Requesting permission to board, Captain.

Lolo, a motorcycle journalist for Moto Journal, shows you how not to ride your Yamaha bike around narrow docks.

This unbelievable video shows the VESTAS Sailrocket 2 smashing the sailboat speed record with an ’outright speed’ record of 59.38 knots.  

VESTAS Sailrocket 2. “The magic mile” world record*…

Two days after finally smashing the Outright world speed sailing record, the Vestas Sailrocket 2 team decide to tackle the ‘Nautical Mile’ world record which was held by the mighty ‘Hydroptere’. It was always going to be an interesting challenge for the VSR2 team as the speed course that they sail on in Walvis Bay, Namibia is defined by a beach which is exactly 1.04 miles long. This requires them to launch the boat out in more exposed waters and try and get up to as high a speed as they dare in rough water before they hit the start of the mile. At the end of the course they also fire out into rough water and have to bring the boat to a stop. It’s hard on the boat. The beach is not straight but has a slight curve in it . The mile is measured by TRIMBLE GPS equipment in a straight line so pilot Paul Larsen needs to balance between sailing in close to the beach for the flat water… and sailing the straightest and hence shortest distance between A and B. In this run, with winds that averaged just under 25 knots, The team smashed not only the nautical mile record* by over 5 knots averaging over 55.3 knots… but also raised their own ‘Outright speed’ record* to 59.38 knots over 500 meters hitting a peak speed of 64.78 knots (74.55 mph, 120 kph). For Larsen it was the perfect payback for 10 years chasing ‘the perfect reach’. Speed sailing had paid him back in full and a dream was realized.

VSR2 performed exactly as predicted by the Sailrocket design team of Malcolm Barnsley and Chris Hornzee Jones at AEROTROPE. The spec for the boat was to be able to hit 65 knots in 26 knots of wind in order to average around 60 knots.

* All records subject to WSSRC ratification
Directed, filmed and edited by Ben Holder.

Based on an astonishing true incident that took place on the frigid seas off Iceland in 1984, The Deep fashions a modern-day everyman myth about the sole survivor of a shipwreck, whose superhuman will to survive made him both an inexplicable scientific phenomenon and a genuine national hero.

One of the most anticipated Nordic films of the year, Baltasar Kormákur’s The Deep recounts a modern myth that just happens to be true. In 1984, a fishing boat goes down miles off the coast of Iceland’s Westman Islands in some of the most forbidding seas on the planet, leaving the fishermen at the mercy of frigid and turbulent waters. Miraculously, one of the crew, Gulli (played with quotidian charm by Festival favourite Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, best known as Egill Elvis inCountry Wedding and the rabble-rousing best man in Kormákur’s marvellous Chekhovian update White Night Wedding), manages to survive, despite being exposed to temperatures in which most people wouldn’t have lasted a few minutes. Read More…

“The Deep” image via Toronto Film Festival

In 1984, a fishing boat sunk off the coast of Iceland, killing the entire crew with the exception of one man who survived by swimming several miles in frigid waters to live and tell the tale.

Based on a true story, The Deep is a modern-day everyman myth about the sole survivor of a shipwreck, who’s will to survive made him both a scientific phenomenon and a national hero. Read a review of the film at outsideonline.com

How NOT to put a yacht in water.

Bet he wishes it was a submarine right about now!

MS Zaandam is named for the city of Zaandam, Netherlands near Amsterdam. It was built by Italy’s Fincantieri yard in Venice and was delivered in 2000. She is part of the ‘R-Class’ and a sister ship to MS Volendam, MS Rotterdam, and MS Amsterdam.

 MS Zaandam was christened by none other than Olsen twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley, in May 2000.

click for larger

Close up view, click for larger

New York City Prison Barge, The Vernon C. Bain Center (VCBC), is an 800-bed jail barge that is designed to handle inmates from medium- to maximum-security in 16 dormitories and 100 cells. It resides on the East River approximately one mile west of SUNY Maritime College. The barge falls under the New York City Department of Corrections and is part of the vast Rikers Island jail complex, the world’s largest penal colony. The prison barge was built in New Orleans for $161 million and brought to New York in 1992 to reduce overcrowding on the island’s land-bound buildings. Since the jail is not permanently moored to the shore, Coast Guard regulations require that she have 3 maritime crew on board at all time, including a mate, an engineer and an oiler. With this in mind the blog, admiraltymaritimelaw.blogspot.com posed this question.

If an inmate or an employee is injured on the barge would it fall under admiralty jurisdiction? Believe it or not it appears the question has never been litigated, at least I can’t find it in my search of federal and New York cases.

In the words of the great John Bossie “Mother Nature and the Sea are extreme forces that must be respected at all times.” Here are some videos that illustrate the real power of the sea. This first clip is from off the coast of France, 2007.

This youtube video of some heavy seas off the coast of Japan in 2005 does a great job of showing the stress put on ships during rough weather.

A 300m long 4500TEU Containervessel 200 nm NE of Japan in the Tropical Cyklon Banjan 2005

Here is another amazing clip of some heavy seas off the coast of Iceland.

Fishing in Iceland over the winter time in 34m/s wind.

Photograph by Ruslan Eliseev @ 35photo.ru

twistedsifter.com: In this haunting image by Ruslan Eliseev, we see the sunken remains of the 76-ft Mar Sem Fin, a Brazilian boat that was used for scientific and educational expeditions. The boat, which sunk on April 7, 2012, lies at a depth of about 9 meters (30 ft) in Ardley Bay, Antarctica. Thankfully the crew was completely evacuated and nobody was hurt. For a blog post that documents the actual sinking of the ship, check out this blog (in Russian).

photo by, Timothy Konrad

Container Ship passing by San Francisco, California

Panama Canal- Panama

• The Canal was begun in 1904 and finished in 1914.
• Total Length: 77 km (48 mi)
• Connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
• Cost: $375 million

Erie Canal – New York

• The Canal was begun in 1817  and finished in 1825.
• Total Length: 584 km (363 miles)
• Connects Albany to Buffalo, New York.
• Cost: $7 million

Suez Canal – Egypt

• The Canal was begun on April 25, 1859 and was opened on Nov. 17, 1869
• Total Length: 193.30 km (120.11 mi)
• Connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
• Cost: 560 million francs

Royal Canal – Ireland

• The Canal was begun in 1790 and was opened in 1817.
• Total Length: 145 km (90 mi)
• Connects Dublin to the River Shannon at Cloondara.
• Cost: £1,421,954

Grand Canal – China

• The Canal was started during the 5th century
• Total Length: 1,776 km (1,103 miles)
• Connects Beijing to Hangzhou, China.
• Cost: N/A

Panama Canal- Photos, Video, Maps

Panama Canal Timelapse – HD

Ship passing through the Panama Canal.

Image of Lock system on Panama Canal

Panama Canal from Space

Erie Canal – Photos, Songs, Maps,

The Erie Canal Song

Photo of a Erie Canal Lock

Map of the Erie Canal

Old Painting of the the Erie Canal

Suez Canal – Photos, Maps, Video

Video of the history of the Suez Canal

Map of the Suez Canal

Photo of ships on the Suez Canal

Old photo of the Suez Canal

Royal Canal- Photos, Map, Video

Liam Clancy – The Banks of the Royal Canal

Map of the Royal Canal

Photo of the Royal Canal

Image of Lock No. 22 on the Royal Canal

Grand Canal (China) – Photos, Video, Map

Video about the Grand Canal in China

Map of the Gran Canal of China

Grand Canal – China