Did I call it, or what? In my last post on the mysterious whereabouts of Dutch teen sailor Laura Dekker I predicted she would next appear in Durban or Port Richards, South Africa. And now comes word that she has in fact safely arrived in Durban after sailing 47 days non-stop (over 5,500 nautical miles)...

Now for some more bad news from the Piracy Desk. Several news outlets over the weekend have confirmed that a 55-year-old French cruiser, Christian Colombo, was killed by pirates off the coast of Yemen last week during an attack on a 56-foot French-flagged cruising catamaran, Tribal Kat. Subsequently, the victim's wife, Evelyne Colombo, was rescued...

Given the name of this blog I would be remiss if I failed to mention the massive tsunami that trashed northeastern Japan today. You can watch an absolutely horrifying video of the big waters sweeping through the city of Sendai here. In other unrelated bad news, the Danish Cruising Family Johansen (including three children and...

Somali pirate attacks on yachts have been much in the news lately, what with a) the heartening good news that bluewater cruisers Paul and Rachel Chandler were finally released unharmed on November 14 after being held hostage by a Somali pirate gang for 388 days; and b) the sickening bad news that yet another sailing...

  Some very ugly news from the W'Indies. Latitude 38 has just published a grim first-person account by bluewater cruiser Mike Harker, who was recently assaulted aboard his Hunter 49 Wanderlust 3 while anchored at St. Martin. Mike, who was grievously injured in a hand-gliding accident two decades ago and was told he would never...