Author Peter Janssen

By now, we all know what offshore wind farms look like, and there’s little doubt that we’ll be seeing more of them dotting the cruising grounds of the east and west coasts before too long. But here’s something new that just completed a six-months test in the Atlantic off Portugal, a 62-foot high, 30-foot wide Wave Energy Converter that’s also designed to deliver clean energy to communities and businesses near shore. CorPower, a Swedish company, is developing WECs that float and bob up and down on the ocean’s surface. The massive C4 test WEC looks like an anchored buoy. Waves…

A 362-foot-long Washington State ferry and the Coast Guard rescued six people and two dogs after a wave smashed the windshield of their 37-foot Axopar in the San Juans earlier this week, shorting out the boat’s electronics and cutting some of the passengers. The Coast Guard in Bellingham says it got a distress call from the boat asking for help just before their fixed VHF radio shorted out. The crew on the Axopar was able to give the Coast Guard their GPS position, which was on Rosario Strait near Decatur Island. The seas were running at 4 to 6 feet…

The three convicts who escaped from jail in Grenada last month and then allegedly hijacked a catamaran with an American couple on board were formally charged with killing them last week. The three men, Ron Mitchell, 30, a sailor, Atiba Stanislaus, 25, a farmer, and Trevon Robertson, 23 and  unemployed, were all charged with two counts of capital murder “by intentionally”  causing the death of Ralph Hendry, 66, and his wife, Kathy Brandel, 70, on their 48-foot St. Francis catamaran named Simplicity. The three had escaped a holding cell at the South Saint George police station in Grenada on Feb.…