm.

Here are before and after photos:

Update: Here's a transcript of CKWS-TV's report.

CCGC BitternKingston's new fireboat on display at MetalCraft Marine

Category: Working waterfront
City of Kingston Ravensview Water Treatment Plant Project on the Kingston, Ontario waterfront

Check out the SEPTEMBER 2007 NEWSLETTER of the City's Ravensview Water Pollution Control project, which is enormous.

It doesn't contain much information, but the photos give you a sense of the project's scale.

Category: City of Kingston
MetalCraft Marine 40-foot Aluminum Fireboat owned by Anne Arundel County, Maryland

METALCRAFT MARINE IS CELEBRATING 20-YEARS of building high-tech vessels here on the Kingston Waterfront.

They are hosting an open house on Friday, October 5th, between 1 and 4 pm.

They'll have tours of their operations, and show glimpses of projects they have on-the-go.

Pass the word.

Category: Working waterfront

MIKE KALIN OF KINGSTON won the 40-boat Laser class at the 3-day CORK Fall Regatta which wrapped-up today.

Update: With a 10th place overall and top youth finish, Robert Davis of Kingston qualifies to represent Canada at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship, July 10-19th 2008, in Aarhus, Denmark.

Robert finished 14th at this summer's Youth Worlds here in Kingston.

Update: Read CYA head coach Ken Dool's regatta report.

Category: Racing

ACCESS DENIED. The management of Fort Henry, which is heavily taxpayer-subsidized, decided during Summer 2007 to declare dozens of acres on Kingston's waterfront out-of-bounds.

We've collectively lost and ruined most of Kingston's Waterfront just like this: one step at a time.

Category: Accessibility
1976 Olympics Sailing (Yachting) Courses Chart

A SCAN FROM THE PAST: You are looking at a small-sized scan of the navigation chart created for the 1976 Olympic Sailing events (or Yachting as it was then known).

Olympic sailing was hosted in Kingston and it remains, 31 years later, the pinnacle of Kingston's impressive regatta history.

Click to see:

The chart shows several very interesting things:

  • The sailing events were held way out in Lake Ontario, southwest of Simcoe Island. The racing area was a full 5-miles from P.O.H., and Course Charlie, used for Tornado class catamarans, was another 5-miles beyond that.

  • The racing area was bounded by 52 orange spar buoys.

  • Within the racing area, near its southern edge, there was something called Bedford Tower which isn't there anymore. Whatever it was, there was a 300m exclusion zone around it.

  • Note the detailed bathymetry of Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, and the layout of the site for the Olympic event.

  • Also see how, prior to the 1984 expansion of Confederation Basin, Kingston Harbour was dotted with many spar buoys leading to the Lasalle Causeway along Carruthers Shoal. Old-time dinghy sailors will remember these well, as they served as ideal boathandling practice marks.

Thanks to David Page, KYC archivist, who supplied the chart used to create these digital versions.

Category: History
Sketch of the Phoebe Boathouse soon to adorn the Kingston, Ontario waterfront

A TIMBER FRAME EXHIBIT SHELTER FOR THE PHOEBE is a project that was approved by Council last week.

It will be located behind the Pump House Steam Museum on Ontario Street, and build by local students with some financial assistance from the City.

Here's the Whig Standard Story from September 20th.

See also the Phoebe restauration project website and the Friends of The Phoebe website.

Category: History

PAST SEWAGE OVERFLOW REPORTS have been understated, according to this Whig-Standard article by Jennifer Pritchett.

The City of Kingston has installed new monitors on its sewers that has revealed the municipality spews millions more litres of untreated sewage into area waterways each year than previously documented.

Read the whole thing.

For what it's now worth, here's a link to the Bypass Log For The City of Kingston.

Category: The environment
2007 IOM Eastern Championships on the Kingston Ontario Waterfront

THE IOM CLASS EASTERN CHAMPIONSHIP REGATTA was hosted by KYC this weekend. It was a 42-race event involving 17 competitors from Ontario, Quebec, and northeast USA.

Due to the concurrent World Championships in France, participant numbers were such that they made just one fleet for all competitors.

Check out this 40-second YouTube video showing the start of race 42.

Make no mistake: radio controlled sailboat racing is serious stuff. See the See Kingston Yacht Club Radio Controlled Racing page for local information and, on a national level, see the The Canadian Radio Yachting Association website.

Category: Racing

BLUE WOODS MARINA IS FOR SALE. Blue Woods is on the north shore of Collins Bay.

Category: Working waterfront

ALWAYS WORTHY OF NOTE, especially now that the big breezes of autumn are evidently with us. The Kingston Boardsailing Association has a great clickable chart of Wave Sailing Spots In the Kingston Harbour with brief descriptions.

.

For example:

Snake Shoal Break

6-8ft; Straight onshore conditions and nice long rides straight downwind. Jumps on either tack. This shallow shoal is good even in the early season high water. At low water, I wouldn't try to sail straight across this shoal. Instead, ride the surf down either side.

In case you're wondering: yes, we are in low-water conditions with levels a full 5-inches below average for this time of year, about 15-inches above chart datum.

Category: Boardsailing

THE GREENPEACE VESSEL ARCTIC SUNRISE is in Kingston for the next few days. The former ice breaker is traveling along the St. Lawrence River between Quebec City and Toronto. They are promoting alternatives to coal and nuclear energy, and highlighting the indiscriminate logging of the Boreal Forest.

There is a public open ship tour planned for Saturday. Word is she will be moored at the P.U.C. dock, at the foot of Beverly Street.

Category: The environment
Admirals Walk Development on the Kingston, Ontario Waterfront

On the Agenda of the September 6th Planning Committee meeting there's a 62-PAGE ZONING BY-LAW AMENDMENT DOCUMENT for the Admirals Walk project proposed for Cataraqui Bay (AKA Elevator Bay).

There are several issues therein, including parking which appears inadequate for what's proposed.

There's mention of a possible marina, but they apparently don't know which side of the pier, west or east, any future marina will be placed.

One point is crystal clear: there will be no off-season vessel storage on the site -- there simply isn't space -- which means that any marina there risks being a money-loser.

Note that a marina is clearly shown on The Forrest Group's website and the yachting theme is central to the project's advertising so far. All this apparently doesn't add-up.

There are also questions about what the developer can and cannot do with the water lot.

Read the whole thing.

Related:

Category: City Council

The CFB KINGSTON DOLPHIN SCUBA CLUB is a great example of how many local organizations could better interact with their members and the public at large: by blogging.

Consider these accounts of three recent dive excursions, all posted yesterday.

Makes you want to do a lot more diving, doesn't it?

Consider too the cost of all this: zero dollars, just three paragraphs in total.

Category: Diving

NOT SINCE APRIL 19th have we seen this:

Sunny forecast for the Kingston area

Waterfront property recently purchased by the City of Kingston

CITY PURCHASES LAND adjacent to Grass Creek Park.

That's good, but the announcement is prefixed with:

...in accordance with municipal policies for developing and sustaining public access to the City's waterfront.

... which is baloney, also here, citing two much closer and pertinent counterexamples from just last week alone.

Also, looking at the photo, there's really not much new waterfront there. So the whole waterfront angle to this story appears a little overblown.

Update: A report from the August 24th edition of the Whig Standard, which leads with:

Kingston has taken one more step toward securing the public use of its waterfront by purchasing 45 acres of riverside property on the city's far east side.

Category: City Council
Kingston Ontario waterfront beach report

FINALLY WE HAVE AN ONLINE BEACH REPORT.

It's on the City of Kingston website, under "Residents", then "Recreation". At the moment apparently two beaches, Lake Ontario Park and Rotary Park, are posted.

The information is not date-stamped, so you'll have no idea of information freshness. Let's hope this isn't another web page the city has no time to maintain.

Category: City of Kingston

CORK BLOGGING: Here are links to competitors, volunteers, and spectators blogging about CORK. This beats the Kingston Whig Standard, which has had almost zero coverage so far, and the CORK website, which has a "News" link with no recent news to be found there.

Volunteers are so important to Kingston's many waterfront events...
Category: Racing

THE LACK OF SHORELINE FISHING SPOTS is the subject of an interesting front-page story in today's Whig. It highlights a big problem with the waterfront in the City of Kingston: accessibility.

We've got:

Category: Fishing

THIS IS RIDICULOUS! Time for a management shakeup at Fort Henry?

Fort Henry officials are cracking down on pedestrian traffic on the perimeter of the property, which has become a popular spot for dog-walkers and picnickers.

Category: Accessibility

Two new topics are now prominently linked on the home page:

THE HIGHWAY TRAVELLER'S HOME PAGE seeks to brief Highway 401 travelers, who might otherwise bypass Kingston, about economical and time-efficient options involving Kingston's waterfront.

THE RESIDENT'S HOME PAGE seeks to brief most Kingston residents who, on balance, don't participate in their waterfront as much as they could.

Like all topics here, these topics are subject to incremental improvement, so suggestions and contributions are welcome.

Category: K7Waterfront
Shark 2007 North American Championships held on the Kingston Ontario waterfront

THE SHARK NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIPS is a 35-boat competition.

Update: Winners are David O'Sullivan, David Foy, and Jamie Foy of Ottawa's Britannia Yacht Club. Top Kingston boat is Peter VanRossem, Gord Greer, and Peter VanRossem Jr in fourth position. Results here.

Category: Racing

A UNESCO VIBE at tonight's Sunset Ceremony at Fort Henry, from The Toronto Star.

WELL OVER 800 PEOPLE took advantage of boat rides on Saturday and Sunday during the Kingston Discover Boating Event. See also the related article in today's Whig-Standard.

Category: Boating

NEW MOORING FIELD on the South side of Kingston Harbour, just off the The Island Grill on Wolfe Island, just East of the Wolfe Island Ferry dock.

A total of 10 moorings, available free for now, though the plan is to eventually charge overnight, monthly, or yearly rates.

Outer moorings have a depth of 14 feet, shallowing to 7ft for the inner ones. No reservations are currently required.

See also our Island Grill topic, and the Anchoring topic, still a work in progress, is updated to reflect these new moorings.

Category: Anchoring

NATHAN BARON'S MINI TRANSAT SLOOP arrived in Kingston yesterday and was launched at Collins Bay Marina. Lots of photos on Flickr.

