This is so weird: A video showing an SUV (without passengers, fortunately) sliding off the back of a ferry heading for Fraser Island in Queensland, Australia, on New Year’s Eve. It floats for a while, and then, after the video ends, finally sinks. Not a happy way to start the New Year. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg1x0WYq-cI
You probably don’t want to take the Jet Capsule on the Great Loop (the locks would be a problem), or on the Inside Passage to Alaska, but I’d love to have one for tooling around Fort Lauderdale, say, or Lake Union in Seattle or even Narragansett Bay off Newport. It may look like an egg, but the new jet-powered craft is 24 feet long, 12 feet wide and with a 370-hp Rotax 4TEC engine it’s supposed to cruise at 20 knots. And it’s fun. Be the first kid on your block…Take at look at this video of the Jet Capsule,…
In Seattle, boating is a way of life, all year long. And boat owners there don’t have to look hard to find ways to have fun on their boats. Here’s a fun video of Seattle’s lighted boat parade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_9_80mS_-U&feature=em-subs_digest
So you think it’s cold where you are? Take a look at the ice beard on the crane on the Coast Guard Cutter Alder, above. And that’s before the 225-foot Alder and other Coast Guard vessels start their annual ice-breaking duties on the Great Lakes. They’re starting on northern Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, and then will move south (relatively speaking) as winter sets in. The Coast Guard urges recreational boaters to use caution in the area. See the story, and more pictures, here: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/12/coast_guard_begins_ice_breakin.html
Each year, more and more old, thick ice in the Arctic is melting in the summer and is being replaced in the winter by new, thinner ice, which is turn melts even faster the next summer. You can see these changes, which have dramatic consequences both for the Arctic and for the oceans of the planet, on these two new videos: https://youtu.be/c6jX9URzZWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofsncwIMeWA
The Army Corps of Engineers now has closed the Dismal Swamp Canal, which first opened in 1805, indefinitely so it can clear all the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew in October. The Canal, which is part of the ICW connecting the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia with Albermarle Sound in North Carolina, will be closed while the Corps removes trees and debris, completes dredging and checks for shoaling. Work on the Deep Creek Lock river gates alone will take 75 days, starting in early January. Meanwhile, if you’re heading south for the winter, use the Albermarle and Chesapeake Canal section of…
And you thought you’d been caught in some bad weather. Consider this: The World Meteorological Organization just announced a new record – a 62-foot wave measured by an automated buoy in the North Atlantic between Iceland and the United Kingdom. This record-breaking wave was recorded just after a strong cold front with winds of over 50 mph swept through the area. The previous record – 59.9 feet – was also measured in the North Atlantic. Read about it here: https://gcaptain.com/19-meter-north-atlantic-wave-sets-new-world-record/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gcaptain+%28gCaptain.com%29
” Something bad’s going to happen,” one crew member said as he started his watch almost ten hours before El Faro, the doomed container ship, sailed into a hurricane near the Bahamas on Oct., 2015, and sank, killing all 33 people on board. Now the NTSB has recovered the ship’s black box in 15,000 feet of water and released a 500-page transcript that shows the bone-chilling terror of the crew’s final moments. “Help me. Help me,” one crewman yells to the captain, who has just ordered everyone to abandon ship. “I’m a goner.” Read about it here: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/i-m-goner-transcripts-show-el-faro-s-final-harrowing-n695581
The trend toward outboard power keeps getting stronger and stronger. Now Cutwater Boats is introducing a new 30-footer with twin Yamaha 300-hp outboards because, says Cutwater President John Livingston, “We’ve had customers asking us to build a boat like this for a while now.” Livingston also says the new boat is “our biggest, fastest and most exciting Cutwater to date. The boat absolutely screams across the water.” I haven’t tried the new 30 yet, but two summers ago I drove a Cutwater 28, with a single 260-hp Volvo diesel, from New York Harbor to Quebec City, and it cruised easily…
How’s this for a true crime story? A 75-year-old California man was just charged with stabbing and killing a young British couple on his boat off Belize – in 1978. Their bodies, which had been bound and weighted down, were found off a beach there at the time, but the murder trail turned cold until police in Sacramento interviewed the son of Silas Duane Boston recently about the disappearance of Boston’s wife. The son said he witnessed a violent struggle between his father and the Brits on the boat, when the son was only 13. At his hearing Boston, wearing…