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A killer whale named Luna was separated from his family and lived off the coast of Vancouver Island until his death in 2006. He was friendly with people in boats who went out to visit him, but did he like the people or the boats? In this video, he is imitating the sound of a boat motor. Was he trying to communicate with the boat? Read more about the orca at Wikipedia. Link -via Buzzfeed
36 teams participated in a boat race during this year’s Milk, Bread, and Honey Festival in the town of Jelgava, Latvia. Each boat was homemade and amazingly creative. While that might be impressive enough, they were also made entirely out of empty milk cartons!
Link -via TreeHugger | See also Artist Sailed in Giant Paper Boat
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Urban artist Phlegm took a break from painting on walls to create this squid canal boat in England. Unurth has more pics of the street ... er, canal art: Link
Comments Off The Norwegian Coastal Express cruise on the Hurtigruten from Bergen to Kirkenes is 2600 kilometers and normally takes 134 hours. This version only take five minutes, but you’ll have to skip the karioke night. The actual-speed version was aired on Norwegian public TV, which took a week. Link -via The Daily What
A motorist in Bülach, Switzerland, was towing a boat behind his vehicle and came to a stop at a stop light. When the car continued, the boat became unhitched and was left sitting at the intersection!
One witness said: “As the car drove off, the boat just stayed there and the driver didn’t seem to even notice. The other drivers were pretty shocked, but police caught the guy who’d been towing it and escorted him back so he could tow it away.”
Bouvet Island is 1,700 miles from Antarctica, and further away from anywhere else. The island is a volcano covered with a glacier. The few expeditions to explore it were many years apart, and some of those explorers never set foot on Bouvet Island, since there is no safe place to land. But in 1964, a South African expedition spent less than an hour on the island and found …an abandoned boat.
It was a mystery worthy of a Sherlock Holmes adventure. The boat, which Crawford described as “a whaler or ship’s lifeboat,” must have come from some larger ship. But no trade route ran within a thousand miles of Bouvet. If it really was a lifeboat, then, what ship had it come from? What spectacular feat of navigation had brought it across many miles of sea? How could it have survived a crossing of the Southern Ocean? There was no sign it had ever borne a mast and sail, or engine, but the solitary pair of oars that Crawford found would barely have been adequate to steer a heavy, 20-foot boat. Most unnervingly of all, what had become of the crew?
It was another two years before anyone else went to the island, and the boat was never recorded to have been seen again. Mike Dash set out to research what the boat was doing on such an isolated island, and came up with some interesting theories. However, a definitive answer has yet to be found. Read the whole story at A Blast from the Past. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
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John Hinton of Horsham in West Sussex, England, combined a boat and a lawnmower to make a vehicle he can drive around traffic jams by slipping into a canal.
John’s ‘Shortcutter’, made from a sit-on lawnmower and an old boat, can chug along the roads at a ‘relaxing’ 9kph (6mph), then take to the water at the first sign of a snarl-up.
Of course, with a top speed that could cause more traffic jams than it solves and a propeller that spins wildly behind it on dry land, the four-wheeler is still very much a work in progress.
The downside is that now no one can use the term “shortcutter” for the Name That Weird Invention contest this week. Hinton says his vehicle is a prototype and he will continue to improve it. Link -via Arbroath
Instructables member Shawn Melito designed and built a special “water scooter” for his then-5-year-old daughter, who has Cerebral Palsy. This gave her buoyancy, mobility, and independence on the water -under supervision, of course. He explains how he he built at at the link. Then comes the kicker:
BTW – After two seasons of use my daughter has grown out of this, but it still works great. It is free to the first person who has a disabled child the right size that can use it safely. We live near Toronto, Ontario.
Link -via NeatoBambino
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German artist Frank Bölter sailed the Thames River in London in a very unusual boat: he folded a life-sized origami boat out of paper!
Named “To The World’s End”, Frank Bölter’s paper boat was part of the Drift 10 art exhibition, in London. It was created out of giant sheets of paper that he and the public at the Canary Wharf Docks folded, using origami techniques. Reinforced with metal poles, the unusual sailing craft didn’t seem to sink, and its creator was so relaxed that he laid back and read a newspaper, while the public stared at him in awe.
Oddity Central has more: Link
What’s the largest thing you’ve ever moved? Your fridge? Imagine if you have to move something larger than all of the house stuff you’ve accumulated. Say, something like a the Troll-A gas platform:
It stands almost 500 meters tall and weighs 656,000 tons – it’s one of the biggest man-made objects ever towed (it has now been dwarfed by Texaco’s Petronius platform which is "arguably" the tallest structure in the world.)
Bigger than any aircraft carrier, higher than most TV towers, this vessel asks for a titanic team of ships to tow it to another location – and imagine splash this thing would make if it toppled!
Dark Roasted Blend has the picture gallery of the ultimate moving experience: Link
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No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you – that is a pool table shaped just like a boat, made by Peter McKee of Master Billiards. He turned a 21-foot speed boat into a $60,000 pool table as a tribute to a water skier who died in a boating accident.
About:Blank has the video clip: Link
Roads? We don’t need no stinking roads!
Actually – the village of Giethoorn in the Netherlands looks very lovely without any road whatsoever:
Can you imagine a village with no roads? There is such an unique place in the Netherlands called Giethoorn (pronounced ‘geethorn’). There are no roads, and cars have to remain outside the village.
