On the Water

The first Littoral Combat Ship departed from Florida today for its maiden deployment, approximately two years ahead of schedule. The agile 378-foot USS Freedom (LCS 1), designed and built by a team of companies led by Lockheed Martin, is the first of 55 the U.S. Navy plans for a new class of ships designed to operate in coastal waters. Read More

Soon to go to auctioneers hammer is this silver trophy presented to daredevil and racing legend Sir Malcolm Campbell to commemorate his first world water speed record (126.33mph) on Lake Maggiore on September 1, 1937. Campbell is somewhat of a rarity in that he successfully competed in some of the earliest motorcycle and car racing events, won Grands Prix, broke the Land Speed Record nine times, the World Water Speed record four times, and was the first human to drive over 300 mph, and fought in WW1 in the RAF, yet he died of natural causes. Few such daredevils escaped death in their pursuits – his son Donald among their number. Read More

Dutch company U-Boat Worx builds two- and three-person submarines for private and tourist use and has been doing nice business catering to the superyacht owners of the world for the last five years. Recognizing that its aspirations are greater than the number of independently wealthy superyachters, the company has set up a submarine center on the Caribbean island of Aruba aiming to “break open the luxury tourist submarine market.” “By catering to tourism ourselves, we are showing third parties, such as luxury resorts, hotels and cruise companies, what the opportunities are", says U-Boat Worx founder Bert Houtman Read More

Prior to the launching of the outrageous Wally Island megayacht two years ago, Monte Carlo-based Wally Yachts was probably best known for its millennium-award-winning Wallypower 118, but with the launch of Wally Hermes Yachts (WHY), a joint venture with French high fashion house Hermes, it will almost certainly be known for its first WHY Yacht – it’s a multi-story 58 metre-long, 38 metre-wide floating personal holiday resort with almost an acre of floorspace, an ultra-stable Norwegian Ramform hull, and an energy efficiency so high and carbon footprint so low that it can be sailed to the location of your heart’s desire. It aint fast, but it can cruise at 12 knots in a Force 4 gale and has enough range to cross the Atlantic four times without refueling. Read More

The America’s Cup has been run and won, and will return to America where it has resided for the vast majority of its century and a half history. Larry Ellison’s Team BMW Oracle trimaran trounced the Swiss Alinghi team’s Catamaran as two of the most technologically advanced boats on water fought out a one-sided event. Read More

There’s an old maxim in racing, and it goes along the lines of “when the flag drops, the bulls**t stops” and after more three years of legal action and posturing between the teams' billionaire principals, Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli, it was a much awaited start in many ways that mercifully kicked off the America’s Cup yesterday. Just 40 nautical miles (nm) later, the whole event seems all but over, as BMW Oracle was clearly faster downwind and particularly so upwind in comparison to the defending champ Alinghi V in conditions which were expected to favor the Swiss team. The racing was compelling and very spectacular, but in the best of three series, with the second race scheduled for Sunday … Read More

Swimwear fashion has progressed steadily over the past 100 or so years (if you discount Borat’s mankini). Design has moved from neck-to-knees woolen garments that women were encouraged to bathe in at the beach, to men’s Speedos, to skimpy Brazilian thongs, to Daniel Craig’s James Bond swimmer boxer trunks, to full body racing ‘buoyancy’ suits for Olympians. Who could forget screen sirens Esther Williams, Jane Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe posing in their swimsuits? To celebrate Australia’s contribution to the swimwear industry – in design and materials – a comprehensive exhibition titled "Exposed! The story of swimwear" is traversing that country, appearing at State museums. Read More

Schöpfer Yachts has launched its second stunning design – the Infinitas – and while at this stage it only appears on paper, we would really love to see this one on the water. Aside from the glass floored "sky-bridge", on-board elevator and front helipad, the standout design element is the carved out stern and mid section, which gives the 300ft (91.5m) yacht its radical dinosaur-skull-like profile. Read More

Back in January 2007, we brought you the story of Greg Kolodziejzyk, a Canadian adventurer who was planning to break the human-powered transatlantic record. What made Greg’s record attempt so interesting was that he was going to do it in a fully-enclosed pedal-powered sea kayak. The boat was still under construction at the time. Flash forward to January 2010, and Greg has had to call off the transatlantic attempt due to logistic problems. His new boat, however, is a marvel of marine engineering, and he’s planning on pedaling it from Canada to Hawaii. Read More