While the Navy commemorated its historic connection to Napier, the Air Force turned up with punchy air displays.
Napier welcomed the return of the New Zealand Defence Force to Hawke’s Bay for their week-long Art Deco Festival, which concluded on Sunday [18th].
The festival, cancelled since 2021 due to the Covid-19 years and the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle last year, regularly invites the Royal New Zealand Navy to commemorate the Navy’s service to Napier during the 1931 earthquake. Royal Navy vessel HMS Veronica happened to be in Napier on 3 February 1931, and after the 7.8 magnitude quake the crew went ashore to aid the city’s residents. HM Ships Dunedin and Diomede followed soon after.
The Art Deco Festival pays homage to the period when the city rebuilt itself in the architecture of the time. People dress up in 1930s clothing and Navy personnel, wearing uniforms largely unchanged since the 1930s, blend in easily.
Like the disaster in 1931, military personnel came to the aid of Hawke’s Bay after Cyclone Gabrielle a year ago, with HMNZ Ships Canterbury, Te Mana and Manawanui berthing in Napier to offload supplies. The NZ Army and Royal New Zealand Air Force achieved access and delivered supplies to rural Hawke’s Bay and East Coast communities.
HMNZS Manawanui and its crew attended the festival, while a contingent of personnel from HMNZS Te Kaha drove to Napier to participate in events.
Navy personnel worked for two days on community projects in Eskdale, where communities are still recovering from cyclone damage.
Over the festival the Royal New Zealand Air Force aerobatics display team, the Black Falcons, put on three displays above the Soundshell on Napier’s Marine Parade. Saturday’s display mingled with the Vintage Car Display, led by the Royal New Zealand Navy Band and sailors marching from Clive Square to Marine Parade. Members of Manawanui’s crew took part in an historic recreation, riding on a trailer towed by a restored Fordson Model F Industrial tractor – the same one that transported HMS Veronica sailors through devastated streets in 1931.
On Sunday Napier citizens gathered to witness the ringing of the bell of HMS Veronica at the Veronica Sunbay, in remembrance to those lost in the earthquake.
Commodore Mat Williams, attending as the senior representative of the Defence Force, noted that the people of Napier now regrettably know the feeling of being part of an emergency response. Today, the ships are different and both men and women come ashore, he says.
“But it is the same values and work ethic that we see today. It is our people, not our ships, where the true capability lies.”
The sombre part of the festival over, the crowd migrated to the beach for the final Black Falcon’s display overhead.
The best explanation I ever heard of that was by Billy Connolly. Munchety Crunchety
Re: We need more
Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2024 2:38 pm
by probes
I got a hint for 'the quantum of change' (when I badly needed it) from Slasher, and enjoyed it - totally, despite being a philologist.
Now there are more. Enjoy. Motion Mountain
Very interesting, Probes. When I saw the photo I assumed it was a bug that had been parasitised by a fungus. Reading the article, it seems that the experts think it may have evolved to look that way as a defence mechanism.
Re: We need more
Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 9:48 am
by limeygal
Mm. Too bad he felt the need to "collect" it. Leaving it alive, in the wild, might help keep a rare species going.
Re: We need more
Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 9:58 am
by G-CPTN
Isn't that what the Victorians were guilty of - the voracious collection of all sorts of flora and fauna?
Now, if you really need more - Reuter's Graphics - from the Boeing bolts to Disney's 100 years .
One is baffled.
Re: We need more
Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2024 9:55 pm
by Karearea
19-year-old American figure skater Ilia Malinin breaks the world record free skate score with 227.79 points and six landed quads at the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal.
WORLD CHAMPION Ilia Malinin lands SIX QUADS [36sec.video]
Re: We need more
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 11:35 am
by Ex-Ascot
Amazing. I can't even stand up on the ice.
Re: We need more
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 3:52 pm
by Wodrick
How do you learn to do that ?
Re: We need more
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 6:08 pm
by Rossian
You practice a lot and fall over a bigger lot but keep on trucking. Chapeau as we say in Morayshire.
The Ancient Mariner
Re: We need more
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 10:44 pm
by Hydromet
Years ago, Bernard Hinault, 5 time Tour de France winner, was interviewed by a friend for an Australian cycling magazine. My friend asked him how he trained, to be such a great rider.
"Ride lots."
I wondered, too (it's hard to even count how many times they turn!) - and it appears there are tutorials in YouTube. Seriously. It's claimed that when you start at an early age, the wossat-apparatus inside your head gets used to it and one won't feel dizzy any more. After all, it's doesn't look like the balley dancers' 'spotting', when the dancer focuses on a fixed point in the room as they turn.
Re: We need more
Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2024 8:39 am
by G-CPTN
Yes, two years ago on December 17th I discovered that, despite having shoes with 'Commando soles', I couldn't arrest the slide on a steep gradient of wet ice with water flowing over it.
Reaching out with my right arm to prevent the fall merely dislocated my shoulder, leaving me to lie in the 'river' for two and a half hours, waiting in vain for an ambulance until the police arrived and declared "You can't lie here mate, you are obstructing the highway" so they bundled me into the police-car and took me to the local hospital who refused to accept me as they "Don't do serious casualty cases" so I was taken by ambulance to the city hospital where I joined the 19 hour queue for triage (they were extremely busy as many others were falling on the ice).
After four attempts at refitting my shoulder they sent me to theatre for a general anaesthetic to 'ease my pain'.
Today I am left with a damaged rotator cuff tendon, having declined the offer of a total 'reverse' shoulder replacement (they chop off your arm and fix it back on upside-down).
"Both the ball and the socket are replaced, but the implants are reversed. The ball is attached to the shoulder blade and the socket is attached to the upper arm bone. This option typically is preferred if the rotator cuff is severely damaged."
Yesterday I spent 14 hours in the same hospital casualty department after a stumble into a parking ticket machine was seen by a well-meaning nurse (who knows me - I live in a village). The hospital was not busy this time - it seems that the wheels of medicine rotate extremely slowly.
Too bad to have lost it.
.