The only access to the stunningly lovely houses in Giethoorn is by water, or on foot over tiny individual wooden bridges.
The Presurfer has the video clip on how one gets around the village: Link
When Deputy Gregory Barnes found that someone had ditched a boat in an undeveloped lot in Florida, he did some detectin’ online using Google Earth:
Marc Ward, a spokesman for the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office, said Barnes discovered the abandoned 18-foot 1986 Four Winns 190 Horizon on Feb. 23. The vehicle identification number and registration had been removed, so the deputy took his investigation online.
"He used Google Earth to look around the surrounding area," Ward said. "He was looking for anyone who had that boat at the time the satellite image was taken." [...]
Barnes saw the fuzzy image of the boat at [Dwight] Foster’s home. The undeveloped subdivision is nearby.
The ‘whale’ is actually a project from Vincent Callebaut Architects called Physalia Physalis or ‘Water Bubble’, and it has a very serious point. One billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water. This vessel is designed to float up and down the rivers of Europe, purifying the water as it goes. It is of course a huge floating garden among other things, with interior gardens dedicated to Earth, Water, Wind and Fire. So in theory it would make the Thames drinkable. It is also apparently completely self-sufficient, being covered in solar panels. In fact, it is meant to produce more energy than it uses. Too bad it is only a concept for now.
Link – via babycreativeblog
From the Upcoming 
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British citizen and experienced sailor Laura Hughes and her friend John Cochrane were battling gale force winds off the Turkish coast when a rope got caught in her boat’s propeller and killed the engine. She sent a Mayday signal and a boat responded, but the crew demanded 10,000 euros for their rescue -more money than Hughes had. So she jumped in to swim to shore. But she had some precious cargo to take with her -two dogs and their nine puppies who were born during the boat trip!
So, wearing a lifejacket, Miss Hughes jumped out of the boat, carrying the nine Rottweiler puppies ‘African-style’ by balancing the crate on her head and holding the side with one hand while swimming with the other.
Mr Cochrane and the two adult dogs also jumped off the boat and swam to the nearest beach at the Greek resort of Lalissos about 100 metres from their boat.When they got to the shore, exhausted, they were helped by German tourists from a beach hotel and members of the emergency services.
The British Embassy found Laura and John a hotel room for the night – and the puppies spent the night at a local Greek police station.
(image credit: KNSNEWS)
The term ghost ship can refer to a mysterious apparition of a ship when a ship is not really there, or it can refer to an abandoned ship found with no crew or passengers, usually under mysterious circumstances. Both kinds are listed in these ten stories spooky enough to share with anyone to whom you want to give nightmares. Pictured is the Baychimo, used in Arctic waters until it became trapped in ice in 1931. The crew was airlifted and the ship abandoned. However, the boat survived to mysteriously float on its own for decades. It was last seen in 1969. Link -via Unique Daily
Photos Property of Scubacraft
You’re cruising along in your speedboat, when suddenly the urge strikes to just flip a switch and dive deep into the waters with your boat. No problem. That dream is now possible with The Scubacraft. Loaded with everything you need to pretend you’re James Bond, this can be yours for the low low price of $165,000. But wait, there’s more!
Advanced safety features include -an automatic depth control (ADC) system that assists the operator in maintaining depth, controlling ascent and descent. -VHF radio, underwater communications, lights and GPS are accessories that further enhance safety and performance in operation. -With no exposed propeller and the ability to operate in very shallow water, the technology has advantages over conventional surface craft even before it submerges underwater.
Choose your model – one seats three, the other six. Twisted Sifter has all the details on this dreamboat.
Link | Previously on Neatorama – The Hypersub
Photo: Vernon Bryant / Dallas Morning News
The photo above, taken by Vernon Bryant for Dallas Morning News, depicts the bravery of Dallas Fire-Rescue officials warning residents of West Dallas of flooding (and if necessary, rescuing them) when a pump station failed (Source).
It’s the staple stuff of newspapers – local news and such – so if you’re wondering why it’s on this blog, take a closer look at the photo. Go ahead. Don’t see it yet? Take another look. We’ll wait – you’ll get it …
Andrew at Southern Fried Science tell the story of how he made beer with limited resources while at sea.
You’re six days into a 2 month expedition, and if you were lucky enough to not be on a dry ship, it’s de facto dry by now anyway. You’re eying the ethanol stores, the crew is eying each other, and all hell will break loose if y’all don’t get some sweet water soon. This is no time for artistry.
This is not, as a rule, a terribly good beer (though, with a good brewmaster on board, it can be). This is a beer to pass the time. I can guarantee that if you are careful, it will be at least as good as the cheapest commercial alternative.
A complete list of ingredients and instructions are included. Your results may vary. Link -via Terra Sigillata
Here’s something you don’t see too often…a Canada goose trying to pick on a sweet natured dog in a boat. I have no idea why this goose seems to have a thing for the dog though it maybe protecting a nest of eggs or perhaps it’s thinking the dog is a potential interloper in its territory? Either way the owner of the dog is clearly trying to avoid hurting the goose while protecting his dog each time he grabs it and then chucks it away. It gets even more surreal as the goose starts chasing the fishing boat later on!
via – TYWKIWDBI
Vascabarca is a boat-shaped bathtub designed by Anne & Parick Poirier Antonio Lupi.
