Dedicated to democracy, enjoying and restoring the Mahurangi, meaningful climate action, and curiosity—
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It’s a barge! It’s a boat! It’s the J Barry Ferguson
By any reasonable criteria, the J Barry Ferguson can be described as a landing barge. Clearly not in the assault-troop-landing sense, not least of all because of its diminutive size. In one very important respect, however, the J Barry Ferguson is not a typical…
Giselles and Gabrielles of their grandchildren
That, in modern meteorological history, Aotearoa has never been hit by a tropical cyclone, is no fluke. The clue, of course, is “tropical”. Not that a tropical cyclone can’t survive beyond the tropics, or even beyond the subtopics—Gabrielle was in the subtropics within a couple of…
Climate-powered atmospheric river alters algorithm
Mahurangi Regatta 2023, or rather its cancellation, has added an important loop to the loose algorithm that has been run 46 times since Mahurangi Action revived a regatta for which only scant clues remained as to how it was run. Initially, the sailing and shoreside events were…
Dire forecast cancels the 2023 Mahurangi Regatta
Easterlies forecast for the four days ahead of Saturday would have generated too great a swell at Sullivans Bay for the traditional Mahurangi Regatta shoreside events to be held. Ultimately however, a convergence of dire forecasts has cancelled the regatta in its entirety…
Sign on the 2024 shoreside Mahurangi Regatta crew
By signing on the shoreside events crew, Mahurangi Regatta lovers will be helping to carry forward a tradition dating at least as far back as that first recorded, on New Year’s Day 1858. When Mahurangi Action revived the regatta in 1977, the committee members, most of who had lived…
Mahurangi Regatta programme
– 2023 regatta cancelled
If held, always held on the Saturday of Auckland Anniversary weekend. Utterly unavoidably, the 2023 Mahurangi Regatta, in its entirety, is cancelled due. Since its revival by Mahurangi Action in 1977, this is possibly only the second time an extreme-conditions forecast has cancelled sailing…
Hungry-Creek-Road-first policy right for the wrong reasons
Prioritising private-light-vehicle access via Hungry Creek Road, ahead of a footbridge across Te Muri Estuary, is counter-productive policy making, fundamentally incompatible with Auckland Council’s own declared climate emergency. Fortunately, the tens of millions that would be…
Thinking outside the three-bedroom breeding box
Good for absolutely nothing, war is now preoccupying the every waking moment that should be fiercely focussed on the climate emergency. For those born into the post-war optimism of the United Nations, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sharply increased the struggle to…