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Space scientists in the US and UK are planning an incredible mission to go sailing on an alien lake on the far side of the solar system. They are proposing a mission in NASA's low-cost Discovery series to launch an unmanned, nuclear-powered "boat" to Saturn's biggest moon Titan in 2015. It would bob about on a vast sea of liquid methane called Ligeia Mare, radioing home photos and other data for six months.

UTRECHT, Netherlands – A Dutch court ordered authorities to take temporary guardianship of a 13-year-old girl on Friday, delaying her plan to sail solo around the world until psychologists can assess her capacity to undertake such a risky voyage.

Here is video of an interview with 17 year-old Zac Sunderland who has become the youngest known person to sail solo around the world. He is interviewed here with his parents, and talks about his close encounter with pirates when he was in the area of Indonesia. The video shows a map of his journey. Sunderland lost 15-20 pounds during the year it took him to complete his trip. . . . . (Watch Video)

As the morning fog lifted this morning off Harbor Mouth at Marina del Rey, it revealed a sailboat piloted by a 17-year-old boy from Thousand Oaks who had just become the youngest to sail around the world alone.

MARINA DEL REY -- A teenager from Thousand Oaks is expected to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe alone when he arrives in Los Angeles Thursday morning. Zac Sunderland, who left Marina del Rey June 14, 2008 at age 16 and has been headed west ever since, is expected to arrive in his homeport at 10 a.m. Thursday to a hero's reception at Fisherman's Village. Zac turned 17 off Africa's Cape of Good Hope and is expected to be certified upon his arrival as the youngest person to circumnavigate the Earth alone by sailboat and the first person...

Like a lot of 17-year -olds, Zac Sunderland can get a bit tongue-tied at times. Only for Sunderland, it's not on account of hormones or nerves. "I've been out at sea for a long time," says Sunderland, who has nearly reached his goal of becoming the youngest sailor to single-handedly circumnavigate the earth in a sailboat. "You kinda forget how to talk. Sometimes I'll get into a port and it'll take a week before the words I'm wanting to say can come out of my mouth the right way. It's annoying." Sunderland, who has yet to get his driver's license,...

A veteran British yachtsman has been left embarrassed after attempting a daring overtaking manoeuvre that literally left him high and dry. Arthur Manning's 36ft yacht Knight Star struck rocks near Saint-Quay-Portrieux in northern France, forcing the skipper to watch as the receding tide left his boat sticking up by its keel.

American Teen Zac Sunderland is almost home, having been at sea for the past 13 months, circling the globe, alone in his 36 foot sailboat. He will become the youngest to have ever done a circumnavigation alone, leaving as a 16 year old, and now only 17. His story is amazing, look for his website at wwww.zacsunderland.com and find time to go back through his blog. Great testament to what America's youth are still capable of. We need more like him!

Pressing On Position: 07/03/09 1633Z 26 16.151N 114 01.632W The last couple of days have been pretty crazy around here. I have been battling a 2-3 knot current and a 25 knot wind from the NW. I have been tacking every few hours day and night trying to make headway which has been exhausting. Yesterday morning my radar alarm went off and I saw a white boat heading towards me. I tried hailing them a few times but got no answer. As they got closer I saw it was a Coast Guard cutter so I waited as they approached and...

Position: 06/15/09 at 1525Z 17 01.419N 103 37.779W Still making slow steady progress up the Mexican coast with light winds forecasted for the next 24 hours. This morning I was woken up early by my radar alarm showing a squall 4 miles away. I haven't had a squall in a couple of days and I thought it would probably be low in intensity. The squall swooped down on Intrepid fast and the wind went from 10 knots to 40 in a few minutes. I furled up the genoa and put two reefs in the main. The winds built into the...

Zac Sunderland is attempting to be the youngest person in history to sail around the world alone. Though the goal is simple, achieving it is not. Sailing around the world is one of the oldest and most difficult adventures of all time. Man has tested himself against this task for over 500 hundred years. ...Zac is 17 years old, and he is growing up in Southern California. A year and a half ago, he had a dream to sail around the world. It would have been easy to dismiss such a far fetched fantasy, but Zac took his own money,...