Nathan hopes to compete in the 2009 Mini Transat race between France and South America.

July 27 2007 UPDATE: Front-page story in The Whig-Standard.

Category: Racing

It's been a while since we've featured the THE LATEST GREAT LAKES WATER LEVELS FORECAST by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Lake Ontario levels are about six inches below normal for this time of year, so beware.

Category: The environment

There are still SOME AVAILABLE SAILING CAMP SPOTS in August at the Kingston Yacht Club Sailing School and at the Collins Bay Yacht Club Sailing School. Pass the word.

Category: Sailing schools

TUESDAY'S COUNCIL AGENDA includes an additional $60,000 operating grant to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.

See also Exhibit 'A' - Marine Museum of the Great Lakes 2007 Business Plan which is interesting, and underscores that the Museum needs your support too.

Category: Marine Museum

THE FINAL DAY OF RACING AT THE VOLVO YOUTH SAILING ISAF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS saw just one race as planned. Winds were very shifty from the Nortwest that, at times when competitors were on water, gusted to thirty knots and above. Results here.

THE 2007 VOLVO YOUTH SAILING ISAF WORLD CHAMPIONS

Boys One Person Dinghy: Laser (Pavlos Kontides, Cyprus)
Girls One Person Dinghy: Laser Radial (Gabrielle King, AUS)
Boys Two Person Dinghy: 29er (Henrik Sogaard, Soren Kristensen, DEN)
Girls Two Person Dinghy: 29er (Emily Dellenbaugh, Briana Provancha, USA)
Boys Windsurfer (Pierre Le Coq, FRA)
Girls Windsurfer (Laura Linares, ITA)
Open Multihull: Hobie Cat 16 Race Spinnaker (Richard Glover, Andrew Glover, GBR)

Our List Of Major Regattas In Kingston has been updated with these seven new world champions.

Category: Racing

PHOTOS OF THE FAIR JEANNE FIRE from the Clayton Fire Department. The vessel shown responding in the photos is one built by MetalCraft Marine of Kingston.

Category: Safety

Kingston Ontario waterfront wind graph for the IASF Youth Worlds, Day 4 A DAY ON THE LIGHT-SIDE: Here's what iWindsurf.com recorded for wind on Day 4 of the ISAF Volvo Youth Worlds.

If you are in VHF radio range of Kingston Harbour, and are able to listen-in, here are the channels for Volvo Youth Worlds regatta.

  • Orange course (VHF 10): Skiffs and Cats.
  • Blue course (VHF 72): Boards
  • Yellow course (VHF 69): Lasers

Results here.

Highlight of Day 4: A bullet and a 2nd for Isabella Bertold of Canada in Girls Laser Radial who sits in 5th with three more races to sail.

Canada is tied for 13th overall for the Volvo Trophy which, at the top, is a 3-way race betweem Australia, Denmark, and New Zeland. Looking down from there, the UK is 6th and the USA is 7th.

Category: Racing

There are three interesting waterfront-related items on the CITY'S PLANNING COMMITTEE AGENDA for Thursday, July 19 2007.

Lots of interesting diagrams in all three of these documents.

Category: City Council

A reminder: THE CFB KINGSTON DOLPHIN SCUBA CLUB BLOG regularly covers another great aspect of Kingston's waterfront, its underwater world. The Dolphin SCUBA Club is active all year 'round (link to photos on Flickr), which is amazing.

YOUTH WORLDS DAY 3 started looking good for lighter crews but, in the end, Kingston Harbour served-up something for everyone.

The first race on Yellow Course (Cats and 29ers) was set at 240 degrees and later settled in the 200-220 degree range.

The Yellow Course committee still didn't place itself according to plans. As a result the reach legs are susceptible to nasty blasts, funneled by the Boat Channel South of Simcoe Island (whose axis is oriented about 230 magnetic) and fans-out, mixing with overland air, upon reaching the harbour.

Wind, IASF Worlks Kingston 2007, day 3

Category: Racing

AFTER RACING DAY TWO AT THE ISAF YOUTH WORLDS, we can start to say the regatta's eventual winners will have really earned it.

Winds started West and fair but it picked up and backed suddenly around 11:30am and, by first guns at noon it was snorting. It mostly built from there.

Yellow Course was set at 245 degrees, and that never changed. By session's end around 2:30pm, with gusts close to 30 at times and with carnage looming, they called it a day. Another good call.

Results here. Best Canadian after Day 2 is David Hayes of Toronto, currently in a podium position in Boys Windsurfer thanks to a bullet in the last race today.

Category: Racing

RACING DAY ONE AT THE ISAF YOUTH WORLDS was cloudy with shifty, diminishing and, eventually, backing breezes to below 180 degrees.

There was a notable discrepancy between the planned and actual location of the Yellow Course (Hobie Cat and 29er classes).

Results here.

Category: Racing

IT WAS AN UNUSUAL DAY WIND-WISE for the Volvo Youth Worlds practice races, which were supposed to happen on three race circles in early afternoon.

A heck of a cell went through just before 9am, and it looked to be a fair day after that. But a sequence cells passed through around mid-day, and the wind built dramatically throughout the afternoon.

It turned into a classic Kingston buster, with the wind sensor at Kingston Yacht Club recording gusts to 40 knots. The competitors were on water for a short while, blasting around, but the practice races never happened. Good call.

Here is the trace of average wind from the Kingston Yacht Club. Anybody know why the pre-9am squall shows distinctively on the iWindsurf.com sensor, but not the Kingston Yacht Club sensor? Both sensors are mounted at the end of the pier of the Kingston Yacht Club. Maybe the squall was so brief there that it doesn't factor when averaged?

Category: Racing

There's a NEW ALL-PURPOSE JUNIOR SQUADRON SHED at Kingston Yacht Club close to being complete. It will be used as a workshop for boat repairs on KYC's impressive dinghy fleet, sail storage, and can also serve as an activity room when the weather's poor.

Last year KYC renovated the boathouses on the East side of the property, along Simcoe Street.

It's good to see visible signs of upgrades on the waterfront.

Category: Sailing schools

THE KINGSTON DISCOVER BOATING EVENT returns to Confederation Basin Marina, Saturday and Sunday July 28th and 29th between 10am and 5pm.

Free boat rides for all who wish to give boating a try.

This event is courtesy of many volunteer boat owners and several of our local marinas: Collins Bay Marina, Ed Huck Marine (of Rockport), Kingston Marina, Treasure Island Marina, River Rat Marine (in Landsdowne, ON) with space and dockage provided by the City of Kingston's Confederation Basin Marina.

Category: The environment

METALCRAFT MARINE IS FRONT-PAGE NEWS in yesterday's Whig Standard.

"The truth of the matter is there is no one doing it better right now than MetalCraft"

That's saying something.

Category: Working waterfront

AT NEXT TUESDAY'S COUNCIL MEETING, City staff seeks to declare the property at 5 Brock Street as surplus, paving the way for its sale to the Hotel that surrounds it.

This is primo commonwealth property on the waterfront, adjacent to our downtown docks, and across the street from City Hall, Confederation Park, Confederation Basin, and historic Market Square.

Or is it, potentially, Starbucks'?

Category: City Council

UP TO THE GILLS -- POLLUTION IN GREAT LAKES FISH is a 15-page report by Environmental Defence released on July 5th, 2007.

In short:

  • Toxic chemicals in Great Lakes fish are alarmingly high and becoming more serious over time.
  • Lake Ontario is the worst of all the Great Lakes.
  • Toxins that once only surfaced in big fish are making their way down the food chain, to smaller fish.

Here's Recommendation 1 (of 8 in total) which is interesting:

RECOMMENDATION 1: In order to provide a more realistic representation of the state of fish contamination in the Great Lakes and improve fish advisories as an indicator of Great Lakes health, provincial, state and national partners in the U.S. and Canada must develop and maintain a publicly accessible record of information on the current status, evolution and historical levels of chemical contamination of fish in the Great Lakes, including information on the toxicity levels in and around the Great Lakes basin.

In other words: That's not happening now.

Category: The environment

RESULTS FROM THE 505 Canadians, Kingston's first notable sailing regatta of 2007, are finally up. Winners were Americans Tyler Moore and Jessie Falsone.

More: Kingston's regatta history is updated.

Category: Racing

GEOFF WEBSTER has been photographing sailing in Kingston, including CORK, for over 25 years.

He's just self-published a booklet of 50 photos, taken from over 80,000+ in his collection, titled SAIL KINGSTON -- Fresh Water Sailing Capital Of The World.

He also has collections of photos from CORKs-past available on DVD, and these may be purchased by contacting Geoff at

Geoff Webster
Photographer
613-354-3569
PhotoOne@ihorizons.net

Category: Racing

LAW-ENFORCEMENT THEATRE Wednesday night at Collins Bay Marina as the OPP Marine Unit books a sailor from a group of several yachts from Rochester NY traveling together.

The individual was in small tender, simply going from C-Dock to A-Dock, from one docked yacht to another, while impaired.

Word around the marina is there was no party going on, sleeping boaters on "C" and "A" docks heard nothing unusual, and the guy apparently wasn't lippy with the cops.

There are, of course, two ways to view this.

But there are lessons here:

  • Should you be operating a vessel while impaired? No.
  • Is the Kingston OPP Marine Unit over-zealous? Apparently so. But then again, nobody witnessed the arrest, and few of us can list hauling corpses out of the water among our duties, so it's hard to say.
  • What might this incident cost in American tourism terms? That's incalculable.

    Moreover: How does this story come to find its way onto CKWS-TV News?

You decide. It's all about choices people make, on both sides of the badge.

Category: Working waterfront

THE PROVINCE PROVIDES $80,000 FOR THE ISAF VOLVO YOUTH WORLDS REGATTA, just two weeks before the start of the event, which is cutting it pretty close.

Category: Racing

Now ROTARY PARK BEACH IS POSTED CLOSED due to high E. coli levels (again from The Whig Standard, and not the Health Unit website).

Last year, Rotary Park Beach was closed in late July, which at the time was Kingston's first beach closure in 14 years. That closure forced the nearby Collins Bay Yacht Club to stop in-water instruction until the beach re-opened.

