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Jan 24
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30 of the best
Lining up for the Gill Melges 24 Worlds in Geelong
Audi Ultra crew including tactician Enrico Fonda, pitman Federico Buscaglia and bowman Lucia Giorgetti preparing for World Championship in Australia.
Wednesday January 22nd 2014, Author: James Boyd, Location: Australia
Boats from San Francisco to Geelong, from California to Australia, will all be chasing the title at the Melges 24 World Championship next week.
Audi Ultra is starting her 2014 sailing season facing the longest away race of all: Riccardo Simoneschi’s team ended 2013 with the World Championship in San Francisco, but has headed Down Under where over 29 January to 2 February the best teams in the class will be fighting it out to beat reigning champion Brian Porter’s Full Throttle.
Unprecedented leader and number one in the class ranking, Audi Ultra is ready for this challenge. Riccardo Simoneschi has four of his five original crew that competed on board during the last season. Vittorio Rosso, has been replaced by Luna Rossa sailor Manuel Modena, and past Melges 24 World Champion with James Spithill in 2005.
Aboard Audi Ultra will also be tactician Enrico Fonda, pitman Federico Buscaglia and bowman Lucia Giorgetti.
Holding a World Championship in Australia has thinned out the fleet , however it has raised the quality with only the most professional teams deciding to take part.
Around 30 teams will be competing in Geelong, including a group of winning teams. Besides Audi Ultra, among the favourites Flavio Favini’s Blu Moon, American Bora Gulari’s West Marine Rigging, Olympic champion Nathan Wilmot’s Kaito Northshore Marine and Harry Melges’ Star. Not to be understimated are teams like Altea of Andrea Racchelli, that has also been a regular winner. Sadly reigning Melges 24 World Champion, Brian Porter and his Full Throttle Racing Team are absent from the line-up.
“This World Championship will be hard for several reasons,” says Simoneschi. “The conditions, the race course on a very narrow bay doesn’t make it easy and then there is the fact that at least 15 teams are capable of winning. Many Australian crews will be relying on the skills of Olympic medallists in their teams and it will be tough on the start line. We have all ingredients for a successfull championship.
Links: Melges 24 Worlds Australia, Race Results, Interview with Enrico Fonda
Audi Ultra Triumphs at the Melges 24 European Sailing Series in Torbole
© 2013 Helly Hansen, Published August 1
Last weekend, July 26-28, was a great weekend for sailing. Sporting Helly Hansen gear, the Audi Ultra crew was crowned the winner of the 3rd act of the European Sailing Series in Melges 24 class. The regatta took place at Torbole and was joined by a myriad of fantastic sailing teams.
The winning crew for the Audi Ultra team was composed of helmsman Riccardo Simoneschi, tactician Enrico Fonda, trimmer Federico Buscaglia, pitman Michele Cannoni and bowman Lucia Giorgetti.
It took eight intense and hard fought races for the Audi Ultra team to secure the victory of the third stage of the series. The winning crew was composed of helmsman Riccardo Simoneschi, tactician Enrico Fonda, trimmer Federico Buscaglia, pitman Michele Cannoni and bowman Lucia Giorgetti. The team demonstrated its skills by coping with the unstable Ora wind. Their will for a win was obvious from the very beginning of the race, even with the tough competition they had to face. In the final ranking Audi Ultra got the first place and was followed by EFG Bank with an 8-point-margin, and Giogi at 3rd place. Right behind them were the Japanese team of Makoto Nagahashi & Taki 4 of Giacomo Fossati.
After racing in Torbole waters, Audi Ultra’s helmsman Simoneschi shared his impressions from the competition and his expectations of their next challenge in the continental circuit of the Melges 24 Class: “Torbole has been very important, allowing us to understand our skills in preparation for the next European Championship in Medemblick that’s taking place on the third week of August. In Holland we’ll have to face many of the same sailing teams and other more tricky ones such as Lenny, two-time Olympic medalist Tonu Toniste and Storm Capital Sail Racing of the Norwegian Peder Jahre, already three-time European Corinthian Champion.”
We wish the team luck in their preparation and we will follow with excitement the upcoming decisive stages in Medemblik, Holland (16-24 August) and Hanko, Norway (6-8 September).
More Info: Audi Sailing Team
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Jan 19
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Maxwell P Fonda MD
Passed away peacefully at his home on December 22, 2013 at the age of 100 years.
Maxwell P. Fonda passes away at 100 years old.
