Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Following Southern Ocean rig damage, Derek Hatfield and his wife had a forced holiday in Hobart, with their disabled IMOCA 60 Algimouss Spirit of Canada, berthed at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania (one the end tie next to our berth). Derek hosted an “open house” aboard, then gave a very well-attended talk after dinner at the club.

Here’s a summary of Derek’s trials from the Nova Scotia Photo Album Blog:

Derek Hatfield is in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, having carefully piloted his Open 60 sailboat, Spirit of Canada, to the closest shelter of land after the boat was damaged in the Vendée Globe solo, non-stop, round-the-world sailing race (”the Everest of sailing”).

Spirit of Canada had been hit by a huge wave that knocked the boat over and broke the spreaders high above the deck. The race’s rules require that participants repair any damage without any outside help if they are to stay in the race, but this damage is not something that Derek could have repaired alone.

In fact, of the 30 boats that started this race 50 days ago, only 12 remain in the running, so he is in very respectable company. A look at the race’s map (see www.vendeeglobe.org/en/ and click on the Map) shows the southernmost points of land littered with boats that have had to abandon the race.

“Spirit of Canada” has been a shoestring project all along, without the major corporate sponsorship and intense media interest enjoyed by Derek’s European competitors. The whole enterprise has been built on the small donations of thousands of Canadians. Now they have to get the boat back home to Nova Scotia, and fixed so it can participate in future Open 60 races. Shipping a boat like that is very expensive. However, sailing it home would require that it be fixed first, which has its own logistical challenges. If you can help support “Spirit of Canada” with a financial contribution, please do so. You can make a donation via their website, SpiritOfCanada.net, and send supportive e-mails to Derek from there as well.

One of the major treats of the 2009 MONA FOMA Festival of Music and Art in Hobart was the Ansgar Wallenhorst concert at St. David’s Cathedral. You have never truly heard that magnificent organ until played by virtuoso Wallenhorst.

Lucid Culture reviewed a similar 2007 concert at St. Thomas Church, NYC — a better review than we could write, so here’s the introduction discussing the performance of the same Franz Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue performed in Hobart.

Wallenhorst is a German organist and a devotee of improvisation, tonight proving himself in the same league as Olivier Latry or Pierre Cochereau. He gave the beautiful old Skinner organ here a workout it probably hasn’t had in years, using seemingly every pipe and every registration, no matter how obscure. Perhaps the glockenspiel felt neglected, but otherwise the venerable old instrument proved it can still whip up a storm for the ears. In almost 45 minutes, Wallenhorst played just two pieces, the first being Franz Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale Ad Nos, Ad Salutarem Undam. Liszt is famous for being the Pedro Martinez of the organ, i.e. having big hands and long fingers which helped facilitate the long jumps and massive chords which are his trademark. But melody is all too frequently an afterthought in his music: flights of dexterity and dazzling musicianship very often take precedence over content. Not so with this piece. It’s a flood warning, echoing back to Buxtehude and his contemporaries with its warm, major-key passages playing against eerie minor key melodies, macabre chromatics and tritones. By the time Wallenhorst wrapped it up with a scorching, fortissimo conclusion, he’d aired out the trumpet in the church’s ceiling as well as every rank in the flutes, reeds and the lowest, rumbling, subterranean pedal pipes. The intensity of the performance matched the knotty demands of the piece itself.