What the heck is polluting our west-end beaches?

Category: Beaches

LAKE ONTARIO PARK BEACH is closed due to high E. coli levels (from The Whig Standard).

The Health Unit website? Lame.

We have more on Kingston's rock and sand beaches

Category: Beaches

Don't miss the 80-page special section titled "UNLOCKING THE RIDEAU" in today's Whig Standard.

You can also download a 13 Mb, 80-page.PDF version of the insert and watch slide-show packages on The Whig-Standard Website.

In a word: WOW. It's a keeper. Go out and buy a print version of today's Whig.

Category: History

DAY DOCK CHARGES in effect during July and August at Confederation Basin. It's $3 for the first two hours and $1 per hour after that, for a maximum of $8 per day.

No mention of this yet on the City's Marinas or Flora MacDonald Confederation Basin web pages.

Category: Marinas

MetalCraft Marine on FOX News: NEW MILWAUKEE FIRE BOAT PUT INTO SERVICE EARLY.

Category: Working waterfront
Category: History

NOTHING ABOUT BEACHES ON THE HEALTH UNIT WEBSITE.

But their website claims they inspect beaches. Just don't assume they make results available or anything.

The Whig today has a beach safety news story and, apparently, the local beach safety story is good for now. Perhaps one must phone? Better call during business hours, Monday through Friday, because otherwise they are closed.

Category: Beaches
Category: The environment

HERE ARE PHOTOS OF THE ALEXANDER HENRY ON THE MOVE taken this morning, on the divenutz Flickr page.

Work started shortly before 5:30am, and the whole event passed smoothly with absolutely no excitement. By 7am, the ship was securely moored in the dry dock and work was beginning to draw the caisson back across its entrance.

See also preparation coverage in The Whig.

Category: Marine Museum

A NEW 65-TON CRANE FOR COLLINS BAY MARINA.

Wow.

Marine service on the Kingston Ontario waterfront will benefit from this massive crane for Collins Bay Marina

Category: Working waterfront

OPEN GATE: Mike Hill, of the most excellent CFB Kingston Dolphin Scuba Club blog, reports:

Here's a rare view of the Henry looking North and towards the dry dock she is likely to make her home later this week.

The missing object - the barrier caisson - moved aside earlier today to allow the move to take place.

The shot was taken in early evening from a returning dive charter...

Category: Marine Museum

Today in the Whig: REPORT ON THE BLOCK D PARK PUBLIC MEETING which was sparsely attended.

UPDATE:: THE FIRST PROPOSED DESIGN is now posted on the City Website.

A concept diagram for a new park on the Kingston Ontario waterfront, at the Block D site

Category: Block D

ALEXANDER HENRY ALLOWED TO MOVE. The permission process took way too long.

Updated: The move into the dry dock now looks to probably happen FRIDAY June 15th starting at 5:00 AM. Call the Museum at (613) 542-2261 to offer help.

Background here.

Category: Marine Museum

FINALLY BETTER IMAGES OF KINGSTON IN GOOGLE MAPS AND GOOGLE EARTH!

It's not the closest zoom-level available, but close. So far it only covers between the airport to the West, CFB Kingston to the East, Marysville to the South, but it goes all the way North to the sourthern-edge of Frontenac Park.

The imagery appears to be from a weekend morning in summer of 2004.

Kingston Ontario waterfront now in higher resolution in Google Maps

Category: The region

BLOCK "D" PARK OPEN HOUSE WILL ADDRESS DOWNTOWN WATERFRONT PARK.

The City of Kingston is holding a public open house as part of a process to develop a plan for the waterfront park on downtown's Block D. The meeting is being held Tuesday, June 12, at 6:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall on the second floor of Kingston City Hall, 216 Ontario St. Plan exhibits, presentations and break-out groups are on the agenda. After the meeting the plans will also be accessible on the City of Kingston website and comments can be submitted via . For more information about the public meeting, contact Kristine Hebert, Planner, Culture and Recreation, at telephone: 613-546-4291, ext. 1256.

NOW PUSHBACK against the Wolfe Island Wind Project, via CKWS-TV.

It's one thing to have issues that just can't be mitigated, like the Big Sandy Bay Wetland, for example. But it's quite another to whitewash them, which is being implied.

Category: The environment

$175,000 to move the Alexander Henry forward a few yards, from the Marine Museum Wharf to the Marine Museum Drydock.

Mostly, it's deferred maintenance.

UPDATE: More details here

THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT REPORT for the Wolfe Island Wind Project is now online.

It looks like the cable will land in Sand Bay on the Kingston side, and won't be going through Paterson Park Shoal as many had feared.

Paterson Park Shoal is one of our prime windsurfing wave sailing spots.

Category: The environment

THE THREE RACING AREAS AT THE VOLVO YOUTH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS will be named Orange, Blue, and Yellow.

Orange corresponds roughly to Course Alpha, Blue to Course Echo, and Yellow to Course Charlie, our more traditional names for these zones.

Here's a diagram of their approximate sizes and locations:

Category: Racing

COUNCILLOR BILL GLOVER EVIDENTLY "GETS" IT, as you can read in today's Whig Standard. It's an edited transcript of Councillor Glover's remarks at the recent Marine Museum AGM.

Read the whole thing. Time is of the essence. Some people, it seems, need to put up or get out of the way. And soon.

Category: Marine Museum

Worth noting: THE KINGSTON DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL is coming up, on Saturday, June 9th, 2007.

Category: Racing

TOURISM INDUSTRY, BUSINESS WOULD BENEFIT FROM BETTER DOCK, says Maurice Smith in a letter in today's Whig.

Click for more details on the repairs required to Kingston's only downtown dock having water for bigger vessels.

Category: Marine Museum
Category: Boardsailing

SUPERIOR RECEDES TO LOWEST LEVEL IN 80 YEARS, from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Category: The environment

BYM SAILING & SPORTS: Volvo Youth Worlds another chapter for Kingston sailing history. BYM is based in San Francisco.

Kingston really has an impressive sailing history; it's an international sporting events tradition to match or surpass any other city or town in Canada.

Category: Diving

ELEVATOR BAY DEVELOPMENT PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING PHOTO SET on Flickr.

Here are photos of the panels that were on display at the start of the meeting.

Click the thumbnails to see larger versions. For really large detailed photos, click the "All Sizes" link you'll find there.

Development Plans for Kingstons Elevator Bay Development Plans for Kingstons Elevator Bay Development Plans for Kingstons Elevator Bay Development Plans for Kingstons Elevator Bay

Category: Elevator Bay

TICK POPULATION RISING, and these suckers can give you Lyme Disease. Report by Ian Elliot in today's Whig.

Previously: LYME DISEASE TICS HAVE ARRIVED from August 19, 2006.

Category: Lyme disease

ELEVATOR BAY PROJECT DETAILS today in The Whig in a report by Jordan Press.

The first public information meeting is tonight between 6 and 9 pm at the Cataraqui Golf and Country Club.

Category: Elevator Bay

There are several waterfront items on TUESDAY'S COUNCIL AGENDA:

Under "Delegations", Marianne Davis, Executive Director of the 2007 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship (July 12-21) will speak to Council.

Under "Reports":

  • Marine Museum Purchase Status Report. See also today's other K7 news item for details because it's a doozie.
  • Front-end financing of the construction of seawall improvements at Block D whereby the costs of repairing and constructing a seawall around the perimeter of Block D adjacent to the City owned lands will be paid by Homestead Land Holdings Limited and LAJJC Inc. and reimbursed by the City no later than December 31, 2008.
  • License agreement renewal with Frontenac Condominium Corporation No. 20 for the seawall in Kingston Marina.

Previously (March 20, 2007): List of waterfront items in the 2007-08 municipal capital budget

Category: City Council

A MARINE MUSEUM PURCHASE STATUS REPORT will be presented at Tuesday's Council meeting. The recommendation asks for $195,000 in funding for engineering investigations into the west wharf, east wharf and drydock structures.

There's much more in the report, including this ballpark estimate:

In the next 2 to 10 years, it is estimated that over $6,000,000 must be spent on remedial works to reinstate the following marine structures back to a serviceable condition:

  • Complete rehabilitation of the west wharf
  • Reconstruction of the upper section of wall around the perimeter of the drydock extension
  • Rehabilitation of the east wharf
  • Possible rehabilitation of the limestone block section of the drydock.

This estimated cost does not include contingency, contract administration, inspection, environmental, etc., which could easily exceed an additional $2,500,000. None of these costs, totaling an estimated $8.5 million are budgeted in the City's ten year capital plan.

Category: Marine Museum

NOT MAKING THIS UP: Read the caption below this photo which appeared on page 60 of the Saturday Kingston Whig Standard, The Ticket section, in a travel article about sailing in Spain.

"A Chinese team and the U.S. BMW Oracle narrowly miss capsizing off the coast of Valencia, Spain"

Can you imagine this caption on that photo appearing in a daily paper based in Annapolis MD, La Rochelle France, Sardinia Italy, or Sydney Australia?

One possible lesson:

Do not underestimate the massive amount of education required about waterfront and waterfront activities (like sailing) in this town.

Normal intelligent people can still be almost totally clueless about waterfront in general, and sailing in particular.

If you are reading this and you don't sail, then maybe it's not obvious. What we see in the photo are two normal America's Cup boats crossing as they sail upwind in light to medium breeze. They are nowhere near capsizing.

Category: Mainstream media

The VOLVO YOUTH WORLDS ENTRY SUMMARY shows 227 competitors and 81 coaches from 52 countries. The visiting countries with the largest teams are:

  • Brazil 13
  • Denmark 13
  • France 13
  • Great Britian 13
  • Germany 13
  • Italy 13
  • New Zealand 13
  • Australia 12
  • Singapore 12
  • United States 12
The regatta gets underway July 9th, with actual scorable racing between July 14th and July 20th.
Category: Racing

MARINE MUSEUM: The latest on the Sir Alexander Henry, and a shore-dive nearby.

Category: Marine Museum
Imperial Warehouse

Finally, SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE IMPERIAL WAREHOUSE. The threat of demolition certainly seems diminished.

Here's our Imperial Warehouse wiki topic and our new Flickr collection of Imperial Warehouse photos, some dating back to 1924.

