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Photo Source:Stewart Allen, news

On Mother’s Day today, it is nice to know about Joanne Lucas who has saved a stranger from shark attack on May 10 at Middleton Beach, Australia.

• 37 year old Jason Cull, school teacher was swimming with dolphins about 80 metres from shore in the morning on May 10.
• He was attacked by a four metre white pointer shark while swimming and chunks of leg muscle was eaten by the shark.
• On hearing the cries for help from Jason Cull, 50 year old Joanne Lucas mother of three who came there for surfboat rowing practice jumped into the sea risking her life. She swam and physically pulled Jason Cull back to shore.
• Thereafter Jason Cull was taken to hospital for treatment and he is now safe.

Read more from theage.

OldSailor salutes this great mother on Mother’s Day.

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Duck Boat travels on land like an automobile and in water as a boat. Duck Boats are widely used to promote tourism. Duck Boat has originated from DUKW (widely pronounced as “duck”) and is a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck, designed by General Motors Corporation for use during World War II having a speed of 50 mph on road and 6 mph in water.

What is DUKW ?

• D indicates a vehicle designed in 1942
• U meant utility (amphibious)
• K indicated all-wheel drive
• W indicated two powered rear axles

Here is an interesting video clip of Liverpool Duck Tour.

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Underwater Hockey is a thrilling underwater sports popular in United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Netherlands and France. The world championships are held every two years. Rules regarding the game are available here.

Here is an interesting video clip underwater hockey.

Another video clip of European club championship UWH, held in Czech republic on January 26, 2008 is here.

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The Intelligent First Aid Talking Kit is now available. The interesting features of this kit are:

• designed by medical and educational experts
• combines supplies, visual instruction cards
• has an audio module for verbal guidance to manage the most common injuries
• the kit is separated into individually labeled and color-coded injury packs so the user has all the supplies
• has easy to follow instructions for managing a specific injury
• on pressing a button, the audio module in each injury card narrates step-by-step instructions to manage the injury, pausing and repeating when necessary for accurate response
• the case includes a guidebook, with first aid instructions for additional medical emergencies, such as choking, frost bite, heatstroke, asthma
• also included is a product manual with audio instructions
• a book light/flashlight and a shoulder strap

Here is an audio sample from the bleeding pack of the Intelligent First Aid Talking Kit.

Click the icon to listen.

This Intelligent First Aid Talking Kit will be very useful in the ships where timely First Aid is very important.

More details are here at intelligentfirstaid.

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BBC reports fatigue among seafarers as a reason for accidents and near misses at sea. DNV study says 51% of marine accidents are caused by only 25% of all the ships worldwide. One of the reasons for these accidents is fatigue experienced by seafarers.

What is fatigue ?

Fatigue is experienced by us as physical fatigue and mental fatigue. Early stages of fatigue lead to loss of productivity whereas advanced stages of fatigue lead to accidents within the ship or cause groundings, collisions even to the extent of sinking of ships.

Signs of a seafarer suffering from fatigue.

• looking dull with frequent yawns
• half closed eyes
• loss of concentration in work
• unable to listen, understand and act
• non synchronization of body and mind

What causes fatigue to seafarers ?

Continue Reading…

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Cyclone Nargis which was initially centred 390 miles east of Chennai on April 27 has missed Orissa, Bangaladesh and finally battered Myanamar on May 02 and 03. On April 28th itself it was predicted that the cyclone was heading towards Myanmar coast. It is not clear why Myanmar has failed to take preventive actions to face the cyclone. Unimaginable damages caused by the cyclone are being reported now. The last damage due to cyclone in the region was in Bangaladesh by Cyclone Sidr in November 2007.

Rough estimates of cyclone damage:

• loss of lives are reported as more than 10,000
• 100,000 are homeless
• a state of emergency has been declared in cyclone ravaged area
• detailed estimates on damages are yet to come

Cyclone relief work:

• International Aid agencies have commenced relief work.
• The U.S. has approved $250,000 for Myanmar’s relief and Myanmar is yet to accept the aid.
• In some areas Buddhist monks, who revolted against the government earlier this year, were cleaning up debris and pulling away fallen trees.
• Two Indian Navy ships with relief material are proceeding to Myanmar for relief work.

Here is the map showing location of Cyclone Nargis from April 27 to May 02

Continue Reading…

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A comparison of United Kingdom Seafarers (both for Officers and Ratings) for the year 2005 and 2006 is done here.

Click here to view the above graph in interactive mode.

Full report of United Kingdom Seafarer Analysis prepared by The Centre for International Transport Management, London Metropolitan University for the year 2005 is here and for 2006 is available here.

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Photo:Ion Boyle, simplonpc

Luxury cruise liner Mona Lisa has run aground in the Baltic Sea’s Irben Starit off Latvian coast on May 04.

• 984 passengers onboard, mostly Germans are safe
• ship was en-route from Poland’s Gdansk to Latvia’s Riga
• ship was built in 1966, 173 metres in length
• no damage to the ships hull or fuel tanks is reported
• Latvian coast guard is monitoring the situation

The vessel has a track record of running aground nine times in the past. More photos of Mona Lisa are here at simplonpc. More details are here at topix.

