Boating NZ May 2017

What to do about Australia’s Great Barrier Reef? Reports coming across my desk as this issue was going to press – documenting the unprecedented decline of the world’s largest living organism – make for depressing reading. An aerial survey of the 2,300km reef – by the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies – shows that 1,500km, or roughly two-thirds of the Reef, have now been devastated by severe coral bleaching. Only the southern third remains unscathed. Queensland scientists put the blame on record-breaking temperatures, and say a 1oCelsius rise has caused four bleaching events in the past 19 years – 1998, 2002, 2016 and now, in 2017. They point out that even the fastest-growing coral typically takes about a decade to recover – and that back-to-back…

Queen vs Maxis FOUR CARBON MAXI trimarans will take on the Queen Mary 2 next month in a trans-Atlantic race between Saint-Nazaire in France and New York. The race – called The Bridge 2017 – marks 100 years of friendship between France and the USA. The flagship of the Cunard line has been specially chartered to celebrate the landing of two million American soldiers who came to fight alongside the Allies in June 1917. The ship will be escorted from Brest by the Centennial Armada, an international fleet which will fly the flag of the 12 nations involved in WW1. Among the four carbon maxi trimarans are Sobedo (skippered by Thomas Colville) and round-the-world record holder Idec (Francis Joyon). The liner is to be transformed into race HQ and passengers…

AFTER LOSING TWO friends in separate boating accidents, Nelson yachtsman Lloyd Valentine came up with the Sea Rescue Sled – a Man Overboard rescue solution he believes will save lives. “One of the biggest challenges in a rescue situation is the physical difficulty of lifting the person out of the water and back on the yacht,” Lloyd says. “Hypothermia and fatigue set in very quickly in our cold waters, so the MOBs often can’t do much to help themselves.” His product works best in conjunction with a standard Dan buoy locator system. The sled can be inflated automatically or manually. Housed in a bag tied to the yacht’s rail, it is attached to a 30m painter which will stream out of the bag when the sled is thrown into the…

THE MALAYSIAN CIVIL Defence Force has ordered 23 additional Sealegs amphibious craft. Sealegs vessels have been used extensively in Malaysia across a range of government sectors for both security and first-response. The order is worth more than $3 million and all 23 Sealegs craft will be delivered over the next 12 months. “This is the largest single order in the history of Sealegs,” says CEO David McKee Wright. “It underscores our strong relationship with the Malaysian Government and the proven performance of Sealegs as first-response and emergency rescue craft.” The Sealegs application in Malaysia will be multi-faceted. The vessels’ primary purpose is flood response, but outside the monsoon season they will join the existing fleet stationed at 33 locations around the country’s coastline, providing emergency rescue services.…

THE WORLD’S OCEAN-GOING ships could save considerable fuel by fitting a ‘spinning sail’ invented nearly a century ago. The principle is to be trailed on a tanker owned by shipping giant Maersk. Best described as rotating columns rather than sails, the structures are fixed to the ship’s deck. Wind causes the columns to spin, thereby generating thrust. Much in the way a spinning ball curves in flight – due to low and high pressure on opposite sides of the ball – the rotors create thrust force perpendicular to the wind direction. The technology is attracting keen interest from international shipping companies who are coming under increasing pressure to reduce emissions from bunker fuel. Invented by German engineer Anton Flettner nearly a century ago, the rotor sail concept was fitted a…

EGYPT IS BUILDING a new laboratory to restore a 4,500-year-old vessel built for Pharaoh Cheops – one the ancient kingdoms most famous kings, and the builder of the Cheops pyramid. Found below the Giza pyramids, the vessel is believed to be one of the Pharaoh’s ceremonial boats built to carry him into the afterlife. Another boat was removed piece by piece from the same site in 1954 and painstakingly reconstructed. Once reassembled, the second vessel will be displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum, currently under construction on Cairo’s outskirts and close to the Giza pyramids. The head of the project’s Egyptian restoration team, Eissa Zeidan, says the boat is in 1,264 pieces and the new lab will accommodate some of the large and very fragile components. The lab’s temperature and…