Category: Imperial warehouse

The Forrest Group of Toronto has planned an ELEVATOR BAY DEVELOPMENT OPEN HOUSE in the Dining Room at the Cataraqui Golf and Country Club from 6pm to 9pm on May 16, 2007. The room will be open at 5:30pm and the presentation will commence at 6pm.

Category: Elevator Bay

THE MARINE MUSEUM'S ALEXANDER HENRY is the subject of a CKWS-TV news report today.

It seems that the Federal Government is, as usual, bumbling and uncoopertive.

Category: Marine Museum

Seeing as boats are being launched across the region, THE LATEST GREAT LAKES WATER LEVELS FORECAST by the US Army Corps of Engineers predicts plenty of water. Currently we're above last season's max.

Category: Water levels

CANADIANS WIN HYERES!, via Montreal Sailing, a very good blog.

Category: Racing

FLICKR HAS BEEN GEO-TAGGING and the results so far are great.

2,297 photos of K7 already, of over 15 million worldwide. Viewable as either "Most recent" or "Most interesting", or scroll them.

Category: Photography

THE FRIGATE HMCS HALIFAX will be paying a call to Kingston this week as part of its Great Lakes Tour. She's expected Wednesday April 25th, departing Thursday.

While in Kingston, visits of the frigate are by invitation only, whereas all the other ports of call are open to all visitors. This is no doubt because, unlike the other ports of call, Kingston doesn't have an adequate dock for her.

HMCS Halifax is 442ft 10in (134.2 m) long overall, and draws 15ft 4in (4.9 m), and she carries 234 officers and crew.

Category: Large vessels
COLLINS BAY MARINA is again the first local marina in spring launch operations.

Category: Marinas

Well worth reading each spring: SHOCKING NEWS ABOUT COLD WATER.

- nine elite marines, water survival instructors, capsized in 36 degree water wearing sweatsuits and no PFDs. None of them survived the attempted 100 yard swim to shore.

- sixteen (16) Danish fishermen jumped into the icy waters of the North Sea when their trawler sank in a storm. They were in the water for a 2 - 3 hours before being rescued. They walked across the deck of the rescue vessel and went down into the galley to warm up. Each and every one collapsed and died in the galley.

- an average adult person has a 50/50 chance of surviving a 50 yard swim in 50F water.

- a 50 year old person in 50F water has a 50/50 chance of surviving for 50 minutes.

Read the whole thing.

The water temperature in Kingston Harbour is currently about 37F.

Category: Safety

WHAT'S BEHIND AND UNDER THESE UGLY BUILDINGS?

Should someone be made to answer for these?

Here's the project that put them there.

Also, click the various images and diagrams for larger versions.

If you read the public documents, there's apparently no reference to the ugly bunkers.

Interesting: Here is how the major pipes connect. Our sewers and our waterfront are inexorably linked.

Category: City of Kingston

5 SCOTS, 1000 ISLANDS is about cruising these parts in 19' Flying Scot sailboats. From the June 2005 issue of Sailing magazine.

Update: Here's another: Out Among the Islands by Sailing Canoe

Category: The region

One year ago, April 10 2006, COLLINS BAY MARINA WAS LAUNCHING BOATS.

This year there's still ice in Collins Bay.

Click for the latest web cam photos from Collins Bay Marina.

We need more waterfront web cams like this.

Category: The environment

EELS IN SERIOUS DECLINE from the Saturday Globe.

Category: The environment

THE 18-PASSENGER GEORGIAN CLIPPER is the subject of a short piece in the Sunday Chicago Tribune. The company plans 20 sailings this season, all of them based in Kingston.

But it's a reminder that Kingston lacks sufficient deep-water docking to accommodate this sort of business on a larger scale. Moreover what little we have is disintegrating.

Category: Tourism
Category: Wolfe Is windmills

COULD BE A GOOD TOPIC: Sailing And The Wolfe Island Wind Project.

Feel free to edit the page, and add your insights into it.

Category: Racing

TWO TAKEAWAYS FROM THE WIND PROJECT OPEN HOUSE:

Firstly, for swimmers and windsurfers, it looks like they will be drilling at an angle from the shore outwards, and not trenching through the shoal at Paterson Park. That's good.

Secondly, those wind turbines are huge!. The rotors sweep a circle 93m in diameter, and the highest rotor point is 123m minimum, which of course will be visible from some distance.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

NEW .COM AND .CA WEB ADDRESSES FOR K7: K7Waterfront.com and K7Waterfront.ca.

Now you don't need to remember the .org part of the K7Waterfront web address because .com and .ca work too.

Category: K7Waterfront

REMINDER: THE PUBLIC OPEN HOUSE for The Wolfe Island Wind Project is this Wednesday, March 28, 2007 between 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Ambassador Conference Resort, 1550 Princess Street, Kingston.

In short, current plans lay the 237 kV cable right through one of Kingston's best lakefront swimming holes. Click here for diagrams and links to background materials.

Patterson Park, shelf and shoals
Photo: KMAPS
Click for larger versions.
Category: Wolfe Is windmills

A good thing: Kingston Yacht Club is running a BOAT LOAN PROGRAM.

The KYC Junior Sailing program has a limited number of boats for racing-level kids who do not have their own boat.

Do you have a Laser gathering dust in your garage, or hiding under your deck? Do you have an Optimist that your kids no longer use? If so, and if you would be willing to loan, charter or otherwise make it available to our Junior Sailing kids, then please contact Chris Walmsley at lts@kingstonyachtclub.com.

This sounds like something worth supporting.

Category: Kingston Yacht Club

A brand new 30-foot MetalCraft Marine fireboat SINKS AT THE DOCK in Newport News, VA.

Monday March 26 2007 update: VANDALISM IS SUSPECTED.

Category: Working waterfront

There are WATERFRONT ITEMS IN THE 2007-08 MUNICIPAL CAPITAL BUDGET which should be approved tonight.

  • Under Culture and Rec
  • Under Marinas
    • $80,000 for Confederation Basin-Power upgrade on E and F docks. E-F docks are on your immediate right, jutting towards the Ramada, as you walk onto the main dock.
    • $50,000 for POH Break Wall floating extenston
    • $40,000 for POH Accessibility Upgrades
    • $30,000 for POH, for the facings of D and E docks. D and E docks are the two closest to the grassy playground area.
    • $10,000 POH launch ramp upgrades
    • $40,000 for Confederation Basin-Marinas Business Case Study (?!)
  • Under Planning and Development
  • Under Properties
    • $105,000 for various at the Marine Museum (roof, chimney)
Category: City of Kingston

MINIMUS SAILING TEAM FUNDRAISER on Tuesday April 3 at 1900, at the Kingston Yacht Club in the Partridge room. Tickets are $10 at the door. Donations towards the Nathan Baron's Mini Transat campaign will be greatly appreciated. The speaker is Brian Hancock, veteran of three Whitbreads, maxi catamarans, and Open 50's among other things.

Category: Nathan Baron

Following days of conflicting reports, it's now official: OIL FROM MONDAY MORNING'S DERAILMENT LEAKS INTO CATARAQUI CREEK.

Category: The environment
WELCOME CHANGE to the Environment Canada 5-day forecast pages. The menu on the left appears to be more goal-oriented now.

No change yet to most of the pages fetched by those menu items.

We can only speculate why 180 pixels across the top of page is wasted on whitespace, logos and images.

It seems they are still presenting radar imagery according to their internal worldview. Hands-up if you know where Franktown is located.

Category: The environment

The proposed NORMAN ROGERS AIRPORT MASTER PLAN calls for approach lights, presumably mounted on towers, through Collins Bay Marina, across Collins Bay, over Bath Road, the rail tracks, and into the neighborhood along the flight path.

Click for larger versions.
Category: City of Kingston

Yesterday The Whig Standard published this Notice of Application and Hearing for the underwater cable (see diagrams) that will link the Wolfe Island wind project with the mainland. People have until March 16th to make presentations of concerns on the matter, and until April 5th to send letters.

A notable point of contention is the plan to pass a 230 kV power cable through one of the best swimming spots on the Kingston side, on the mostly smooth flat rock off Paterson Park.

Could this please be done in a sensible and respectful manner, to minimize the possibility of flaking and erosion of the layered limestone bottom, both short and long term? Can we please pick the best place and best way to come ashore, one which might be just a few dozen metres one way or another, in recognition that people of all ages should be swimming barefoot there, say, for the next few centuries of summers?

Everyone concerned about this popular swimming/windsurfing area off the point near Paterson Park should send their comments to the Ontario Energy Board before April 5. You can send an email outlining why you think cable routing should absolutely respect people's continued long term bare-footed recreational use of the smooth flat-rock reef to boardsec@oeb.gov.on.ca. Be sure to include the file reference number EB-2007-0034 in the subject of your email.

Also City Councillor: Dorothy Hector
E-mail: dhector@cityofkingston.ca
Home Phone: 613-634-1732

Click here for diagrams and links to background materials.

Paterson Park, shelf and shoals
Photo: KMAPS
Click for larger versions.

More generally, see an interactive map of Kingston's waterfront parks.

Category: Wolfe Is windmills

THE LATEST GREAT LAKES WATER LEVELS FORECAST by the US Army Corps of Engineers shows that Lake Ontario water levels have dropped dramatically in the past month. Last month's levels forecast predicted little change through Spring. That's no longer the case.

Category: Water levels

Here's the BRIGANTINE "ST. LAWRENCE II" SCHEDULE FOR SUMMER 2007. See too the list of donated things they need, like a T.V. and VCR for classroom work, used laser printer, and other useful stuff you may have gathering dust.

Category: The Brigantine
Category: Nathan Baron

THERE'S INCREASING CONCERN FOR PATERSON PARK SHOAL, one of the best spots for swimming along the Kingston waterfront, and an exquisite sailboarding wave break.

The Wolfe Island Wind Project currently proposes to run its ~230kV cable in a trench through there.

Considering the underwater portion of the cable is already 7,500m long, surely doing a Smart Thing is possible.

Click here for diagrams and links to background materials.

Big waves off Paterson Park
Photo: Dave Mody
Paterson Park, shelf and shoals
Photo: KMAPS
Category: Wolfe Is windmills

SENATOR HUGH SEGAL IS MOVING THE MARINE MUSEUM FILE FORWARD, according to The Whig today.