Update: May 05

Efforts to refloat the vessel have failed. Passengers have been evacuated to port of Ventspils. More details are at newstin.

Update: May 06

Evacuated passengers head to their homeland. Read more from earthtimes. A video clip of the grounded ship and the passengers evacuation is here at rian.

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Enjoy your weekend with free marine video games. Click the image below to go to the games.

Shooting Fish

Boat Rush 3D

Franky the Fish2

Sub Wars

Boat Race

More games are at flashgames247.

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The 20th Triennial International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC) on Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Restoration is ready to begin. Over 2,000 people from 50 countries are expected to attend the technical sessions and view more than 250 exhibits. The Conference theme for 2008 is: “Creating a Culture of Preparedness”

The interesting part of IOSC:

• to showcase on-water demonstrations of state of the art spill response technologies on Monday May 5th at the Convention Center’s riverfront.
• demonstrations are scheduled to showcase aerial, on-water, dockside, and static displays from the US Coast Guard, US Navy, and local, regional, as well as national response companies.
• an exciting opportunity to see real response crews and equipment in use on the Savannah River.

When ?

May 04 - 08, 2008

Where ?

At Savannah International Trade & Convention Center, Savannah, Georgia, USA

The IOSC Conference schedule is available here. More details are here at iosc.

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Vittorio Malingri has set a solo record to cross Atlantic from Dakar, Senegal to Guadeloupe, Antilles. Vittorio left from Dakar on Tuesday, April 15 and completed a total of 2,545 miles aboard Royal Oak, a 6.09 meter non habitable catamaran in 13 days, 17 hours and 48 minutes.

Here is the map showing the locations.

Continue Reading…

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David Blaine, 35 year old has set a new world record on April 30, to hold breath underwater for 17 minutes, 4.4 seconds. The previous record is for 16 minutes, 32 seconds. Before going underwater David Blaine inhaled pure oxygen for 23 minutes to fill his lungs. Why 23 minutes ? 23 is his mother’s date of birth whom he loves and respects.

Image source:oprah

How could he achieve this record ? Here are the tips.

• he reduced his body weight more than 40 pounds by eating small meals, running, lifting light weights. Lesser the body weight lesser the oxygen requirement to survive.
• he practiced to sleep in reduced oxygen content environment to increase his red blood cell counts.
• he practiced breath holding technique by free diving up to 200 feet.
• he could switch over his body to survival mode at his will by controlling his body through his mind. By this he could make the blood to flow towards his heart and brain more, than to other parts of his body.
• he could shrink his lungs almost by 30% to reduce oxygen requirement.
• he could reduce his heart beat by mind control to reduce oxygen use

More details and video clip are here at oprah.

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The International Maritime Pilots’ Association (IMPA), International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the International Shipping Federation (ISF) have come out with a new brochure to ensure that ladders used for pilot transfers are always rigged correctly. This guidelines are useful to shipping companies and seafarers.

Click here to view online version. Here is a video clip on pilot ladders.

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Here is hassle free underwater scooter Aqua Star. The interesting features of Aqua Star are:

• Quickly you can go underwater and move faster
• No need to qualify any diving course
• No mouth piece is required to be used while under water
• No need to use any mask
• No heavy tank to put on your back
• No need to fit or use a weight belt

Here is a video clip of Aqua Star and here also.

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Image source:royal-navy

A week long drama of finding, misplacing, relocating and detonation of World War II German bomb by The Royal Navy has come to an end. Here are the events.

April 21:

A 500 kg German bomb of Second World War,was found when a contractor working on sea defences off the Felixstowe coast. The bomb is believed to be mostly of TNT dynamite mixed with about 30 % aluminium powder to make it lethal and is one of the largest ever washed up on British coastline. The bomb was powerful enough to flatten a large area of the seafront and cause collateral damage up to about half-a-mile inland. More than 1,000 residents were temporarily evacuated from their seaside homes.

April 22:

A team of Royal Navy bomb disposal squad towed the bomb out to sea to safely detonate it. A sea exclusion zone was then set around the bomb to protect local shipping. The Navy team had planned to carry out a controlled explosion of the bomb, but strong tidal currents made it impossible for divers to attach an explosive charge. In the process due to bad weather and strong currents the bomb was temporarily misplaced in the sea through mechanical and technical mishaps.

April 23:

The ten men diving team carried out 14 dives using sonar and GPS but due to bad weather the bomb could not be traced. The bomb was about two miles offshore in 10 to 12 metres of depth in water. The divers were on a dangerous mission to locate the bomb in absolutely nil visibility and were searching for the bomb with just their hands and fingertips.

April 25:

Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV), Remus with side scan sonar was deployed to locate the bomb and search efforts were doubled.

April 29:

Remus was deployed twice daily for the last five days to conduct a meticulous and comprehensive search of the sea-bed and has covered 14 nautical miles within the 2km x 1km search area during optimum tidal windows. The bomb was located and was successfully detonated. Detonation occurred at 1940 after an earlier misfire at 1915. Hundreds of people braved strong winds and heavy rain to witness the event.

Video clip is here at news.bbc. Finally Royal Navy has succeeded in their mission.

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