Boating NZ January 2017

Declining membership – and a fragile commercial sustainability – is a problem common to sports clubs all over the world. The issue’s been analysed at multiple levels and from various angles – and essentially it comes down to an aging/retiring membership base not being replaced by a younger generation of members. The cause of that, in turn, is complex and multi-facetted. Social mores have changed; men are no longer indifferent to parenting and home-running duties. They are more involved – rightfully so – and ‘taking off solo’ for weekend sport isn’t an option. Furthermore, there is a far greater variety of sports activities/opportunities competing for the same, disposable dollar. Technology and sports equipment can be expensive, and club membership is a distant priority in a world where disposable dollars are,…

A lady with a dark past THE CHILEAN NAVY’S magnificent four-masted barquentine – La Esmeralda – was among the vessels celebrating our Navy’s 75th anniversary in Auckland last month. The 113m-long, steel-hulled vessel was launched in 1953 and has a long, proud history of training Chilean sailors. She is one of the world’s mightiest tall ships, with a crew of 300 sailors and 90 midshipmen. She is affectionately known as La Dama Blanca – The White Lady. But she carries the stigma of an unfortunate chapter in Chile’s history. During the infamous Augusto Pinochet regime (1973 – 1980) she was used as a floating jail and torture chamber for political prisoners. Several hundred detainees, sympathizers of the ousted socialist President Allende, were taken there and the fate of many of…

IF YOU’RE WORRIED about the impact of rising sea levels on your home, you might like to consider one of these futuristic floating homes as an alternative. Designed by Naples-based marine architects Jet Capsule, the UFO is a twostorey floating house with a middle disc measuring 12.55m and a waterline length of 40m. The interior has 2.2m of head room, while the vessel itself has a height of six metres. The concept vessel has two half-spherical shells as passenger compartments and a floating disc used as a sundeck. There is a shower room on the lower deck and energy comes from the sun, wind or water. Owners would be able to customise the exterior and interior to their liking, including a garden with trees or a cycling path. Guests can…

December’s caption winner “Harold, think you will have to buy a bigger smoker.” Congratulations to: Peter Ranyard “I think we need a stronger clothes line..” Runner-up: Steve Sinclair WASSP LANDS $15M R&D GRANT ENL GROUP, PARENT company of Electronic Navigation Ltd, has received a $15m R&D Growth Grant from Callaghan Innovation to help ongoing investment in its WASSP Multibeam Sounder. Callaghan Innovation is a New Zealand government agency that helps businesses succeed through technology and R&D. ENL Group Managing Director Gareth Hodson says the grant assists the company as it looks to expand its product range and increase the company’s export revenue opportunities. “In October we launched our third-generation multibeam sounder. It’s based on a scalable hardware platform with endless possibilities for many new products including bottom classification and biomass…

RISING SEA TEMPERATURES ARE being blamed for the disappearance from the eastern Mediterranean of a shellfish used thousands of years ago for making purple dye. The red-mouthed rock shell (stramonita haemastoma) was one of main sources of Tyrian purple dye for fashionistas and royalty in the ancient world – and understandably became one of the Mediterranean’s most valuable trading products. It’s estimated that thousands of shells were required to produce a single kilo of the dye. But now the shell has all but disappeared. An Israeli survey of the area notes the almost total disappearance of the species. Marine biologist Gil Rilov says the mollusc is one of a number of species to have vanished from eastern Mediterranean coastal waters. Some 38 of 59 mollusc species once common on Levant…

THE WRECKS OF three Dutch ships sunk off Indonesia during WWII appeared to have disappeared from the sea bed, scavenged – it seems – for their scrap metal. The Netherlands defence ministry has confirmed that the wrecks of HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java are completely missing, and that a large piece of HNLMS Kortenaer has vanished. All three ships sank during the Battle of the Java Sea – a disastrous defeat for Dutch, British, American and Australian sailors by Japanese forces in February 1942. About 2,200 people died when the ships went down, including 900 Dutch nationals and 250 people of Indonesian Dutch origin. The wrecks are a war grave, and were first found by divers in 2002. But during a recent expedition – to commemorate next year’s 75th…