Also in the same edition: THE IMPENDING IMPERIAL WAREHOUSE DEMOLITION. For more background and some great historical photos, see our Imperial Warehouse wiki topic

Category: Marine Museum
Category: The Snowbirds

NATHAN BARON IS GOING FOR IT. At KYC on Wednesday evening, February 28th, Nathan Baron will be announcing and speaking about his upcoming campaign for the 2009 Mini Transat, a single-handed race from France to Brazil.

Category: Racing

THE SNOWBIRDS AIRSHOW is coming back to Kingston on Wednesday June 27th, for a 45-minute show at 5:30 p.m.

"Snowbirds"
Category: The Snowbirds

Buried in the 2007 City budget, THE IMPERIAL WAREHOUSE, a 100-year old limestone building on the City waterfront, is apparently to be torn down.

The city has let this heritage building go to the dogs for a long time.

Category: Imperial warehouse
Category: The environment
THE LATEST GREAT LAKES WATER LEVELS FORECAST by the US Army Corps of Engineers predicts plenty of water at the docks this spring, about a foot deeper than last year's levels.

Right now, when levels are normally at their lowest, levels are at last year's maximum.

More in the Water Levels topic.

Category: Water levels
Category: History
IWINDSURF.COM gets a makeover. Kingston's sailors' favorite source for wind readings (and forecasts for subscribers) now has features that allow scrolling, zooming, and comparing forecast velocity and direction with actual conditions.


Old-style, Feb 1 2007:

New-style, Feb 1 2007:

New-style, Feb 2 2007, zoomed in:
Category: The environment

A REMINDER: The Friends of the Phoebe's mid-winter special event is Sunday from 2.00 to 4.30 PM in the Kingston Public Library, Johnston Street.

KINGSTON'S 2007 VOLVO YOUTH SAILING ISAF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP REGATTA WEBSITE is slowly evolving.

The Notice of Race is now online. Expect Section 12 to generate considerable flak from team leaders, coaches and parents.

Which doesn't appear to square with Section 15:

Category: Racing
MEET THE BLOODY RED MYSID, the shrimp invading Lake Ontario.

Category: The environment

LEVELS ARE SERIOUSLY ABOVE NORMAL IN LAKE ONTARIO. About 17" above normal, in fact, which is huge. Surprised? Normally Lake Ontario is at its lowest right now. But right now we're very close to last year's high water mark in August.

Conversely the big lakes upstream -- Lakes Michigan, and Huron and Superior -- are still at way below average levels.

Category: Water levels

MARINE MUSEUM WATCH: AN ARTICLE AND AN EDITORIAL in today's Whig Standard. Also, here's a link to tonight's Council motion in support of the Marine Museum.

Category: Marine Museum

Today, finally, THE WHIG COVERS THE MARINE MUSEUM ISSUE.

Typical Whig, the online version of the story doesn't provide the URL for the petition. It's here at ipetitions.com.

Category: Mainstream media
Category: Marine Museum

More info about the operations of the CANADA BORDER SERVICES AGENCY OFFICE IN KINGSTON has been added to our topic on Customs.

It's interesting that Treasure Island Marina, which is just 6 NM East of downtown Kingston, and all points further East are under the jurisdiction of the much larger Landsdowne (Thousand Islands Bridge) CBSA office, which is about 30 NM from downtown Kingston.

Category: K7Waterfront

DAVID MORE SPEAKS OUT about apparent shenanigans at the City of Kingston involving the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.

It seems that by November 2007, The Marine Museum has to vacate its premises and dispose of the icebreaker Alexander Henry. And nobody is saying why. Read the whole thing.

Category: Marine Museum
FRIENDS OF THE PHOEBE have announced a mid-winter special event in support of the new Phoebe Exhibit Shelter

Sunday February 4, 2007, from 2.00 to 4.30 PM in the Kingston Public Library, Johnston Street. Admission $5.00 in support of the Friends of the Phoebe building fund for tickets phone 546-4154 or at the door.

In the Wilson Room: Live music, exhibits, meet old and new friends in a welcoming environment

In the Boucher Room: Cruise the Thames between Oxford and Windsor with well known photographer and raconteur Bob Fleming

In the Foyer: Enjoy the spectacular silent auction. There are special tables with tools, gift certificates, antiques, jewelry, practical household items, toys and much, much more; a true smorgasbord. While you do the bidding, munch on some delectable refreshments

See also the Friends of the Phoebe web site


The Phoebe in 1982.

Category: History
Category: Working waterfront
Category: The environment

WATERKEEPER ROUNDUP: Canada slow to respond to fish virus from The Whig, and Issue burns in Bath, also from The Whig, about last week's stunning approval by the Ministry of the Environment that allows Lafarge to import and burn up to 100 tonnes of municipal waste per day, including tires, meat, bone meal and pelletized garbage for two years whilst, at the same time, banning it everywhere else.

Category: The environment

PROVINCE OF ONTARIO APPROVES TIRE BURNING at the Lafarge plant in Bath.

The kicker: The Ministry of the Environment proposed a ban on tire incineration at the same time. This ban would prevent other facilities from applying for permits to burn tires and is based on the Ministry's, "lack of experience monitoring the environmental performance of facilities that incinerate tires."

Category: The environment

LIMESTONED ON KITEBOARDING: Wonder why this or something similar isn't playing on "official" KTown tourism websites? with a You Tube video that looks like it might have been shot in Browns Bay.

Category: Tourism
KINGSTON'S METALCRAFT MARINE recently tested this impressive 50-foot Firestorm fireboat prior to its delivery to Miami-Dade County.

Category: Working waterfront
NOAA JUST UPGRADED THEIR NEAR-REAL-TIME GREAT LAKES DATA to include 4-times daily updates for Google Earth. You'll first need to install Google Earth to be able to view real-time surface temperature and wave heights of the lakes.

Category: The environment

A ROGUE WAVE apparently hit the Picton Castle and swept a 25-year old woman overboard on Friday night, 765 kilometres east-southeast of Cape Cod. This is the same barque that berthed in Kingston in late summer, hosting a 3-day "cargo sale".

Category: Tragedy
ANOTHER MAJOR SEWAGE DUMP!

That's 10 million imperial gallons.

Category: The environment

7.5 SQUARE KILOMETERS OF WATER LOT SURROUNDING KINGSTON is up for grabs.

Category: City of Kingston

THE 2007 ISAF VOLVO YOUTH WORLDS WEBSITE is live. No content there yet, but bookmark it anyway.

THE CANADIAN YACHTING ASSOCIATION, which is based at POH in Kingston, seeks a High Performance Coordinator for, among other things, the Canadian Sailing Team and the High Performance Youth Sailing programs.

SIERRA LEGAL PUTS IT ON THE TABLE: Wave of raw sewage escapes treatment. Kingston rates poorly, but check out Detroit, Cleveland, and Toronto.

Update: Read the CBC's report.

Category: The environment
OUR MAGNETIC ANOMALIES PAGE now shows a magnetic declination diagram of Kingston Harbour. Thanks to Larry R. Newett of Natural Resources Canada for providing it.

Category: K7Waterfront

THE CITY SEWER BYPASS LOG was updated sometime late yesterday (November 20) to acknowledge November 16th bypasses of 34,753 cubic meters (7.6 million gallons) due to heavy rains. This represents a delay of four days between the event and the acknowledgement on the website. At the same time, the city acknowledges 755 cubic meters (166,100 gallons) for November 11-14, which is a six to nine day delay, and a further 159 cubic meters (34,980 gallons) on another, presumably prior date.

If you get the sense that the city is providing this environmental accounting grudgingly, and in a half-assed way, you would be right.

For example, we learn that October hath 32 days. Honest mistake? or maybe they really don't give a damn? You decide. Just know that we waited 24 hours to post this story hoping they'd fix obvious mistakes like this. So far, they haven't.

There's more: The Whig reported, on November 18th, citing Jim Keech, president of Utilities Kingston, bypasses of 50,000 cubic meters, not the 34,753 currently being acknowledged by the City. What's going on?

The City doesn't even provide a "last updated" or "valid through" date on the sewer bypass page, so anyone looking-in within a few days of a heavy rain, even a week or more hence, would mistakenly conclude there were no bypasses.

All this isn't good enough, and the waterfront deserves better and prompter sewer bypass accounting than we're getting.

Category: The environment
A CATARAQUI RIVER SHORELINE DEVELOPMENT, this time its brownfield sweetner, is on the short agenda of the final council meeting. Here's the report.

This land is adjacent to Music Marina, and very close to the landing of the so-called "third crossing".

It looks like there is some shoreline infilling involved in the diagrams here.

Category: City Council

A GLANCE UPSTREAM AT WATER LEVELS IN THE GREAT LAKES shows that the big lakes, Superior and Michigan / Huron, continue to be notably below average. Lake Superior levels are approaching record lows for this time of year. Superior's November levels haven't been this low since the 1930's.

Category: Water levels

THE PRESERVE OUR WRECKS FALL 2006 NEWSLETTER is now online. Preserve Our Wrecks Kingston (POW) is celebrating its 25th year of protecting Kingston's Marine Heritage through its preservation efforts of the local area shipwrecks.

CKWS-TV REPORTS that Belleville's Morch Marine is planning quite the expansion and makeover. $150 million worth. Wow.

Category: The region

THE CITY OF KINGSTON SEWER BYPASS LOG has been rather slow with updates in the past few months. Let's see how long it takes for them to acknowledge any bypasses resulting from these rains.

Update (Friday Nov 17): The Whig reports City dumps sewage in waterways. No mention yet on the City of Kingston Sewage Bypass Log.

Update (Saturday Nov 18): The Whig reports the city dumped an estimated 50 million litres (50,000 cubic metres) into our waterways this week.

  • Utilities Kingston bypassed 14 million litres (14,000 cubic metres) at the Collingwood station, and
  • 15 million litres (15,000 cubic metres) at the north end station.
  • The OKill water-treatment plant was bypassed for 25 hours.
  • There was also the unusual step of bypassing secondary treatment at the west-end sewage plant for 15 hours. The plant removed large solids from waste water but didnt purify it.
On Thursday, about 35 mm of rain fell. With the added water from Wednesday night, the total for the two days was about 43 mm. Since Nov. 11, the city has seen 80 mm of rain that has seeped its way into sewers.