He was born on April 28, 1913 in Charleston, Mississippi to James and Maude Fonda. In 1923 the family moved to Southern California where they resided in Highland Park. Maxwell graduated from USC Medical School in 1942 with a degree in medicine. He served as a flight surgeon in the US Army Medical Corps during WWII with the 57th fighter group in Europe. After returning from his military duty he married his sweetheart, Winifred Rose Seidel on February 9, 1946. He then finished five years of residency in orthopedics and set up private practice in Pomona, California.in 1951. He practiced orthopedics for 40 years at both Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center and San Antonio Community Hospital until retirement in 1990. He was a member of AMA, Western Orthopaedic Association and Pilgrim Congregational Church. His hobbies were fishing, fly tying and raising orchids. He lived a remarkable life and will be missed by many.
His wife Winnie preceded him in death on May 21, 1988. He is survived by a daughter, Susan Evans and husband Phil of Palm Desert, CA; son Steven Fonda and wife Patty of Carson City, NV; along with 4 grandchildren and their spouses; and 6 great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at Pilgrim Congregational Church, 600 N. Garey Avenue, Pomona, California on Saturday, January 18, 2014 at 1:00 pm.
Published in Inland Valley Daily Bulletin on Jan. 9, 2014
Also see: Findagrave, Rootsweb, Fonda Military
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Jan 09
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Estenda Solutions, Inc. Hires New Vice President of Research
Estenda Solutions, Inc. is proud to announce the hiring of Dr. Stephanie Fonda as Vice President of Research. Building on years of collaboration, hiring Dr. Fonda greatly enhances Estenda’s ability to pursue grant funding for healthcare and medical software projects.
Dr. Stephanie Fonda
Conshohocken, PA (PRWEB) January 08, 2014
Estenda Solutions, Inc. is proud to announce the hiring of Dr. Stephanie Fonda as Vice President of Research. Building on years of collaboration, hiring Dr. Fonda greatly enhances Estenda’s ability to pursue grant funding for healthcare and medical software projects.
As a scientist, Dr. Fonda has designed research projects to develop new technologies for assisting with diabetes self and care management, including a cell phone based system for sending tips and reminders to patients with diabetes, internet-based programs for facilitating patient-provider communication, patient education, and care management, and telehealth eye care programs for screening for and promoting public awareness of diabetic retinopathy.
Dr. Fonda joins Estenda’s team in addition to her role as Senior Scientist at the Diabetes Institute at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where she is principle investigator on several studies and provides education on research design and methods, conducts statistical analyses, and provides sample size calculations for new research proposals, among other responsibilities.
“Historically, Estenda has collaborated with medical professionals and PhDs to apply for grant funding,” said RJ Kedziora, CIO/CTO and Co-founder of Estenda. “Hiring Dr. Fonda allows Estenda to pursue grant funding on our own and expand our service offerings assisting professionals in crafting their grant applications.”
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Dec 15
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Daughters of the American Revolution Women in History winner
Names and Notables: Dec. 15-21, The Mankato Free Press, December 15, 2013
Daughters of the American Revolution Women in History winner
Lenore Johnson Fonda
Anthony Wayne Chapter DAR
Lenore Johnson Fonda, Anthony Wayne Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution Women in History 2013 Winner, was honored at the November monthly meeting in Mankato.
Fonda was chosen for her contributions to the community and her work in preserving the memory of founding ancestors.
She joined DAR in 1987 and was elected and served as Regent of Anthony Wayne Chapter. in 1995 and 1996 she represented the Anthony Wayne Chapter at the Continental Congress in Washington DC.
Daughters of the American Revolution
The Anthony Wayne Chapter and Daughters of the American Revolution State Officers participated in the Memorial Dedication Service for the Bohemian National Cemetery Memorial on Nov. 9.
The Anthony Wayne Chapter was the sponsor of a $10,000 special project grant from the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. The memorial consists of a 9000 pound granite monument, two life-sized soldier statue, seven flags and benches.
Link: DAR – Anthony Wayne Chapter – Mankato, Minnesota
Pictured are (left to right): Genette Carleton, Susan Jirele, Faye Leach, Nancy Hamer and Marilyn Wilkus.
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Nov 12
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‘A labor of love for the Lord’ — Ship inspired by man’s faith in God finally sets sail
By Abigail Curtis, BDN Staff – Nov. 11, 2013
The schooner Beacon Won at the Front Street Shipyard in Belfast. The vessel that was built in Addison will travel to the Bahamas to be used as a charter boat this winter. It will make the voyage under engine power and will eventually be outfitted with two masts.
BELFAST, Maine — The stout, unfinished white boat, still without its mast and sails, looked a little out of place this week, moored as it was next to the multimillion-dollar superyachts of Front Street Shipyard. The boat — named the Beacon Won — was a hub of activity Monday morning during a stability trial. It also looked like it might have a pretty good story to tell, and it does.
