The Tall Ship Soren Larsen is returning to the Pacific in 2010
In May the ship will depart from New Zealand for the South Seas with a voyage route chosen to encompass some of our favourite island destinations, including the whale breeding grounds of Tonga, the southern and western isles of Fiji, our beloved Vanuatu, including the northern Torres isles which we’re visiting for the first time, and volcanic Tanna (as seen on the Brit TV’s brilliant ‘Meet the Natives’). The Pacifique chic of New Cal is followed by our unfulfilled passage to Australia via Lord Howe, a long awaited return to Sydney harbour and a trans Tasman passage home to NZ.
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This isn’t a new, but I find it fascinating nevertheless. Larger than the giant squid, the colossal squid has never been seen alive. Two years ago an autopsy was performed in New Zealand on the biggest intact colossal squid ever collected.
We have posted extensively about the oldest just barely surviving composite clipper ship, the 
Barista Uno at the 
On April 14th Turk Film Services will be holding an online auction of up to 200 boats and floating craft ranging from the Cygnet, an iron steam launch built in 1873 to a “swan boat” which features a detachable fiberglass swan built onto a double ended Swedish sailing dinghy. The auction features a highly eclectic mix of water craft including boats used in the television and movie productions of Hornblower, Harry Potter, Swallows and Amazons, 633 Squadron and Three Men in a Boat.
Professional surfer and Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) ambassador Jodie Nelson became the first woman to paddle 39.8 grueling miles from the island of Catalina to Dana Point in an effort to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer research and prevention. She has an unexpected escort for two hours of the nine hour paddle. A 30 foot minke whale swan beside her 14 foot board, often rolling and blowing bubbles and around and under it.
The moral of the story may be to identify the ship before you attack it.
Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli perhaps bear equal blame for a litigious and incredibly costly America’s Cup race which turned more on technology and court rulings than on sailing. Now Ellison is singing a different tune, saying ”We’d like this to not be a matter of who invests the most money in designing their boat but who sails the best.” If he is true to his word, this might open up the America’s Cup races again to mere millionaires rather than being so costly that only billionaires can play.
Farrell Lines was a grand old US steamship company. It had an office in downtown Manhattan full of ship models and paintings of ships. Behind the receptionist, as you came in the door, there was a world map with chains of white lights showing the various trade routes served by Farrell Lines ships. The world was illuminated by the white lights across the Atlantic, Pacific, the Mediterranean and the Indian Oceans. As the company declined I recall the sense of both sadness and impending doom as fewer and fewer lights lit the globe.