It turns out the oldest seafaring ships ever found actually work An archaeologist who examined remnants of the oldest-known seafaring ships has now put ancient Egyptian technology to the test. She teamed up with a naval architect, modern shipwrights and an on-site Egyptian archaeologist to build a replica 3,800-year-old ship for a Red Sea trial run this past December. The voyage was meant to retrace an ancient voyage that the female pharaoh Hatsheput sponsored to a place which ancient Egyptians called God's land, or Punt. Ship planks and oar blades discovered in 2006 at the caves of Wadi Gawasis provided...

<p>A yacht which was abandoned seven months ago after its crew mutinied against their experienced skipper has been found, still sailing - 800 miles from where they left it.</p> <p>The skipper and crew of Air Apparent, a Compass 790, were airlifted from the vessel after its three inexperienced crew members panicked and set off the yacht's EPIRB. The yacht was sailing in 25-30 knot winds and 3m seas 165km west of Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand. The skipper, Bill Heritage, an experienced sailor who had owned Air Apparent for 15 years told his crew the conditions were safe, but they disagreed. 'We were sailing very conservatively and we had an ideal wind direction. There was high winds but that is not dangerous,' he told the Nelson Mail.</p>

GULFPORT --A small group of youngsters in sailboats made it safely back to shore Monday after one of them capsized in the Mississippi Sound during an afternoon thunderstorm, authorities said. "The storm came up on them and they were trying to get everybody back when it happened," said Fire Chief Pat Sullivan. ------ SNIP ------ "The most heroic job, in my opinion, was the boy that brought his boat back in by himself," Clark said. "It was incredible. He looked to be 11 or 12 years old, out there battling against God and nature in a little-bitty sailboat."

Just a hop, skip and a jump from the city, Gothenburg's archipelago is a great place to get away from it all, writes Matt O'Leary. Gothenburg’s archipelago (or, more accurately, archipelagos, as the islands form two clearly-defined and differently-named clusters) consists of dozens of islands which stretch into the sea next to the city’s coastline. Each of the main islands shares a few defining characteristics which make them attractive to first-time visitors and annually-returning guests alike; however, this isn’t to say that they’re indistinguishable. Far from it, in fact: many of the individual islands have charm and features galore to...

In the off-season we raced our boats across the world. Some crews raced to England. Others, Maine. We always raced to Bermuda. That first summer we were 19. Our skipper was 22. A newly commissioned naval aviator-select. Phil was his name. I remember he had long sideburns and drank too much. Navy's sailing team had a reputation for drinking as hard as we ailed. On the morning of my first open ocean Bermuda race we crossed the starting line upwind of the fleet in a perfect start right off Newport, Rhode Island's New York Yacht Club. I had nothing do...

A Swansea University historian hopes to discover more about an ancient discipline which may have provided "the GPS system" of its day, 500 years ago. Dr Adam Mosley will study cosmography, a subject believed to combine geography, history and astronomy. He will also try to find out how it died out in around the 17th Century. The lecturer wants to discover more about its study and how strong its links were with the seafarers' art of navigating by the stars. The subject became popular around 500 years ago but died out and part of Dr Mosley's work will be to...

Team New Zealand clawed its way back into the America's Cup in Valencia winning race two of the regatta by 28 seconds. Swiss holder Alinghi, as it did in Auckland in 2003, threatened to sail away with the Cup yesterday by winning race one and then dominated much of this morning's re-match. But Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker conjured a gritty fight-back on the final upwind beat after trailing by 100 metres on the previous run. By doing so he answered his critics here in Spain who have questioned his mental strength when under pressure. And victory also banished...

In the summer of 2004, Beth and Ken Cone boarded their Sundeer 60 Eagles Wings in their home port of Waukegan, Illinois, sailed across the Great Lakes and out the St. Lawrence Seaway, and have been cruising the world ever since. The latest post on their website, Vancones.org, concerns an episode of underbody sabotage attributed to one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep, the giant squid. While visiting Papeete, Tahiti, the Cones met up with their old cruising pal, Shigeo Kitano, whose progress on a recent passage from the Galopagos to the Marquesas had been impeded by an...