No mention yet of any of this on the City of Kingston Sewage Bypass Log.

Category: The environment

THE 2nd ANNUAL LIMESTONE CITY MARINE HERITAGE SYMPOSIUM will be held Saturday January 6 2007 at The Ambassador Resort Hotel from 8:00 AM to 4 PM.

The theme of this years show remains ship wrecks of the local area with a special focus on marine archeology and wreck preservation.

The lineup:

  • Locally:
    • Jeremy Jones - Shore Dive Sign Project. Jeremy reports on regional effort by divers to place in water signage for the protection of both wrecks and divers.
    • Scarlette Janusas, a professional underwater archeologist, on researching, working on, and protecting our Marine Heritage.
    • Ed Burt reports on his discovery of the almost mythical HMS Speedy
  • Dr. Ed Reinhart presenting on his geological and archeologic efforts in Caesarea
  • the always popular photograher Vlada Dekina show casing the wrecks of Belle Isle, Nfld
  • Dr. Doug Smeaton on historic shipwrecks of Halifax

Tickets may be reserved by contacting wreckshow@ontariodiving.com. Seating is limited so please book early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 07:30 am.

Category: History

HERE'S THE START of some basic research on rowing basins.

THE HERITAGE NEWSPAPER, via Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, reports Pollution-to-housing waterfront deal hits a snag about the Davis Tannery site development.

Category: The environment

AN 8-STORY PARKING GARAGE for Kingston's waterfront?

LAKE ONTARIO SAFETY ZONES, as proposed by the United States Coast Guard for occasional shooting practice, will have negligible impact on Kingston's boating, diving, fishing, and tourism trade. Zilch.

American boaters, on the other hand, are rightfully pissed at the idea since it affects them far more than it will ever affect Kingston.

If this goes through, it's just one more reason why the northern shore of Lake Ontario is a nicer place for boating, and for quality of life. On this so-called "issue" Kingston's current mayor, Harvey Rosen, would be well advised to zip it.

Click the chart below for a larger view or, better yet, see the US Homeland Security page. The box outlined with "blue" dots is the five-mile distance from the U.S. shores and/or U.S.-Canada maritime border. The boxes outlined with "yellow" dots, here shaded pinkish, are the proposed safety zones on Lake Ontario.

.

Category: The environment

THE LAKE ONTARIO WATERKEEPER/ WOLFE ISLAND WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION WETLAND CORRIDOR PROPOSAL has been released. This is all about cleaning up and renewing the Wolfe Island Canal.

See the very interesting 40-page, 19 Mb PDF document, which includes some fascinating appendices including an inventory of fish, plant, and wildlife on Wolfe Island.

Category: The region

FOUR LARGE CHRONICALLY MALFUNCTIONING LIGHT BUOYS in the lower Cataraqui River were replaced this week with much smaller spar buoys.

Category: Navigation

WATERKEEPER HIGHLIGHTS two recent Whig articles: Ontario sewage standards stink and Spineless over sewage.

The reaction of Kingston's current mayor, Harvey Rosen, is interesting. The fact is, the city of Kingston only started cleaning up its act after it was left with no other recourse. Ref: the Belle Park Dump.

Category: The environment

HERE"S AN INTERSTING ITEM involving an agreement with First Nations involving Belle Island at the Oct 3rd Council meeting.

Category: Parks

LAKE ONTARIO WATERKEEPER argues water is not just another commodity.

GENERAL BROCK ON THE ROCKS: Today The Whig Standard published this front page story about the 100-passenger tour boat General Brock III, operated by 1000 Islands Seaway Cruises, that ran aground South of Seeleys Bay. No passengers were on board, no injuries were sustained, and apparently damage to the vessel is minimal.


UPPER GREAT LAKES WATER LEVELS ARE VERY LOW, and there's no relief in sight. Huron and Michigan are at their lowest levels since the 1960s and Lake Superior is at its lowest since 1926.

THE COLLINS CREEK GREENBELT CORRIDOR will be one step closer to reality following the Planning Commitee meeting next Thursday.

Most people don't realize the immense size of the Collins Creek watershed. You barely notice Collins Creek driving over its mouth on Bath Road. Click the diagram below for a larger version.

BOUNCING BOATS are hard on your back.

WORTH ANOTHER LOOK: The Kingston Boardsailing Association has a great clickable chart of Wave Sailing Spots In the Kingston Harbour with brief descriptions.

.

For example:

Snake Shoal Break

6-8ft; Straight onshore conditions and nice long rides straight downwind. Jumps on either tack. This shallow shoal is good even in the early season high water. At low water, I wouldn't try to sail straight across this shoal. Instead, ride the surf down either side.

Sounds wild.

THE WHIG REPORTS on the three options presented by the International Joint Commission for regulating Lake Ontario water levels. See the commission's 162 page report, including some fascinating annexes.

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper endorses Plan B+:

Plan B+ represents a favorable compromise between pre-dam ideal environmental conditions and human uses of the Lake and River waterways. LOW notes that this is the only candidate plan that is directed towards the goals of the study, that is improving the Lake and River ecosystem. By permitting a greater range of fluctuations, meadow marsh habitat in Lake Ontario will be significantly improved. Plan B+ does more than any other plan to address species at risk, with notable improvements to populations of least bittern, black tern, yellow rail, and king rail.

VICKI SCHMOLKA writes about getting involved in The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, a 2-week country-wide effort organized and tallied by the Vancouver Aquarium.

We need this.

GOOGLE HAS ANNOUNCED UPGRADED IMAGERY for Google Maps and Google Earth. Large parts of North America are upgraded, and though the Kingston region is not included, Gananoque, Western Howe Island, the Admiralty Islands, and the Lake Fleet Islands are.

Western Camelot and Eastern Niagra Islands from Google Maps.

FIVE PEOPLE DIE at a poker run on Lake Texoma near Willis, Oklahoma.

LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVELS PEAKED IN EARLY AUGUST and have since receded. This year's peak was about four inches below, and about three months later, than last years'. Upstream the big lakes -- Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior, are at way below average levels.

ABLE SAIL KINGSTON is a dymanic and remarkable piece of our waterfront. You may be impressed with all they are doing, and amazed by the depth of Kingston's Able Sail capabilities. Here are the beginnings of our Able Sail Kingston topic.

CORMORANTS TAKE A BITE OUT OF FISH STOCKS, which confirms what local fishermen have been observing for a long while.

TALL SHIP IN TOWN: The dock of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes will be graced by the 179-foot barque Picton Castle between Aug 31st and Sept 4th. The barque will be hosting a cargo sale Friday and Saturday 11-7, and Sunday and Monday 10-6.

FUNDRAISING CONCERT: GORD DOWNIE will be performing a "Heart of a Lake" tour in three cities between September 18 to 21, 2006. All proceeds from the tour will be used to help communities win back their rights to safely swim, drink, and fish in Lake Ontario.

He'll be performing in Kingston on Thursday, September 21st, 8pm at Sydenham Street United Church, 82 Sydenham Street, Kingston. Tickets $18, fees extra. Available online at www.maplemusic.com and www.grandtheatre-kingston.com, at the Grand Theatre Box office, the John Deutsch University Centre and The Grad Club, and by phone at 613.530.2050

BEACH INFORMATION WHERE? Wondering if a particular local beach is open or closed? The KFL&A Health Unit website is no help. First you must guess that their news page is where this information is kept, and then you must guess if a news item is current since their items are not dated. What's worse, the beach information is buried in a narrative paragraph which must be interpreted, and some of the beach-closure related news items mention some beaches while omitting others.

Searching for "Beaches" or "Beach Closing" on the City of Kingston website yields dysfunctional results.

What this city needs is a web page that clearly shows us the status of all local beaches at a glance.

LYME DISEASE TICS HAVE ARRIVED: Tics carrying Lyme disease have established a presence on Thwartway Island, also know as Leek Island.

UPDATE: Wednesday's Whig reports that a park worker has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, and we can assume that the tics have infested all of the Thousand Islands.

KYC'S 110 YEARS interesting story yesterday at CKWS-News about the celebration at Kingston Yacht Club marking its 110th anniversary, and the 30th anniversary of hosting the sailing competition of the 1976 Olympic Summer Games.

MORE MARINA SHENANEGANS IN THE CITY:

Here's a scanned copy of the 11-page City of Kingston Request For Information (RFI) No. CS-AM-2006-02 on the future of Confederation Basin and Portsmouth Olympic Harbour that describes itself as

"Partnering opportunity with the municipality in the provision of capital investment in marina infrastructure and delivery of marinas operations and marketing services"

Read the whole thing.

[Updated]: Click here to view the July 25th 2006 City of Kingston website announcement of the matter. Click here to see the interesting and detailed documents submitted to Council to approve this move in late March, 2006.

Various questions arise from all this:

  • Why hasn't this document been widely circulated? It was advertised once in Kingston This Week. Pick-up only from the Midland St office. It was never publicly posted online by the City. Was a notice of this forwarded to, say, the Ontario Marina Operators Association? Were players from the wider marina industry approached? Why such a short leash?

  • What is the linkage between this RFI and the Request For Proposals, which apparently would soon follow? Why the rush? The RFI packs onerous production requirements into a short time, and reserves all rights to plans and intellectual property conveyed by respondents. The period for questions, for example, has already expired, just three weeks into this.

  • What's in place to protect taxpayers, protect access for boating residents and events, and for equitable treatment for other local waterfront-related interests, both commercial and public?

  • Why does all this appear to not pass a basic stink-test? Last April, for example, the The Kingston Brewing Company was precipitously given the task of running #6 Clarence Street, which is now the marina office, in what was the restaurant nearest to Confederation Basin.
What next?
Category: City Marinas

VICKI SCHMOLKA, who is running for Kingston City Council in Trillium District, notes that the Waterfront Trail is finally, but slowly, being posted.

LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVELS ARE UP, now about four inches above average. Upstream, Lake Superior is 10 inches below average, and Lakes Michigan and Huron are 20 inches below average water levels.

POKER RUN: Today's Whig Standard lead story, complete with colour photo, proclaims: " Big boats lead to new business".