“When we bought the boat, it was really in a dilapidated condition,” Capt. Bruce Dunham said Monday. “We looked at the boat for five minutes, and said ‘no way.’ We did not need a project. We needed a boat. But we came back. We looked at the boat again, and we could not stand to see the boat die.” At that point, the Beacon Won was nothing more than the hackmatack wooden skeleton, or ribs, of a 65-foot two-masted schooner, and a dream that seemed put on hold by the death of the man who had first dreamed of it.
Dino Fonda heard a message from God to build a ship back in 1986 when he and his wife, Cathy, were living in Venice, Fla. The couple traveled along the New England coast, searching for the right spot to build the boat, and they found it in the Addison Shipyard. They purchased the yard, and although Dino was not a trained boatbuilder, he had an engineering and building background and used books to help him with the tricky parts. He worked on the boat by hand for years while Cathy taught Spanish at Sumner Memorial High School. “It was a labor of love for the Lord,” Cathy Fonda, now 70, said Monday.
When Dino died in 2003, his ship was not much more than a hull and a deck, and although it changed hands in 2005, for eight years it remained unfinished in Cathy’s dooryard. That changed in 2010, when Dunham and his wife, Sheila Young, read an ad in a marine industry magazine for a partially built schooner. They were in the market for a boat to use in their charter business in the Bahamas, which includes bringing kids on board for sailing adventures and Christian mission work.
Boat owner and Capt. Bruce Dunham in the engine room of the schooner Beacon Won. They will motor to the Bahamas, making more stops along the way to finish the interior of the vessel. The plan is to put the two masts in place sometime next year, after the winter charter season.
The couple may not have needed a project, but they took one on, and still were smiling three years later as the ship neared completion. Volunteers from all over did much of the work to finish the Beacon Won, including carpenters from the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pa., who built the ship’s galley. One man who came to Maine to work on the boat had lost both his daughters in the 2006 Amish schoolhouse shooting. “This boat has been built by a huge cluster of good people,” Dunham said. “We are very humbled by the communities of Belfast, Jonesport and Addison.” He said that so far, finishing the Beacon Won has required an investment of about $550,000 in addition to the years of work. The 61-ton ship has been built to be stout and very solid, with 4,200 sheets of marine plywood, epoxy and fiberglass. Even though Dino Fonda was not trained as a boatbuilder, Dunham said that he built the hull strongly and well.
“He was a genius,” the captain said. “It had to be ordained, because he did everything himself.” David Wyman, an independent naval architect and marine surveyor from Castine, directed clusters of people around the boat Monday morning, shifting weight from one side to another to make sure that it would be sufficiently stable. “It’s been a fun project to be involved in,” he said. “She’s a great boat.” Dunham, Young and their crew plan to leave Maine this weekend, after finishing sea trials this week. They will meander down the Atlantic coastline, stopping in communities along the way so schoolchildren can visit the Beacon Won. They’ll be in the Caribbean by January to start the winter charter season there.
Cathy Fonda, who is spry and cheerful, with a faith as solid as the boat her husband envisioned, has become part of the Beacon Won’s family. She said that while she’s delighted that the boat is out of her yard and on its way to doing important mission work, she’ll be sad to see it — and the people aboard — leave the state. “I’m not going to like it, having to go [away] to get a hug,” she said after receiving a bone-cracking embrace from the ebullient Dunham. “It’s just exciting,” Fonda said. “I’ve said all along, I think Dino’s watching us, and jumping up and down. At least, I pray he is.”
Volunteers finishing ship inspired by man’s faith in God
By Sharon Kiley Mack, BDN Staff – Oct. 09, 2011
ADDISON, Maine — There are times in everyone’s life when patterns emerge, or coincidences become too frequent, or disparate series of events are inexplicably linked. Some raise their eyebrows and call it chance, while others credit divine intervention. Such is the story of a 65-foot two-masted wooden schooner being built in Addison by a band of volunteers who believe it was destiny that brought them together and their belief in God that will launch their vessel.
On a tiny patch of land at Pleasant River Bay, where the high tide threatens to float the ship even before it is ready, carpenters from Pennsylvania, Florida, Maine, Texas, Tennessee and the Bahamas are racing to finish The Beacon Won before winter. Capt. Bruce Dunham and his partner, Sheila Young, then plan to sail the schooner south, resting in Maryland and South Carolina, before continuing on to Nassau in the Caribbean. The ship will become a Christian mission ship — replacing two smaller ships the couple have been using for 19 years — and will take teenagers and church groups on week-long excursions, able to accommodate 30 passengers and a crew of six.
The story of The Beacon Won actually began 25 years ago, in 1986, when Dino Fonda and his wife, Cathy, were living in Venice, Fla. “For a year before we left Florida, Dino kept hearing the message [from God] to build a ship,” Cathy Fonda said Thursday. A devout Christian, Fonda said she never once questioned her husband’s belief. “So we left Florida looking for a place to build a ship. Little did we know then that we were going to build it for Bruce and Sheila.”