Polynesian sailing myth all at sea Judy Skatssoon ABC Science Online Wednesday, 30 August 2006 Archaeolgists believe structures like the Tevaitau fort reflect hostility between population groups competing for resources (Image: Douglas Kennett) The Polynesians had trouble reaching remote South Pacific islands, according to a new study that dents their reputation as great seafarers. An archaeological study shows they settled Rapa, an island southeast of Tahiti, more recently than anyone thought. Professor Atholl Anderson, of the Australian National University, and international colleagues publish their research in the current issue of the journal Antiquity. Dating of charcoal from archaeological sites on...

Rescuers using small boats, a helicopter and a C-130 aircraft searched a portion of the Chesapeake Bay today for missing diplomat and publisher Philip Merrill, whose sailboat was found adrift last night, Coast Guard authorities said. Officials from the Maryland Natural Resources Police and the Coast Guard began searching overnight the area between the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the point where his boat was found, which is roughly 20 miles south of Annapolis. The search area is roughly 25 miles by 8 miles, said Coast Guard Lt. Commander Adam Mach. Rescuers using small boats, a helicopter and a C-130 aircraft...

GALVESTON - The Elissa, a Galveston waterfront icon for 24 years, sailed into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time Monday with a new designation as the official Tall Ship of Texas. A three-masted, 202-foot-long sailing ship that delivered a cargo of bananas to Galveston in 1883, the restored vessel was named the official Tall Ship of Texas in a resolution approved by the Texas Legislature in May 2005 and signed by Gov. Rick Perry on June 18. The ship's main mast is 102 feet tall. "It's a great honor and privilege to be able to operate this vessel,"...

Sailing to PuntWell-preserved wrecks of Pharaonic seafaring vessels unearthed last week on the Red Sea coast reveal that the Ancient Egyptians enjoyed advanced maritime technology, Nevine El-Aref reports The long-held belief that the Ancient Egyptians did not tend to travel long distances by sea because of poor naval technology proved fallacious last week when timbers, rigging and cedar planks were unearthed in the ancient Red Sea port of Marsa Gawasis, 23 kilometres south of Port Safaga. The remains of seafaring vessels were found in four large, hand-hewn caves which were probably used as storage or boat houses from the Middle...

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:48:00 UTC As the clock ticks down, the boats get closer and closer to Cape Town – just 365 miles for the leader - and nerves start jangling. To lose a place now; worse, to lose a rig or even a sail, could ruin your whole day...

A family's sea change It's the voyage of a lifetime: The Andrades of Keller will leave suburbia behind and sail from port to port for a year or more. By Dave Ferman Star-Telegram Staff Writer KELLER - You sell all your worldly possessions, leave the hustle and bustle and traffic behind, pull up anchor and sail into the sunset, letting the waves lull you to sleep at night. It's a common enough fantasy, a sweet little slice of daydream escapism. But next month the Andrade family (Ken and Mary, and kids Anthony, 14, and Adrianna, 9) will do exactly that....

Violent Pirate Attack On Two Yachts Off Yemen Here is a firsthand account of a pirate attack on two yachts. It took place only 30 miles off the coast of Yemen at 13°28' North 48°07' East on 8 March 5pm local. This report has been filed with the relevant authorities: the Yemen Coast Guard, Yemen Navy, Aden Port Control, US Coalition 5th Fleet, US Embassy and State Department. Richard Donaldson-Alves, Controller, Mobile Maritime Net, South East Asian Waters (14,323 MHz 0025 Z daily Wx @ 0055 Z daily) On 8 March 2005, two sailing yachts, Mahdi & Gandalf, were moving...

KUALA LUMPUR: Three crewmen on a Japanese tugboat seized by pirates were released unhurt in southern Thailand after being held captive for a week, officials said. Two Japanese seamen -- 56-year-old captain Nobuo Inoue and 50-year-old chief engineer Shunji Kuroda -- and Filipino crewman Sangdang Paliawan, 31, were freed late Sunday near the coastal town of Satun, just north of the Malaysian border. "They were found late Sunday near Satun. They are safe and in good health. They will be taken to Penang (in Malaysia)," Masaru Aniya, a spokesman for the Japanese embassy told AFP. [. . .] Kuroda said...

