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Maybe I just haven’t been around enough giant wooden boats, but I don’t think most of them are nearly as beautiful or intricate as these stern carvings seen on Dark Roasted Blend. Be sure to check the link for more great pics.
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To settle a bet, chocolatier Georges Larnicol built and launched a boat made from chocolate. The 3.5 meter craft managed to stay afloat with three people inside for an hour and a half.
It wasn’t the 55-year-old’s first attempt to set sail in a chocolate boat.
In August his plans were scuppered when his Chocolate boat Mark I broke into pieces.
But Mark II, which took more than 400 hours to construct, met with more success and pleased with the outcome, Larnicol is promising to build a bigger 12-metre boat complete with chocolate mask for 2012.
Link via The Presurfer
More than three years ago, we wrote about a boat that is shaped like a dolphin. The Seabreacher is now available in shark form, too. So you can roam around shores and terrify beachgoers:
It looks like a great white shark, complete with dorsal fin, gaping jaws and rows of dagger-sharp teeth. At 16.5ft in length, it is even the same size as one.
Unlike the real thing, it also has a 260hp engine, which powers it to 50mph above water, and 20mph below it.
The Seabreacher can also leap out of the water, partially submerge, and roll like a shark does.
Article and Gallery via DVICE | Photo: Toxel
Yasuhiro Suzuki built a boat that looks like a zipper pull. When piloted through the water, the resulting wake resembles an opening fly. The boat was on display at this year’s Setouchi International Art Festival. You can view a video at the link.
Link via DudeCraft | Photo: InventorSpot
A team of archaeologists on the Greek island of Crete found a tool way older than what they expected to find. Thomas Strasser of the University of Providence and his crew hoped to find artifacts dating back as far as 11,000 years. The five-inch axe they uncovered was something completely different.
Knapped from a cobble of local quartz stone, the rough-looking tool resembled hand axes discovered in Africa and mainland Europe and used by human ancestors until about 175,000 years ago. This stone tool technology, which could have been useful for smashing bones and cutting flesh, had been relatively static for over a million years.
Crete has been surrounded by vast stretches of sea for some five million years. The discovery of the hand ax suggests that people besides technologically modern humans—possibly Homo heidelbergensis—island-hopped across the Mediterranean tens of thousands of millennia earlier than expected.
More digging unearthed a total of 30 hand axes plus other tools at nine locations on Crete. The rock terraces the tools were taken from are thought to range from 45,000 years old to 130,000 years old.
“I was flabbergasted,” said Boston University archaeologist and stone-tool expert Curtis Runnels. “The idea of finding tools from this very early time period on Crete was about as believable as finding an iPod in King Tut’s tomb.”
It was thought that humans earlier than Homo sapiens were incapable of long deliberate sea voyages. Link
(image credit: Thomas Strasser)
For many people, even the word “Detroit” brings to mind images of crime, cars and poverty. But no city can really be that black and white. The things you don’t know about Detroit might just entertain you. Elovethiscity has a fun collection of 10 Detroit Facts You Should Know. For example, did you know the city hosts the only floating post office in America (shown above):
The J. W. Westcott II docks just South of The Ambassador Bridge along the western shore of the Detroit River. She is America’s only floating ZIP Code [48222]. Delivering over 100 years of “mail-by-the-pail”, the J.W. Westcott Company was originally formed in 1874 by Captain J.W. Westcott to inform passing vessels of changes in orders.
Today the 45-foot vessel’s duties include U.S. mail delivery; freight delivery, storage, forwarding; message service; passenger service to and from vessels and pilot boat services for the Port of Detroit. The Westcott also sells nautical charts, postcards, books, and has been known to deliver the occasional mid-river pizza.
