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The Ukrainian military's Group 13 unit claims to have sunk another Russian landing ship, adding to a growing tally of losses for the Black Sea Fleet. On Wednesday morning, the group released a video appearing to show its suicide drone boats approaching a vessel near shore. The ship - identified by Group 13 as the Caesar Kunikov - has the distinctive open foredeck and tall deckhouse of a Ropucha-class landing vessel. In succession, multiple drones appeared to approach the vessel's hull and detonate, with the explosions captured on camera by subsequent inbound drone boats. The video ends with the vessel...

The British government has reportedly hired a fleet of private boats to help the Border Force bring illegal Channel migrants ashore at a cost to the taxpayer at least £36 million. According to a report from The Times of London, the UK Home Office — the government body responsible for controlling immigration and protecting the country’s borders — has signed a contract worth £36 million for the hiring of a “charter of vessel(s) to support small boats operations in the Dover Straits”. The contract, which is set to come into force in April and will last until at least the...

Next year, Americans will be required to obtain travel authorization to enter 30 countries, ending visa-free travel in Europe for U.S. citizens. The European Union announced this week a new security program that would mandate U.S. passport holders to obtain visas before traveling to any of the visa-required countries, including Spain, France and Greece. Here is everything Americans need to know. Application process Before you secure your flights to your European destination, visit the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS). The earlier you apply and are approved for the visa, the sooner it will arrive, providing peace of mind....

A TikTok boat jumping challenge that sees people jump from the rear of the vessels while moving at high speed has been blamed for four deaths in Alabama. The challenge, which has been popularized on TikTok, involves individuals engaging in dangerous water activities. Those participating in the challenge launch themselves from the rear of a boat and into the wake behind it, as the boat continues to move. Now, officials in Alabama have said the new fad has claimed the lives of four people, after they broke their necks instantly. Officials said in the last six months, they had to...

Scientists think a traumatized orca initiated the assault on boats after a "critical moment of agony" and that the behavior is spreading among the population through social learning.Orcas have mainly directed their efforts at sailboats, making a beeline for the rudder. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Orcas have attacked and sunk a third boat off the Iberian coast of Europe, and experts now believe the behavior is being copied by the rest of the population. Three orcas (Orcinus orca), also known as killer whales, struck the yacht on the night of May 4 in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the coast...

As Breitbart News reported, nearly 1,400 illegal aliens were apprehended at sea and along the Florida Keys over the New Year’s holiday weekend. More than 360 illegal aliens, specifically, arrived on boats at Dry Tortugas National Park. The illegal aliens were bused from Dry Tortugas National Park to Key West.

"This would be the greatest regulatory overreach in American maritime law" – that’s how Frank Hugelmeyer describes a proposal by the Biden administration to limit the speed of all motorboats over 35 feet from Florida to Massachusetts. "Not only are they creating a serious safety issue, they are creating a massive negative economic impact." Hugelmeyer is president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA), and he is just one of a growing number of voices expressing outrage over the proposal put forward by the U.S. Commerce Department under the auspices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Several boats taking part in a parade supporting President Donald Trump on Lake Travis in Texas have sunk, officials said Saturday. The Travis County Sheriff's Office tweeted that it responded to multiple calls involving boats in distress during the parade. "Several boats did sink," the TCSO tweet said.

Amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, boat parades supporting the re-election of President Donald Trump are scheduled to take place over the Labor Day weekend in several parts of the country, including in Florida, California, Texas and Oklahoma. Donald Trump Jr. is reportedly attending a Trump boat parade in Florida running from Jupiter to Mar-a-Lago on Monday, according to Florida's The CW West Palm. The parades are expected to draw large crowds of Trump supporters keen to watch the boats float by, including up to 7,000 boats on Pine Island in southwest Florida. On Saturday, a Trump boat parade, reportedly featuring...

Travis County officials are investigating multiple reports of ’boats in distress’ on Lake Travis during a Trump boat parade. According to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, they were first notified of the incidents around 12:15 p.m., Saturday. The image below was tweeted by Austin American-Statesman photojournalist of the boat parade. Rough waters on Lake Travis as hundreds of boats in Trump boat parade. Several swamped. #Statesman @bobphoto pic.twitter.com/DPpKKhgljF — bobphoto (@bobphoto) September 5, 2020 Several boats were in distress all along the parade route, according to officials. There are currently no reports of injuries.

