Ever since they start selling 406 MHz EPIRBs with built-in GPS units (the so-called G-PIRB) just a few years ago I've been thinking search-and-rescue (SAR) technology is just about as nifty as can be. Turns out I was wrong. NASA just announced this week it is developing and testing a new technology, called the Distress...

Sorry to inflict more space news on you guys, but this is truly noteworthy. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) succeeded today in launching the first spacecraft to be propelled by solar sails. Described by the Japanese as a "space yacht," the craft, called IKAROS (for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun), will...

  This 18-minute talk (click here to watch) by reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson on the degradation on the marine environment is compelling, persuasive, and profoundly depressing. You owe it to the planet to give it a look.

I wasn't going to blog about this again until Jessica Watson actually completed her circumnavigation, but events (plus the fact that I'll soon be incommunicado on the blue yonder again myself) have forced my hand. News Tidbit Number 1 is that Abby Sunderland has been forced to put into Cape Town, South Africa, to fix...

  Not much information on this one, but the few details available are chilling. Evidently Don Stollmeyer, who runs the famous Power Boats yard in Trinidad, has confirmed via the local Coast Guard there that a German woman, Angelica Ropke-Wiels, was picked up on April 16 by a merchant vessel that found her alone, adrift...

I know, I know. The Aquatic Miracles angle on this one is a little attenuated. But the sun, as our primary heat source, is ultimately responsible for all our weather, and of course keeps our oceans liquid as opposed to solid. Which is a nice feature when it comes to oceans. Besides, I have always...

AS OF LAST MONTH, as documented here on WaveTrain, Reid Stowe can rightfully lay claim to a record for longest ocean voyage in history and earlier toppled the record for longest solo voyage. But unlike most sailors who now play the record-breaking game, Reid's motivations and methods are, shall we say, not entirely linear. To...

  Seems my old acquaintance Alessandro di Benedetto, the crazy Italian guy sailing non-stop around the world on a 21-foot Mini, has run into a spot of trouble approaching Cape Horn. According to some typically brief reports on his website, Alessandro's boat, Findomestic Banca, was dismasted in "extreme weather conditions" last Tuesday (March 30) off...

Some things you just can't prepare for. The image here, taken by photographer Peter Idoine, is believed to be of a satellite crashing into the Tasman Sea near Auckland, New Zealand, last night. Can you imagine having something like this fall on your head while making miles offshore?

My mom was never really into boats, though she had to cope with them for much of her life, having grown up on an island. She did love the water and was always happiest when in close proximity to it. So when she became terminally ill last month, it was pretty obvious where she should...