The Fondas traveled in a tiny 25-foot travel trailer along the New England coast, searching for just the right spot. Eventually they came to Jonesport, Maine, and Fonda said her husband knew it was the place to stop. One day, shortly after that, the Fondas drove through Addison. “Dino said he was told [by God] to take a left and look to the left,” Cathy Fonda said. “There at the end of the dike was a building with a sign — ‘Addison Shipyard’ — and a ‘for sale’ sign out front.” The couple bought the shipyard in 1988, moved their travel trailer to the site, and Dino began building his boat. “I taught school at Sumner High School [in Sullivan] for 15 years,” Cathy said. “I made the money. He built the boat.”
Dino Fonda worked on the boat for years, by hand, by himself, using books to help him with the engineering. He worked every good weather day, sometimes all the way into December. He bought six truckloads of hackmatack, set up a portable sawmill and cut the wood for the boat’s skeleton — the foot-thick ribs, the braces, the decking. Destiny kept throwing him both challenges and inspiration: The detached shop burned down one year but somehow the ship and its blueprints survived the blaze; another year Dino was working in a metal building alongside the construction site when a windstorm blew the roof off the building and the sides collapsed. He was left standing inside, unhurt.
But Dino couldn’t overcome cancer and died in 2003, leaving his beloved ship, which he had named Moriah, incomplete — not much more than a hull and a deck. “People here were so sad when Dino couldn’t finish the boat,” Cathy said. It sat, abandoned, for two years. Cathy sold the boat in 2005 to Steve Pagels of Bar Harbor. He kept the boat at the Addison Shipyard, but after a brief attempt to finish it, Pagels also put it on the market. For eight years, Cathy looked out her kitchen window every day at her husband’s unfinished dream.
A year ago, and 1,455 miles away in the Bahamas, Dunham and Young read a small advertisement in a marine industry magazine. “Partially built schooner. $80,000. Call,” was all that it said, Young recalled. “We arrived here last October, looked at it for five minutes and ran away,” Dunham said. “There was so much work left to do.”
But as they were leaving Maine they said some power larger than themselves brought them back to Addison and they decided they needed to buy the boat. Over the winter, Dunham reached out to his friend Paul Risk, an 89-year-old retired carpenter from Pennsylvania who had never even worked on a boat before, much less built one. Risk knew Dunham and Young through their work with Christian youth groups.
Risk landed in Addison this past July and immediately constructed a greenhouse-style structure to cover the unfinished ship. “I’ve been in construction all my life and I am overwhelmed at the work that Dino did. I don’t know how he did this all by himself,” Risk said. He began installing slabs of plywood, four sheets thick, over the ship’s ribs, which had been protected for more than 20 years by melted tar. As word of the project spread through the East Coast’s Christian communities, other volunteers began to arrive and youth groups became involved. Inquiries about helping out came from Tennessee, from Texas, from Maryland.
A bunkhouse was built above the workshop, recreational camper homes began arriving, Fonda opened her home for meals and Risk’s wife, Shirley, began cooking for everyone. Slowly, a wheelhouse was constructed. Fiberglass was installed on the deck. A retired U.S. Navy engineer arrived from Florida to line up the propeller shafts. Engines were installed. Local workers fabricated fuel tanks, lifted engines, planed the hackmatack. Once Dunham and Young finished their summer mission season in the Bahamas, they came back to Maine on Sept. 21 to join the workers. “As soon as we get her closed in, we’ll sail her out to warmer waters,” Young said. “And I’ll be right on board,” Fonda said, adding that she might stay on the ship for a bit of an adventure.
Launching the ship after more than 25 years of dreaming will be bittersweet for Fonda. “But we will have come full circle, from Dino’s dream of a mission to a mission group. I swear Dino’s jumping up and down in heaven. God just keeps bringing people and skills and expertise together.” “Not any one of us could do any of this,” Risk said. “But when you put us all together, it is amazing. It’s an awesome spirit of unity.”
Dunham, as captain, said working to complete the ship has been a “very humbling experience. It truly is a miracle.” While he works, Dunham wears Dino’s old ball cap and Dino’s work gloves remain hanging in the workshop. “In honor of him,” Dunham said. Dunham and Young welcome all volunteers, regardless of skill level. For information, call Fonda at 483-4655.
About The Beacon Won
The Beacon Won is a 65-foot gaff-rigged schooner, double masted, with two 3208 Caterpillar naturally aspirated diesel engines. It has five below-deck compartments separated by watertight walls and has a 5 to 6 foot draft. It has two passenger compartments below deck and an enclosed galley and dining/lounging area on deck.