The Thousand Islands Poker Run proved (sic) it is good for more than electrifying crowds and breaking speed limits over the weekend.

For the first time in its 19-year history, the motorsport spectacle was parlayed into a showcasing weekend for companies looking to expand.

A company in town for the event, which Kingston Economic Development Corp. general manager Jeff Garrah would not name ahead of an official announcement, committed to building a 15,000-square-foot facility that will create about 16 new jobs.

To put this into perspective, your average freestanding fast-food franchise represents as many full-time equivalent jobs as this. This is evidently front-page KEDCO-lauding news in this town.

Lower down:

"We had spectator boats lining both sides of the river from Kingston all the way to Prescott," Taylor said. "That's the magnitude of this event."

Yeah, like a sunny Saturday in August wouldn't otherwise be busy with boat traffic throughout the Thousand Islands.

Our friends at KEDCO and Poker Runs America would be well advised to curb their collegial self-congratulations, and recognize the other boats standing clear for what it really was.

CORMORANTS: The Syracuse Post Standard today ran a story titled Give cormorants credit for goby diet. Cormorants have become a huge problem on some islands near Kingston. Gobies (see also here) are an invasive species currently threatening many native fish populations.

CORK STARTS: Today is the first day of CORK, and it starts with the CORK Offshore event for larger keelboats.

CKWS-TV yesterday carried this story about the 110-foot long tall ship Fair Jean, currently operating in Kingston, and its planned year-long return trip to the Caribbean. Apparently there are still crew positions available.

Here's another recent article about the deadly virus killing fish in Lake Ontario.

Here's a Utilities Kingston Tender posted August first, closing August 16th, for work that must be done before December 15th 2006. Therein:

  • Landscaping of the on-shore areas of the east and west shores of the Great Cataraqui River - the naturalization of 5,800m2 on the west shore, the restoration of the east shore and landscaping in the vicinity of the River Street Sewage Pumping Station, including Douglas L. Fluhrer Park.

  • In-water fish compensation works in the Great Cataraqui River - construction of an artificial reef on the east shore of the Great Cataraqui River and the installation of ten (10) root wads on shoreline areas.
  • All this seems ridiculously short-notice and cross-diciplinary. The City of Kingston stumbles on without sense or vision for the Cataraqui River.

    On August 1st, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper published a short piece about three local beaches that are presently closed because of E.coli.

    Meanwhile, at Richardson Beach, which wasn't closed, on the hottest, muggiest, and smoggiest August 1st in Kingston history, there were very few swimmers, doubtless due to the general confusion over which beaches were, or wern't, safe.

    This 112-foot Westport luxury yacht recently spent a few hours at Collins Bay Marina. Next stop: Confederation Basin

    Mike Kalin, originally from Kingston, now a varsity sailing coach at MIT in Boston, finished 7th at the 2006 Laser North Americans near Halifax.

    Two recent posts from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper:

  • The virus affecting Lake Ontario fish is spreading from one species to another.
  • Winners and losers in Lake Ontario water-level control proposals.
  • The City of Kingston has issued a Request for Information for potential partners to "provide capital investment in marina infrastructure" and to "deliver marinas operations and marketing services" for Confederation Basin and Portsmouth Olympic Harbour.

    We've just added a new page about The Island Grill on Wolfe Island, another of our local waterfront restaurants, some of which, like The Grill, are immediately accessible by boat.

    CBC-News reports that some passport exemptions are likely for ferries and pleasure craft by the January 1st 2007 target date.

    (The Horne Ferry on Wolfe Island, less than 10 miles from Kingston, links Canada to the USA.)

    Bruce Schneier has an interesting post related to this on his blog: Schneier on Security (a blog that is always interesting).

    Either one of two things are true. Either passports are required for security, in which case we interfere with ferries. Or they're for show, in which case we can just do what's convenient. Or maybe we just know that terrorists never take ferries.

    Finally, after being notably low, Lake Ontario water levels are about normal for this time of year.

    CBC News reports Rideau Canal system hit by high gas prices, bad weather and border woes. In some places along the Rideau Canal, traffic is down 30% compared to last year.

    CKWS-TV has filed a transcript of a report on a recent fish die-off in Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence river. It's apparentlly caused by the VHS virus. Here's the report by The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on the matter. See also here and here.

    Here's an interesting article by Jamie Swift in the July/August 2006 edition of Independent Voice titled On the shores of Lake Ontario -- In which we attempt to stroll along Kingstons waterfront.

    Here are links to two recent CKWS-TV reports about the Ravensview sewage treatment plant upgrade and the Lafarge controversy in Bath.

    The Friends of Lake Ontario Park have a website. Therein you can see PDFs of Concept 1, Concept 2, and Concept 3 proposals from the Lake Ontario Park Revitalization Study prepared by Corush Sunderland Wright Ltd.

    The city's sewer bypass log reports 5,400 cubic meters (1.2 million gallons) were dumped into our waterways on June 27th. For a sense of perspective, a typical tank truck, the sort used to make fuel deliveries on highways and around town, can contain 5,000 gallons. Imagine a line of 240 such trucks, lined up to pump sewage into the water at the causeway. The equivalent of that happened this week in Kingston.

    Tuesday we dumped the contents of 240 of these.

    Here's another local waterfront blog, called A Sailor's Log, maintained by Nathan Baron, and billed as News, Events, and Stories from the Kingston Yacht Club.

    Here's a link to a Globe and Mail article titled Ontario tightens penalties for impaired boat operators.

    As we approach July, Lake Ontario water levels are still about six inches below average, and about four inches below last year's level at this time. The forecast calls for levels to rise through July, when historically levels fall.

    Abbott Boats of Sarnia, Canada's premier manufacturer of racing sailboats, is completely destroyed by fire. See also here.

    Here's a very cool Google Earth File of Lake Ontario Windsurf Spots compiled by Evan Wamsley. If you haven't yet installed Google Earth, you're in for a treat. Download it here.

    CNN reports Green goo globs up Great Lakes. It appears that algae blooms have been on the rise since the mid-1990s in parts of all of the Great Lakes. Here's the text of the report referenced in the CNN story. It's Lake Michigan-centric, but it applies also to Lake Ontario. Interesting how zebra mussles play a part in all this.

    Waterkeeper is right: Lafarge's application for a landfill in Bath and it's recent application for burning waste in its kilns should be examined in context together.

    Trillium Energy Power Corp apparently plans to build a 140-turbine, 710-megawatt wind farm off Main Duck Island.

    To give a sense of the scale of this, only 122 megawatts of wind-generated power exists in the province of Ontario today. 710 megawatts would be sufficient to meet the needs of 200,000 homes. This would be the biggest offshore wind farm outside of northern Europe.

    The notable difference in Lake Ontario water levels between this year and 2005 is narrowing.

    Kingston Mills Locks opened today and a number of American boats passed through. Also today, barely in time for the long weekend, Parks Canada was repositioning marks in the Great Cataraqui River, several of which had been dragged by winter ice.

    The Snowbirds precision aerobatic air show is scheduled for 5:45 PM this Wednesday afternoon.

    Update: In Kingston the 35-minute Snowbird show started exactly on time and included several 9 plane formations.

    Parks Canada is inviting the public help them develop the first management plan for the Kingston Fortifications, in particular to ensure their commemorative integrity. They are concerned with Cathcart Tower, Shoal Tower, Murney Tower and Fort Frederick.

    Read the excellent 12-page illustrated brochure here and a comment form is here. All are invited to an open house in Memorial Hall, Kingston City Hall, on May 25 2006 from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

    French brochure here and comment form here.

    This week the City tabled a transportation report that suggests, among other things, the re-routing of King Street South of the heating plant to improve flow and alleviate Kingston General Hospital parking issues. This would require some infilling. Most of this park exists because of prior infilling.


    Photo by Wavespire.

    At long last, the boathouses at Kingston Yacht Club are being renovated.

    As of this weekend the Brown's Bay Inn on Wolfe Island (website here) is open for dining.

    Last June Kingston's MetalCraft Marine landed a contract to provide a 49' CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or explosive) fast attack fireboat for the Seattle Fire Department. Yesterday MetalCraft Marine conducted some of their first preliminary tests on the vessel, which looks very good.

    Click here for a large-sized diagram of the vessel., and see more MetalCraft Marine fireboat pictures here.

    Cold water and its effects are involved in virtually all kayaking and recreational boating deaths. An article posted on the Yachting World website explains what makes cold water exposure so potentially risky, reviews some strategies to minimize that risk, and raise a few hairs with some stories of tragic, and mostly preventable, cold water deaths. For example:

    • Nine elite marines, water survival instructors, capsized in 36F water wearing sweatsuits and no PFDs. None of them survived the attempted 100 yard swim to shore.
    • Sixteen (16) Danish fishermen jumped into the icy waters of the North Sea when their trawler sank in a storm. They were in the water for a 2 - 3 hours before being rescued. They walked across the deck of the rescue vessel and went down into the galley to warm up. Each and every one collapsed and died in the galley.
    • An average adult person has a 50/50 chance of surviving a 50 yard swim in 50F. water.
    The current water temperature in these parts is 40F. The article is titled Shocking news about cold water. Read the whole thing.

    The City of Kingston announces that the Inner Harbour sewer overflow tank (is now) in operation.

    Lake Ontario Waterkeeper reports that Kingston dumps raw sewage... again... and again... and again... and again... and again.

    Kingston has bypassed sewage seven times during five "events" in the first quarter of 2006. According to Waterkeeper, since 1999, the city has dumped well over 1-b i l l i o n litres of raw sewage into area waterways. How embarassing.

    Over at Collins Bay Marina they're already launching boats. "This is the earliest we have ever started the season!" says Hub Steenbakkers, owner of Collins Bay Marina. "It is starting off to be a great season!".

    Here are two views from the controllable Collins Bay Marina web cam which you can take for a spin at www.CollinsBayMarina.com/WebCam.html.

    At other locations:

    Both the Kingston Yacht Club and Collins Bay Yacht Club have updated their racing and social schedules for the coming months.

    The City of Kingston has been working with The Kingston Brewing Company with an eye to reivitalize #6 Clarence Street.

    Category: City Council

    Lake Ontario Waterkeeper has issued an open invitation in Kingston this week.

