HOT NEWS !

By Keith Barry

If playing with electricity underwater doesn't seem crazy enough, a Swiss company is suggesting an even more mind-boggling combination: the world's first solar submarine. We wonder if they've designed windows that open.

Energy giant BKW-FMB is looking for investors ready to pony up almost $9 million to start work on Project Goldfisch, which consists of a floating Goldport "power island" of photovoltaic panels that will channel electricity to the submersibles running below.

Since the price tag on your average nuclear-powered Virginia-class sub starts at around $2.5 billion, we suspect BKW will spend its investment on a newer copy of Photoshop. The laughable renderings the company provided were obviously worked out on an Amiga. 

As for the sub itself, someone at BKW has an incredible sense of humor and a penchant for late 70's Bond films or the company is anticipating a rise in the number of villains needing awesome hideouts. Either way, we're ready to jump in the submersible Lotus Esprit and pop a Carly Simon cassette in the tape deck. 

The company says the sub would draw power from a floating solar array of five generators, each with 430-square feet of panels. A GPS tracking system would tell the sub where to surface when it needs to recharge, which makes us wonder — would a dead Goldfisch float belly-up ? Once charged, BKW says, the sub could dive to depths approaching 1,000 feet and reach a top speed of 5 knots (not quite 6 mph).

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By Ed Friedrich

The Trieste II was anchored in a parking lot, not in metal-eating saltwater.

Yet salty air off Dogfish Bay and red duct tape were ravaging the deep submergence vessel. A fixture at the Naval Undersea Museum since the facility opened in 1991, the Trieste II was rusting away.

A Port Orchard company, with $80,000 from the Navy, is reclaiming the historic vessel. A two-month renovation will wrap up in a couple weeks.

“It’s gone places they don’t build equipment to go anymore,” said Pat Spicer, project leader for Q.E.D. Systems. “It’s as interesting as it gets, but it’s a huge, huge challenge.”

Museum visitors aren’t likely to give the Trieste a second glance. It looks like a giant propane tank with little orange propellers, but its feats are impressive.

Certified to operate 20,000 feet under the sea, it discovered and photographed debris from the submarine USS Thresher, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean with all hands on board on April 10, 1963.

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By Luis Perez and Kim Wilmath

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search tonight for two men missing after their plane crashed in the Gulf of Mexico 20-miles southwest of Yankeetown.

At 5:40 p.m Tuesday. Coast Guard officials said they were stopping the search pending further developments.

Zachary Schlitt, 28, who lived in West Palm Beach and Darien Peckham, 34, (pictured below), from Tampa, have been missing since Sunday..

Rescue crews searched for them for more than 40 hours over a 2,800-square mile area focusing on two areas where a seat and a flight bag containing aviation headphones were found. There was no sign of the men or their plane.

The two were traveling in a small Tampa-bound plane when, at about 6:45 p.m Sunday, an air traffic controller in Jacksonville reported that their 35-year-old twin-engine, fixed-wing Beech 35 Debonair aircraft, traveling from Tallahassee to Vandenberg Airport, lost contact, according to the FAA.

The Coast Guard says the plane crashed into the gulf shortly after disappearing from radar.

From Sail World

Not only sailors who cherish our maritime history, but divers and many other historians will be gladdened by the money to be devoted to preserving Australia's wrecks around our coastline.

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett has announced $440,000 in funding from the Australian Government's Historic Shipwrecks Program to protect the nation's underwater cultural heritage.

The Minister made the announcement on a visit to the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, Tasmania, where three of the 29 funded projects will be carried out.

'The Historic Shipwrecks Program provides valuable financial assistance to state and territory agencies who manage, protect, identify and raise awareness of historic shipwrecks on behalf of the Commonwealth,' Mr Garrett said.

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By Rebekah Allen

For many scuba divers, the thrill of visiting the sunken aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is touching the flight deck.

But Hurricane Gustav pushed the wreck deeper, putting the deck just out of safe reach of recreational divers and threatening the appeal of the underwater tourist attraction.

When the ship was sunk in May 2006, the flight deck was 135 feet down, five feet outside the recreational diving limit, but instructors said it still was relatively safe for tempted divers to make the touch.

"People just had to touch it," said Eilene Beard, Scuba Shack co-owner. "And we'd say, 'OK, bounce down there and touch it, and get back up here so you don't use all your nitrogen.' "

But after Gustav pushed through the Gulf of Mexico, the ship shifted about 10 feet deeper.

To an untrained diver, 10 feet might seem insignificant, but instructors fear the drop could affect the appeal and safety of the local attraction.

"That extra 10 feet made a huge difference," said Jim Phillips, owner of MBT Divers. "What makes the aircraft carrier different than any other ship out there is that flight deck. And everyone wants to touch that flight deck. Now that it's at 145 feet, it's luring divers a significant amount past that 130-foot limit."

By Tim McGlone

After 15 years of legal wrangling in the federal courts, a judge is getting set to decide the fate of thousands of artifacts plucked off the ocean floor around the Titanic wreck site.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca B. Smith has indicated that she's leaning toward giving title of the artifacts to the company that has cared for them and displayed them in exhibitions around the world.

For those 15 years, the federal court has held tight reins over what can be done with the property.

But before making a final ruling, Smith has said, the company must convince her that the historical pieces will not be sold or destroyed. To appease her, the company has been hammering out covenants and restrictions aimed at preserving the pieces.

But the company, Premier Exhibitions Inc., along with its subsidiary, RMS Titanic Inc., has come under increasing fire this year as its stock price has plummeted while expenses have soared.

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From Sky News

An American scuba diver has been charged with murdering his wife after she drowned during their honeymoon at Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

The official allegation allows authorities to start trying to extradite David Gabriel Watson, of Birmingham, Alabama, to face the charges in Australia.

Watson's wife, Christina Mae Watson, drowned on October 22, 2003. The couple had been exploring a shipwreck off Queensland's coast, 11 days after their wedding.

In June this year, a coroner found there was sufficient evidence to charge Watson with killing his wife.
 

From Swissinfo

Un musée racontant l'histoire du Titanic ouvrira ses portes en 2012 à Belfast, lieu où avait été construit le navire britannique avant de couler en 1912.

Les autorités nord-irlandaises l'ont annoncé jeudi.

Le gouvernement de la province britannique a approuvé officiellement le financement public du musée, à hauteur de 119 millions d'euros.

Construit sur le site des chantiers navals qui avaient donné naissance au géant des mers, le musée devrait recevoir la visite de 400 000 personnes par an, selon les autorités.

Le chantier doit démarrer l'an prochain afin de se terminer à temps pour 2012, année du centenaire du naufrage du Titanic, qui avait fait 1500 morts.

Le navire, pourtant réputé insubmersible, avait coulé après avoir heurté un iceberg dans l'océan Atlantique.

Le projet fait partie d'un vaste programme de régénération de la principale ville d'Irlande du Nord, qui a subi trente années de violences confessionnelles.

Le plan, d'un total de 300 millions d'euros, inclut également la construction d'une route à valeur symbolique qui va réunir l'est et l'ouest de la ville, qui s'étaient affrontés durant les "Troubles" entre la fin des années 1960 et 1998.

Le programme de réhabilitation a été approuvé par le gouvernement multiconfessionnel nord-irlandais qui réunit le premier ministre protestant Peter Robinson et le vice-premier ministre catholique Martin McGuinness.