Ellen MacArthur Sails Solo Toward Record 49 minutes ago By KRYSTYNA RUDZKI, AP Sports Writer LONDON - Ellen MacArthur has endured stormy seas, 65 mph winds, a broken sail, burns, bruises and exhaustion — even a close encounter with a whale. Now, after 26,000 miles and nearly 70 days on the ocean, she is nearing the solo around-the-world sailing record. AP Photo The 28-year-old Englishwoman needs to reach the finish line — between Ushant, France, and the south coast of England — by 2:04 a.m. EST on Wednesday to break the mark. "There is definitely still a chance to break...

At Hot-Hot-Hot Sailing, a search for inner yngling DAVE BARRY ATHENS -- I went down to the sea to see the hot Olympic sailing action. I knew the action would be hot because the Olympic organizers put out a press release headlined, quote, ''Hot action predicted for sailing.'' The sailing action takes place in the Saronic Gulf, which is perfect because (a) it is located right next to Athens, and (b) it consists almost entirely of water, which is the preferred sailing environment. It's also good for swimming, and from the bus on the way to the sailing action I...

Space travel goes sailing Tim Radford, science editor Monday August 16, 2004 The Guardian US and Russian scientists are planning the ultimate in fuel-economy travel: they hope to launch a space sailing ship driven only by the pressure of sunlight later this year. Cosmos 1, an unfurled fan of 15 metre sails, each far thinner than a dustbin bag but stiffened and coated with mirror material, could be launched from a Russian nuclear missile submarine. A rocket designed during the cold war to attack Britain or the US will be fired from beneath the Barents Sea with the furled sail...

YACHT skipper and his crew were rescued for the second time in four days after getting stuck in the path of a large ferry in the Firth of Forth. Mike Thompson, 67, sparked a lifeboat rescue at the weekend when both of his boat’s motors broke and the vessel hit rocks. His 23ft yacht, Lady Marion, had been drifting for hours in thick fog when a rescue team plucked the three-man crew - one of whom was developing hypothermia - to safety. But a lifeboat was called out to rescue the skipper again on Tuesday after he got stranded in...

Family's Feat to Sail the Globe Comes Full Circle By Dana Treen/Associated Press May 22, 2004 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - There's a magical place Ellen Catlin has dreamed about for much of the past six years: a place so special she made it her computer screensaver. It's her bed - the one she crawled into last month after spending almost half her life at sea. At 13, she was ready to come home. That's just what her family did, sailing in from the sea and into the Ortega River, closing the circle on a round-the-globe trip. As the 52-foot sailboat...

Story Number: NNS040326-08 Release Date: 3/26/2004 11:20:00 AM By Journalist 3rd Class Devin Wright, Commander, Navy Region Hawaii Public Affairs PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (NNS) -- Almost 130 Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets took part in an annual four-day spring camp beginning March 19. The spring camp consists of a day of boot camp-style instruction on military protocol, and a basic seamanship course that includes sailing and kayaking. There is also a physical readiness portion in which cadets hike Diamond Head and complete second class swimming qualifications. Cadets also receive an historical overview of the Navy here in Hawaii,...

Rewriting history: A replica eighth century sailing ship suggests that the first seafarers to round the Cape of Good Hope came from the East - and not from Europe. Photo: Sean Woods, Popular Mechanics Sailing the Cinnamon Route March 04 2004 at 07:06AM By Sean Woods History books tell us that Portuguese explorer Bartholomew Diaz was the first seafarer to round the Cape, in 1488. It remains a towering achievement during that golden era of discovery when adventurers from the Iberian Peninsula redrew the map of the known world. But yet... some things just don't fit into the picture. For...

