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FORT MYERS, Fla. – A man and his cat rode out the fury of Hurricane Ian last week in his sailboat, which was his home before the storm. Ian was a monstrous Category 4 hurricane with 150-mph winds when it slammed into Southwest Florida on Sept. 28. The terrible winds pushed ashore feet of water from the Gulf of Mexico as it made landfall. Widespread destruction was left behind. Ron Latta, of Fort Myers, said he had been living in his 32-foot boat named "Lattatude" for four years, and decided to stay with his home. "You don’t leave your boat,"...

Video LinkI used to sail rented boats (I built one as a kid, but it sank on its maiden voyage). Have loved classic (one design) sailboats forever. This is possibly the most beautiful sailboat I have ever seen.As an aside, my ex-wife's father (one of my favorite people in the world) sailed from childhood. He told me that going to boat shows was almost as good as owning a sailboat. You got all the imagery with none of the expense.I think that watching a youtube video of a beautiful boat must be almost as good as owning it.Anyway, here is...

The Colorado couple who sank their beloved sailboat two days into their journey to the Caribbean is getting another go at navigating the high seas. Tanner Broadwell, 26, and girlfriend Nikki Walsh, 24, sold everything they owned to pursue their dream of one day sailing around the world. However, they didn’t get far – their sailboat hit a sandbar and capsized off the coast of Madeira Beach, FL, two days later, leaving them only with $90 and no home. The story of the couple’s misfortune quickly went viral and caught the eye of retired physician and boat owner, Mark Reinecke,...

A Colorado couple said they sold everything they owned to buy a sailboat and set out for the open seas together. Within two days, their dream became a nautical nightmare. On their way to Key West, Tanner Broadwell and Nikki Walsh's voyage abruptly ended in John’s Pass off Madeira Beach, Fla., when their 28-foot sailboat struck something underwater Wednesday night.

Coast Guard officials told the Associated Press on Monday that the two women had an emergency beacon but never turned it on because they did not fear for their lives. If they had, rescue would have been headed their way in a matter of minutes. The women said Tuesday they did not use the beacon because they never felt they were in immediate danger, yet they have been quoted as saying they did not think they would survive another day, and that they were fearful during a dramatic tiger shark attack that lasted six hours. Furthermore, the pair said they...

The parents who were stranded at sea with their two young daughters and had to be rescued by a U.S. Navy warship say they plan to sue their satellite phone carrier and hope any monetary winnings will allow them to help repay the government's cost of their rescue. “To see people show up to help you like that is pretty amazing,” Eric Kaufman told ABC News, referring to the team from California Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing that parachuted out of a plane into the frigid waters off the coast of Mexico to save his family. Kaufman and his...

SAN DIEGO (KGO) -- There is now an estimate on how much it cost to rescue a San Diego family with a sick child off the coast of Mexico. A San Diego newspaper crunched the numbers and says the price for the joint effort between the Coast Guard, Navy and National Guard came to $663,000 and could go higher. The family arrived back on shore Wednesday. The parents have taken some heat for taking their children on a yearlong sailing trip.

(Reuters) - A family of four rescued from their sailboat after their infant daughter became seriously ill at sea returned safely to San Diego on Wednesday aboard a U.S. warship that picked them up in the Pacific over the weekend, a Navy spokeswoman said. The parents, Eric and Charlotte Kaufman, and their two daughters, 3-year-old Cora and 1-year-old Lyra, left the Navy frigate Vandegrift after the ship arrived in port around 10 a.m. local time and proceeded to their family doctor, according to Lieutenant Lenaya Rotklein of the Third Fleet. Rotklein declined to give any further information about the arrival...

Kerry blames himself for flap over yacht taxSaturday, July 31, 2010 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BOSTON — Sen. John Kerry said he always intended to pay taxes in Massachusetts on his $7 million yacht but conceded he mishandled the public furor over his decision to dock the vessel in Rhode Island. “I don’t think I dealt with it fast enough, effectively enough. There’s nobody to blame but myself for that,” the Massachusetts Democrat told The Boston Globe for Friday’s editions. Kerry added that he did nothing legally wrong. Kerry moved to end the controversy this week by saying he would write...

A couple watching whales from a sailboat ended up getting a real close-up view. The 33-foot southern right whale soared out of the water off Cape Town, South Africa, and landed on their boat, snapping the mast, according to reports.

MZ received an email from someone who said the photo we posted showing a man appearing to be John F. Kennedy on a yacht with naked women was actually a photo from a 1967 Playboy photo shoot -snip- UPDATE: 1:11 PM ET A rep from Playboy tells TMZ the photo ran as part of story titled, "Playboy's Charter Yacht Party: How to Have a Ball on the Briny with an Able-Bodies Complement of Ship's Belles." She says the photo was taken on one of the islands that make up the Grenadines (Petit Rameau).

Plastiki, a 60-foot-long (18.3-meter-long) catamaran made of more than 12,000 plastic bottles, will soon ply the Pacific Ocean to increase awareness of environmental problems. David de Rothschild wants to deliver a message in a bottle. The British environmentalist is building a very special boat to sail from San Francisco to Australia. Dubbed the 'Plastiki', the 60-foot catamaran is made almost entirely from plastic bottles.

Joy from rescue of 5 Aggie boaters turns grim when 6th member of capsized boat crew is found dead amid wreckage A day that started with the joyous rescue of five crew members of a Texas A&M University at Galveston sailboat closed with the somber discovery of the sixth sailor's body in the wreckage of the sunken ship. Roger Stone, whose body was recovered by a salvage crew Sunday about 27 miles southeast of Freeport, was called a hero for helping two students escape from below decks seconds before the Cynthia Woods capsized. "I'm sure that's what lost his life,"...

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...

Teenagers Survive Six Days Lost at Sea May 01, 2005 SOUTHPORT, N.C. — Two teenagers who had survived nearly a week at sea, clinging to a 14-foot Sunfish (search), prayed to go peacefully in the hours before they were discovered. "I asked God to take me," 15-year-old Troy Driscoll (search) told The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier on Saturday night as he lay in the emergency room of Dosher Memorial Hospital (search). "You're out there fighting for your life. We didn't want to fight anymore." Driscoll and 18-year-old Josh Long (search) were spotted by fishermen aboard the Renegade about 4:30...

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...

Amid torrential rain and under dark skies, American adventurer Steve Fossett and his crew have set sail from Plymouth in their bid to smash the round-the-world sailing record. The billionaire American skipper and his 11-strong crew have been in Plymouth Yacht Haven since December preparing equipment for their attempt to beat the Jules Verne record in the 125ft monster catamaran Cheyenne. Since planning started, two crew members have dropped out and another two have joined, due to the long delays inevitable in such endeavours, as crews must wait until weather conditions are just right. But according to navigators on the...