    Meet us in Kingston this week!
    Join Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Gord Downie in a discussion about Kingston's burning issues.
    Find out what's being done - and what you can do - to win back your lake... and your future.
    Where: Queen's Grad Club, Kingston
    When: 7:00-9:30. Wed. April 5, 2006.
    How: You must be on the list to attend. Please email RSVP@waterkeeper.ca.
    Space is limited. First come, first serve!
    Category: The environment

    Yesterday CKWS-TV news ran this piece about Bath's Lafarge cement plant's plans to burn tires in its kilns.

    Over at Rideau Marina the South boathouse is being torn down. It's being removed because it covers some deeper-water slips that many boaters hesitate to rent because they are under cover. Very soon those slips will be wide-open.

    Category: Marinas

    Today The Whig Standard reports that the City is studying improving and expanding our municipal marinas, possibly establishing a partnership with the private sector.

    Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Gord Downie ask the government to deny Lafarge permits.

    Their 11-page submission in PDF format is here. That's a long list of concerns; read the whole thing.

    Category: The environment

    Here's the transcript of tonight's CKWS-TV story about the Bittern retrofit that was approved by City Council at Tuesday night's meeting.

    The Whig reports that CFB Kingston has closed access to a popular waterfront cycling trail.

    At issue before Council tonight, the City of Kingston proposes to rent an office at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour to Clifts Marine Sales of Toronto whose homepage already touts this as a done deal. Note the rent. We're guessing this is the thin edge of the wedge, and it's only a matter of time before they start renting docks and using POH as a major sales centre.

    Lake Ontario Waterkeeper has serious concerns about Lafarge's plan to burn tires and other garbage in its cement kiln near Bath.

    The Bath cement plant is already one of the largest polluters in the region (see also here).

    Brigantine Inc has some updates to their summer schedule for St. Lawrence II. As always, they are looking for some practical items for donation, things that you may have that no longer serve, such as a T.V. and VCR for classroom work, or used office equipment like printers and photocopiers. In this case, your junk may be their treasure, argh!

    The Downtown Kingston! organization has announced that August 11, 12 & 13th are dates of this year's 1000 Island's Poker Run.

    The full 2006 Poker Runs America schedule is here.

    CKWS-TV reports that the City dumped 7 million litres of waste water into the Cataraqui River this week.

    From the United States Army Corps of Engineers:

    All of the Great Lakes are 3 to 8 inches below the levels of a year ago. Lake Superior is below chart datum and is expected to be at the same level a month from now. Lake Michigan-Huron is below chart datum and should rise 4 inches within the next 30 days. Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie are expected to rise 4 inches over the next month and Lake Ontario is expected to rise two inches over the next month. Due to a warmer than average January and February some of the Great Lakes seem to have begun their seasonal rise earlier than normal, but levels over the next few months on all the Great Lakes are expected to remain lower than 2005.

    Two Kingston-area boats recently sailed in the Olson 30 US Nationals and in the Olson 30 class at the light-air Land's End NOOD regatta in Florida. Both events were hosted by the St. Petersburg Yacht Club.

    Here are pictures of the effects of today's big breeze at Kingston Yacht Club. Environment Canada reports gusts to 84 kmh, off the scale of our chart.

    Here is the announcement that the 2007 Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championship will be held in Kingston between 12-21 July 2007.

    The Globe and Mail reports Great Lakes pollution rising despite cleanups, study says. The full study is here, courtesy of pollutionwatch.org. We've posted their latest data on the largest polluters in the region on our pollution page.

    CKWS-TV reports on a recent diving death near Rockport.

    The Saturday Feb 4 Whig Standard has two interesting online stories. The first is about the Wolfe Island wind turbine project and the second is about ownership and responsibility for Fort Henry.

    We may be seeing a show by the Snowbirds precision flying team on Wednesday May 17th.

    We've received some great pictures and a history of the shallow wrecks in Anglin Bay.

    Surely we're not the only ones who missed the release of the December 2005 CORK Newsletter. Among the interesting items in the two pages are:

    • The Trillium Foundation has provided over $50,000 towards the purchase of three new race support boats.
    • Marianne Davis is CORK's new general manager.
    • The City of Kingston has received a grant from the Government of Canada to refurbish Portsmouth Olympic Harbour which will include fixing-up the existing ramps, adding new ramps, and refurbishing docks.

    The Ministry of Natural Resources is rethinking a controversial plan to close bass sanctuaries in the Rideau Lakes area after angry opposition from tourism and fishing operators.

    The "Buffalo Niagra Sailing" blog has a great take on club communications. The number of waterfront clubs in Kingston that blog news for their members is currently zero.

    CKWS-TV reports on the new underground sewage overflow tank on the western shore of the Cataraqui River.

    Brigantine Inc has posted their summer schedule for St. Lawrence II. We notice they are looking for some practical items for donation.

    The Collins Bay Yacht Club has posted its preliminary 2006 events calendar.

    The Whig Standard today published a story about pending development on the Davis Tannery site, which is on the Inner Harbour waterfront.

    The City of Kingston qualified for the January (Belle dump leaching) and the April (sewage dump) "highlights" of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper's Year 2005 in Review.

    The City of Kingston has just acquired the Bittern to be converted into a fireboat.

    The City hopes to get MetalCraft Marine, whose order books for new fireboats are bulging, to perform the retrofitting.

    The December 2005 KYC Log has been posted.

    Whig: City avoids stricter sewage-spill rules

    It turns out that the City won't be forced to abide by these proposed rules (see also here).

    In short, the City won't have to do this:

    1. Notify downstream communities prior to bypassing sewage into waterways.
    2. Monitor every bypass and publicize the length of the bypass, the quantity of sewage discharged, the direction and size of the plume, the level of contamination present in the bypass (eg, E. coli concentrations), and other similar data.
    3. Ensure that every waterway is cleaned up after being exposed to a bypass.
    Instead, the City and the Ministry of the Environment negotiated a non-binding "letter of commitment" to notify the medical officer of health and the Frontenac Islands Township in the event that untreated waste is discharged into area water.

    The City and the Ministry of Environment make a deal in the Belle Park landfill case. Update: Coverage by The Whig and CKWS-TV.

    The CFB Kingston Yacht Club has posted a (very) preliminary calender some of their 2006 events. Lift-in is Sunday May 14th which, as their home page points out, is a mere 150 days from now.

    The Tett Centre, Kingston's waterfront arts haven, is under some threat, and some mobilization will probably be required to save it. Update: The city hires Artscape, a Toronto firm, to study the Tett Centre.

    MetalCraft ships a new 36ft. FireStorm fireboat

    Also down at Anglin Bay, this week MetalCraft Marine shipped a new 36ft. FireStorm fireboat to Perth Amboy, New Jersey (Google map here) to work in New York harbour.

    Busy week at Kingston Marina

    Kingston Marina used two cranes to haul out this 60ft. tug yesterday for a Transport Canada inspection. This boat is due back in the water ASAP with the job of breaking ice for Brockville harbour.

    Kingston Marina reports having more boats for winter storage, and more boats for in-water winter storage, than ever before. This picture show's the Anglin Bay harbour full of boats that are too big to be hauled out. Theyare using agitators to keep the ice away. The largest vessel being stored is the Canadian Empress at 108 ft.

    The agenda for the December 6th Council meeting contains this item about the City purchasing the Queen Street dock, which is next to the Wolfe Island Ferry dock and across the street from the proposed LVEC, with no immediate or clear purpose.

    Updated: Read CKWS-TV's report of Monday, December 5th.

    CKWS-TV reported Friday that a 72-foot cruise ship, the "Georgian Clipper", will begin serving the port of Kingston in the spring. See their 2006 itinerary, and see more pictures and diagrams of the vessel here.

    This ship only carries 18 passengers. The story notes that, apparently, Kingston lacks the deep water docking to accommodate this sort of business on a larger scale. It's pretty clear that Kinston is underachieving in a spectacular way when it comes to accommodating larger vessels, cruise vessels included.

    CKWS-TV reports that Collins Bay Marina has achieved the Ontario Marina Operators Association's highest honours for environmental best practices.

    Collins Bay Marina has other environmentally-related feathers itn its cap:

    • Receipt of the OMOA's Robert Eaton Environmental Award "for excellence in environmental practices within the marine industry".
    • Presentation with the DuPont Canada Annual Ecology Award from the Cataraqui Conservation Foundation.
    • Seminal work with the OMOA executive in establishing the Clean Marine Program that is now in place across the province.
    • Education of boaters and the provision of incentives for participation in environmentally responsible measures and programs.
    • The provision of specialized equipment and implementation of appropriate containment procedures to enable their boaters to work safely with potentially hazardous materials in the course of doing maintenance on their boats.

    Vector Wind Energy Inc. of Ottawa has detailed web pages about its proposed developments on Carruthers Point, Taylor Kidd West, and Amherst Island.

    Of the three projects, Amherst Island looks to be the most intensive. Click here and here for larger, full-size images.

    From the United States Army Corps of Engineers:

    All of the Great Lakes, except Lake Ontario, are 4 to 6 inches below the levels of a year ago.&nbsp;; Lake Ontario is 6 inches higher than it was a year ago.... Lakes Erie and Ontario are expected to fall 2 and 3 inches, respectively, over the next 30 days. Levels over the next few months on all the Great Lakes, with the exception of Lake Ontario, are expected to remain lower than 2004/2005. Evaporation rates this fall may be higher than average due to warmer surface water temperatures. See our Daily Levels web page for more water level information.

    If this forecast holds then spring 2006 levels look to be about a foot below 2005 levels.

    From the October KYC Log: The Kingston Yacht Club has been awarded the William Abbott Senior Trophy for 2005. The award goes to the top LTS program in Canada each year. This is a first for a learn-to-sail program in the Kingston area since the award was created in 1991. Clubs from Ontario have won this award 10 times in those 15 years.

    A heavy rainfall in early April 2005 caused Kingston to dump 52 million liters of waste water into the Cataraqui River. Total fine? Zilch.

    The Kingston-based Canadian Yachting Association (CYA) is seeking a new National Team Coach responsible for coaching athletes engaged in high performance sailing activities. Closes December 2, 2005.

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    Last Updated: September 1, 2010