Len Irish Guest On Board Launch 5

Launch 5 got underway with a special guest for a photographic mission - her last mission for 2005.

We were joined by renowned celebrity portrait photographer Len Irish who was excited by the prospect of photographing the city from a unique perspective. Len showed up with an impressive array of medium and large format cameras and spent the entire time photographing from the frigid aft cockpit. Greg Porteus and Bill Smith also snapped a bunch of photos with their new digital toys.

Richie Detz, Cliff Forrest, Len Irish, Charlie Luceno, Greg Porteus, Bob Shuhy and Bill Smith got underway at 8AM and traveled down the East River, through Hell's Gate, to the Statue of Liberty and back grabbing photos of tugs, the skyline, NYPD launches, etc. This was the first run with the new generator and it really paid off. We were able to keep the wheelhouse nice and warm with some electric space heaters.

Afterwards we met at Squire's restaurant for the Second Annual Holiday Crew gathering and were joined by Mike Murphy.