Latest news with #Blackjacks
Otago Daily Times
29-07-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Father-son duo part of champion Taieri side
Family matters at the Taieri Bowling Club. The club had a father-son duo in their team that won the New Zealand champion of champions men's fours title in Dunedin at the weekend. Andy McLean and father Grant were joined by Otago bowls great and national coach Mike Kernaghan and Geoff Griffiths. The Taieri four swept through unbeaten at the tournament, which attracted the champion club fours teams from all the Bowls New Zealand districts. They faced a significant challenge in the final from the Elmwood Park club four of Gary Lawson, Nathan Glasson, Liam Eathorne and Ricky Cook. After Elmwood grabbed a shot on the first end, Taieri won three on the second and two on the third to leap to a 5-1 advantage. Taieri banked four shots on the eighth end to take a commanding 12-4 lead, but Elmwood chipped away, and when the Christchurch bowlers claimed four shots on the 13th end, Taieri's lead was slashed to 13-12. The Taieri quartet held their nerve to claim three shots on the 14th end and held on to win 16-13. Taieri had smashed the Martinborough team 19-4 in the semifinals, and thumped Fitzroy 16-3 in the quarterfinals. They had wins in the early rounds by scores of 18-11, 18-8, 21-11 and 17-4. The Dunedin Bowls Stadium will now host the New Zealand champion of champions women's fours this weekend. • Dunedin bowler Keanu Darby has been named in the Blackjacks squad for the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur in November. Darby, who made his New Zealand debut in the transtasman series in February and played at the world indoor championships, will compete in both the singles and the pairs. The Forbury Park bowler is joined by fellow youngster Finbar McGuigan at the new event, which will be played on portable indoor rinks and uses the sets-play format, and is seen as a prelude for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Seasoned Blackjacks Shannon McIlroy and Ali Forsyth will be strong contenders for Glasgow but the selectors have decided to give the younger brigade a chance. "We know what Shannon and Ali are capable of — they're world-class," New Zealand coach Mike Kernaghan said. "But we agreed that it was time to be brave and give newer Blackjacks the opportunity to gain experience at this level." Similarly, selectors faced a tough decision in selecting the women's squad for a world cup that has only singles and pairs competition. They went for the established pairing of Katelyn Inch and Selina Goddard, meaning world singles champion Tayla Bruce misses out. "This was a really tough decision," Kernaghan said. "How often do you leave the world singles champion out of your team? "Ideally, we would have preferred the team composition to mirror what we expect for Glasgow — three men, three women, two para men, two para women, and a vision-impaired mixed pair — but World Bowls has determined the format, and we have to select accordingly. "With Glasgow in mind, we needed to take a close look at our pairs combinations, and this selection reflects that priority." World champion para women's player Teri Blackbourn will skip transtasman partner Kurt Smith in the para mixed pairs.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Yahoo
US Coast Guard's Fleet Week demonstration in NYC nixed due to real offshore search mission on Memorial Day
This was not a drill. Members of US Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City nixed a Fleet Week search and rescue demonstration in Manhattan on Memorial Day for the real thing — more than 100 miles away. The Atlantic City unit, known as the 'Blackjacks,' were diverted to a distress call 20 miles off the Jersey shore on Monday after a radio transmission that sounded like 'Help' was transmitted just before noon, a US Coast Guard rep told The Post. 'Any sign that there could be potential distress, that's enough for us to launch [a search and rescue operation] and go search,' the rep said, adding that no other 'correlating' evidence, such as a missing person or missing boat, were reported. The investigation – which was conducted in the area of Barnegat Light, Atlantic City and Cape May in New Jersey, was called off just after 3 p.m., the rep added. Coast Guard Station Cape May also responded to the search. The Fleet Week demonstration, slated to start at 2 p.m., was set to involve a dummy doll being rescued in the water by a Coast Guard member dropping in from a helicopter. Some US Coast Guard members at Pier 86 — where the demonstration was planned to take place after the annual Memorial Day commemoration ceremony at the Intrepid Museum — told The Post they were unsurprised the diversion happened due to the popularity of marine-related activities over the holiday weekend. On Memorial Day weekend, there's 'more than a 50% chance that they are going to get diverted,' one Coast Guard member at the Pier 86 event said. 'A lot of people's boats have been up [out of the water] for the winter, and now they finally want to get out. Sometimes they don't take enough fuel, or forget to check the electronics: it could be a number of things.' An example of frequent calls to the Coast Guard during the busy holiday weekend are for disabled vessels – boats which could simply be adrift while passengers onboard are safe. Several people have been pulled from the water across the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend, but there haven't been any reports of missing persons, severe injuries or deaths as a result, according to a Coast Guard rep. Despite the unexpected absence at the Memorial Day celebration in Manhattan, plenty of other Coast Guard members filled booths outside the Intrepid Museum – including divers based in California and Hawaii. Diver Richard Rudek, 24, told The Post he assists in underwater maintenance operations – such as underwater construction, repairing buoys and other navigational tools – as well as search and recovery operations 'relatively frequently.' Rudek said his team went out to recover the wreckage of a 2024 helicopter crash in Kauai, Hawaii, which 'helped to provide closure to the families.' His favorite part of his job, however, remains underwater navigation projects – where 'you never know what you're going to get into.' 'Sometimes it's zero [visibility], you're in scuba [gear] and holding several thousand pound objects with, basically, balloons. Every job is super different,' he said. The Coast Guard's Atlantic Strike Team — which responds to fires, hurricanes, hazmat incidents and other emergencies from East Palestine's train derailment to the Los Angeles fires to the Baltimore Bridge collapse — was also in attendance at the fleet week event. 'Most Coasties join because they want to help,' said Lieutenant Connie Tobler. 'The best part [of the job] is search and rescue,' said Officer Bismarck Miranda, who recalled an operation a decade ago in which he rescued a 4-year-old and their family 50 miles off the shore of Key West. 'Being able to rescue that and see the baby and the family come back to the United States safely — that was probably the best feeling.'