Five reasons it’s a great day to have a boat parade in Minnesota. First, Nate Silver’s 538 said the cornerstone of the blue wall — Minnesota — is on the verge of going RED. Second, Trump is well ahead of Biden in the famous Minnesota Cookie Poll (they never seen a Republican poll so high). Third, a Senate takeover by the Democrats is fading as Republicans tighten the senate race in Minnesota. Forth, six mayors in historically Democrat strongholds endorse Trump. Fifth, three polls (here, here and here) show it’s a statistical tie in Minnesota between Biden and Trump. WATCH...

Carlos Gavidia, who earned national attention for his "Trumptilla" boat parades, is expected to be charged with sending a threatening text, a felony, to a resident of his former Jupiter country club community after they clashed over politics, his attorney told The Palm Beach Post on Monday. Gavidia will surrender at the Palm Beach County Jail on Tuesday morning, said attorney Stuart Kaplan. The criminal charge would come just days after Gavidia attended President Trump’s Republican National Convention speech on the White House lawn Thursday night. Gavidia organized the boat parades with his vessel as the centerpiece. He renamed his...

President Trump can’t hold his large energetic rallies because of coronavirus. But his campaign has discovered the next best thing: massive pro-Trump flotillas that are taking his message to waterways across the country. The large boat parades — which began organically among MAGA devotees in South Florida and spread to Florida’s Gulf Coast, Arizona’s Lake Havasu, South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor and Southern California’s Newport Harbor during Memorial Day weekend — quickly caught the notice of the president and his campaign. Now, the campaign is encouraging the flotillas and utilizing its robust data operation to organize and excite a demographic that...

Canadian company BRP has announced it will stop making the Evinrude outboard boat engines.

Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, noted to the News that Whitmer had urged state residents not to flock to Traverse City, and “Yet, what did her family try and do? “In the Army, we have a tradition that the leaders get in line for chow last behind everyone else in the unit,” he said. “Here is the leader of our state. … Her family is trying to cut people in line.” Whitmer’s spokeswoman, Tiffany Brown, did not deny the claims involving her boss’s husband to the News but said the governor’s office would not be responding to “every rumor...

With Florida being one of the more than 30 states beginning to ease “stay-at-home” restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic, people are only too happy to rejoin the world. And in the Sunshine State, which has fared better than many states — and far better than early projections — what better way to do that than hold a boat parade in honor of President Donald Trump. Hundreds of South Florida boaters took to the Intracoastal Waterway on Sunday to show their support for the president, with the boat parade, departed from the Jupiter Inlet and traveled south toward Trump’s...

A startup manufacturer of fishing boats on Tuesday announced plans to establish a factory operation in northeastern Mississippi. Avid Boats expects to create 75 jobs at a facility in Amory, Mississippi — about two hours southeast of Memphis — formerly occupied by a packaging company. Avid plans to invest $1.6 million in the project, Mississippi economic development officials said in a statement. “Although we are a startup, our team brings 100-plus years of combined marine industry experience to the table,” said Avid Boats President Phillip Faulkner. “We look forward to being a vital contributor to the continued growth of this...

Intelligence showing that Iran is likely moving short-range ballistic missiles aboard boats in the Persian Gulf was one of the critical reasons the US decided to move an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers into the region, several US officials with direct knowledge of the situation told CNN on Tuesday. The concerns over the movement of the missiles was one of multiple threads of intelligence from various sources that led the US to believe Iran had a capability and intention to launch strikes against US targets, the report said. US Central Command spokesperson Capt. Bill Urban said they had...

A recently retired friend is thinking of selling his home (which is paid for) and buying a boat for himself and his wife to live aboard without ever having lived aboard a boat before. Are there any FReepers who have done something similar, or who have experience living this kind of lifestyle, or have advice I could maybe pass on to them?

This story is a bit down in the weeds, I’ll admit, but it has a bit of an interesting legal twist to it. Back in July, a duck boat sank on Table Rock Lake in Missouri, killing seventeen people, including nine members of a single family. It was a tragedy that made national headlines, but now the matter is making its way through the courts and an obscure law from the 1800s may put the captain of the boat in prison for a very long time. As the Washington Post reported this week, Captain Kenneth Scott McKee is looking at...