Hotel Kiev?
The Chinese are opening a 148 room luxury hotel in the refurbished Russian aircraft carrier Kiev. Since 2004, the aircraft carrier has been part of what is billed as “the world’s biggest military theme park” in Tianjin, a municipality close to Beijing. The Chinese also own the Russian aircraft carrier Minsk, a sister vessel to the Kiev, which is the centerpiece of Minsk World, a military theme park in Shenzhen, China. The Chinese military owns a third Russian carrier, the Varyag, whose keel was laid in 1985 but which was never finished. The Chinese have been working to finish the ship as an aircraft carrier for roughly the last decade. The ship returned from a second round of sea trials in mid-December and is said to be near completion but is not yet capable of landing planes on its deck.
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In early October, the
In early December, on her maiden voyage, the VLOC (Very Large Ore Carrier) 
Update: 
Waves behave nicer now and the wind is blowing from behind so Guppy still keeps rolling back and forth. Yet the wind is pulling at 15 knots which is unusual around here in the doldrums. Guppy is getting to be an oven now so I sleep during the day and stay up at night… and it is nice, what with the moonlit sea and the many many thousand stars up above.. It is real cool just to look at. Good winds keep Guppy happy and we are making good progress too with 3000 nautical miles already done which is more than halfway through this crossing. Let’s hope the second half will be just as good… Laura
A very interesting, if ambitious, new project. While we often focus on the Georgian Navy, the Royal Navy during the Restoration is fascinating it own right. The 
Given that we live on an ocean planet, it is remarkable how little know of the creatures of the sea. Recently, for example, scientists discovered the first hybrid sharks to be found in Australian waters. Also, teams of American and British researchers have just discovered new species of life in deep sea hydrothermal vents.
The headline in the Liverpool Daily Post reads, “
It would have been almost funny, if billions of dollars were not at stake. As we posted last June, the
Last week we posted about 
For roughly the last fifty years, the US Coast Guard regulations for the loading and stability of passenger vessels has assumed an average weight of 160 pounds per person. Conceding to the reality of a more corpulent population, the regulations were updated last month, increasing the 
On the first leg of the 