Piracy and Kidnapping Soar on the High Seas 2 hours, 56 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Neil Chatterjee LONDON (Reuters) - Violent piracy on the high seas has soared and more ships are being hijacked to kidnap the crew for ransom, an ocean crime watchdog said Wednesday. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said the number of reported ship attacks jumped to 445 in 2003, 20 percent higher than the previous year and the second highest level since it began compiling statistics in 1991. The number of seafarers killed also climbed to 21, with another 71...

ARCHAEOLOGY: ANCIENT SAILING ON HIGH SEAS, EVIDENCE IN USTICA (AGI) - Paestum, Italy, Nov. 7 - Ancient Mediterranean sailors crossed the high seas with techniques of navigation and orentation that we still haven't discovered, contrary to myths that need to be dispelled, such as that the only navigation was local coastal navigation. New evidence has appeared regarding ancient naval presence on the island of Ustica, discovered by underwater excavation last summer carried out by Giuliano Volpe, archaeology professor at the University of Foggia, supported by "Archeologia viva" and the archaeological superintendence of Palermo. Many of the traces of these ancient...

<p>Rock star Bob Seger gets a hug after his boat, Lightning, was listed as the provinsional winner.</p> <p>MACKINAC ISLAND -- Bob Seger is known for his music, but his sailing accomplishments are beginning to gain acclaim.</p> <p>Seger, skipper of Lightning, was listed Monday as the provisional winner in the PHRF A division of the 78th annual Bayview Port Huron to Mackinac sailboat race.</p>

Alinghi Wins the America's Cup02.March 2003 By Peter Rusch Alinghi [SUI-64] won Race Five of the XXXIst America’s Cup Match in Auckland on Sunday and, for the first time in its 152-year history, the America’s Cup is going back to Europe. Ernesto Bertarelli’s Swiss Alinghi Team swept away Team New Zealand [NZL-82] in five consecutive races, becoming the first Challenger to win the America’s Cup on its initial attempt. With his 14th America’s Cup win, Alinghi skipper Russell Coutts broke Dennis Conner’s record of 13 America’s Cup race victories, adding the five wins of 2003, to the nine he earned...

[Note: The Americas's Cup is being carried in the U.S. by ESPN--check your local listings].Race Five Postponed01. March 2003Russell Coutts didn’t get his birthday present on Saturday. The Alinghi [SUI-64] skipper had the opportunity to celebrate his 41st birthday by holding the America’s Cup aloft for his Swiss Alinghi Team with a victory in Race Five. Alinghi Swiss Challenge. But the weather didn’t cooperate, and very light winds on the Hauraki Gulf forced Principal Race Officer Harold Bennett to postpone racing for the day at 15:15. It was the 26th of 72 race days in this America’s Cup season to...

Any other America's Cup junkies out there? The race just started! The game is afoot!

Thursday, January 30 Armstrong: A war would make racing difficult -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reuters MILAN -- American cyclist Lance Armstrong, the four-time Tour de France champion, says he is concerned about his security if the United States goes to war against Iraq. "We Americans do not enjoy much sympathy abroad at the moment," Armstrong said in an interview with the Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport published on Thursday. "If I have to do the Tour with a war under way it would be very difficult for me." "In cycling you ride in the open -- there is no fencing or protection...

<p>A tiny nonprofit group that teaches boys the basics of seamanship is being penalized by Berkeley, Calif., for its affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America.</p> <p>Until now, the Sea Scouts have enjoyed free berthing rights at Berkeley's public marina, as have several other nonprofit groups. But the city has a 5-year-old policy forbidding it to subsidize certain groups, including those that discriminate against homosexuals.</p>

LOS ANGELES, Sept 25 (AFP) - A castaway sailor has been rescued by the US Coast Guard after surviving nearly four months adrift at sea in a crippled boat by drinking rainwater and roasting turtles and seagulls, rescuers said Wednesday. Vietnamese immigrant Richard Van Pham, 62, drifted for almost 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) after his 7.8 meter (26 foot) sailing boat got caught in a storm during what was supposed to have been a simple 35-kilometer (22-mile) pleasure cruise. The thin but healthy survivor, who set out from his home in Long Beach, California to the nearby resort island...