Every once in a while my useless law school education becomes temporarily useful again. For example, I've followed with some interest recent exchanges on the Waterway Guide discussion board re a police boarding of a Gulfstar 50 that took place this week on the ICW in Florida. Take a gander at these two accounts of...

  Excellent news! An Australian search plane launched from Perth early today has located and established contact with Abby. As you can see in this photo, the rig on Wild Eyes is down, but the hull is afloat and upright, and Abby reports she is uninjured. A French fishing vessel is expected to reach the...

  This really, really sucks. Teen circumnavigator Abby Sunderland is in serious trouble deep in the Southern Ocean well east of Madagascar. Reportedly her shore team lost sat-phone contact with her very early this morning when they were helping her troubleshoot some engine problems. Shortly afterwards two of her EPIRBs were manually ignited. Evidently she...

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...