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built for a Malaysian businessman by British designer Stuart Hughes. It is 30.5m (100ft) long and is claimed to feature around 100,000kg of solid gold and platinum – making it worth a reported £3billion. Its main sleeping quarter is adorned with platinum accents, including a wall feature made of stone from a meteor - and bone from a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The hull is also wrapped in a thin layer of gold, while precious metals were used to make the deck, dining area, rails and anchor. ‘He wanted a plane doing as well but the thing would never take off if...

Marquette, a luxury 'river city' worth 109 million dollars, would reportedly cruise on America's waterways all year round, bringing back memories of the Mark Twain era. This kind of floating communities were a common sight on the Mississippi in the 19th century, which used to ply up and down the mighty river and develop trade in the process. But now such a view can also be witnessed in the 21st century. The five-deck Marquette will be a floating village with swimming pools, restaurants and its own 18-hole golf course. It also includes 180 apartments, each with a private balcony, the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A ruling by the Obama administration allowing the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol is running into legal hurdles from trade groups opposing the plan. The National Petrochemical and Refiners Association sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday over the decision to allow the sale of gasoline containing higher blends of corn-based ethanol, the second major group to protest the ruling. The Obama administration said in October that gas stations could start selling the ethanol blend for vehicles built since the 2007 model year, increasing it from the current blend of 10 percent ethanol.

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit noted over the weekend that buried deep on the HHS website is a list of over 100 companies/organizations that have been granted waivers from the new health care law. Some of the companies on the list are well know, e.g. Olive Garden and Cracker Barrel restaurants and CIGNA health insurance. Others on the list seem conspicuous because of their small size. For instance, how did a company called Captain Elliot’s Party Boats get a waiver for their 10 employees? It turns out Captain Elliot’s Party Boats is the name of a company in Freeport, Texas...

Why waste your money on a 2006, used-up Maxum 4200 SY? Or yet another boring Lexus that lets you down? Over here in Sweden and elsewhere in Scandinavia, a lot of people are crazy about restoring old (wooden) yachts and veteran cars of the 1930s-1970s, even if nurturing such projects often set them back way more than buying new cars and boats would. Why is that so? Perhaps life was better around 1950? Or perhaps not. Personally, I'd say life always has involved hardship and seldom been carefree, but that didn't exactly bother people like Virgil Exner, did it? (Click...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Some 750 boats drafted in to scoop up oil from the Gulf of Mexico are having "trouble" finding any crude in the sea, a top US official said Wednesday, almost a week after a busted well was capped. "We are starting to have trouble finding oil," US pointman Admiral Thad Allen, who is in charge of handling the government's response, told reporters. The boats, which have been drafted in to skim oil off the surface of the Gulf, are "really having to search for the oil in some cases" around the area of the capped well, he...

While transit advocates are discussing where to put rail and how soon, a broader debate continues about the wisdom of spending any tax money on any form of rail. Critics say that if passenger rail were practical, private investors would happily build it and reap the profits. They're half right. If profits were to be had, many people would be trying to capitalize. But that's no justification to refuse to subsidize better mobility on corridors where road expansion is impossible or would cost much more than a rail line. The great expense of right of way, the slow return on...

The new coalition government's transport secretary has told the Financial Times that domestic flights will become a "thing of the past." In an interview discussing the government's aviation strategy, Philip Hammond said hi-speed intercity trains will be key to quelling demand for domestic and short-haul European flights. The government has already blocked plans for new runways at the country's three largest airports, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, and instead wants to focus on developing a high-speed rail network between London, northern England and Scotland. The airlines are hardly panicking yet though, noting that it takes decades to build such rail networks....

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland plans to build a long-awaited intermodal transportation center near the lakefront to link the new medical mart, convention center and Flats east bank redevelopment. The center, north of the east edge of Mall C, would serve rail passengers, motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists. It would likely extend over railroad tracks to just south of the Shoreway and include walkways to the mall and North Coast Harbor, city Planning Director Bob Brown said Tuesday. Along with hosting a new Amtrak station that would be a stop on the proposed high-speed rail line between Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, the...

LONDON – The volcanic ash cloud that's closed European airports in recent weeks is changing travel habits, leading to a surge in rail and ferry bookings. Richard Branson's Virgin Trains is reporting increased demand on its London-Scotland route. Channel Tunnel rail company Eurostar says summer sales are up, and ferry operators Stena Line and Irish Continental Group say that recent gains in bookings are more than a blip. The eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano on April 14 grounded 100,000 flights in six days, costing airlines $1.7 billion in sales, figures show. Further bursts have closed airspace across parts of Europe....

SNIPPET: "08:20 GMT, April 2, 2010 defpro.com | The African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the none-militant Somali Islamists Ahlu Sunna wal Jama'a, which has ties with Somali government, have warned of simultaneous terrorist attacks by al-Shabaab militants in Mogadishu and in some neighbouring states including Kenya and Djibouti. The spokesman for the moderate Islamist group, Sheik Abdullahi Sheik Abdurahman Abu Yusuf, said in a press conference in the central Somali town of Dhusamareeb late Thursday that his intelligence services have gained reliable information that al-Shabaab are in the final preparations of planned terror attacks which will be...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2010 – The United States recently donated a number of water trucks, field artillery cannon and patrol boats to the Pakistani government, according to U.S. State Department news releases. The United States donated five fast-patrol boats to Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency at the Karachi shipyard Feb. 13, 2010. The U.S. government also recently donated field artillery and water trucks to the Pakistani military. The U.S. government is set to donate four more fast boats to Pakistan later this year. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Four water trucks were provided to the Pakistani Army’s special...

2009 Blessing of the Fleet The 41st annual “Blessing of the Shrimp and Pleasure Boat Fleet” will be held Sunday May 3, at 2:00 on the Clear Creek Channel, along the Kemah Boardwalk. Colorfully decorated shrimp boats and pleasure craft will file past the Cadillac “Authentic Mexican Restaurant” where they will be blessed by the officiating priest and minister. Hurricane Ike took a devastating toll on our area especially the local shrimpers.  Their livelihood was directly affected and many have yet to recover.  Therefore, our main focus this year will be to help them in their recovery efforts.  Bring...

SNIPPET: "Israeli naval patrol identifies Palestinian fishing boat moving towards Israel; boat, apparently unmanned, explodes as it nears coast; no injuries, damage reported. IDF sources believe incident was botched terror attack" SNIPPET: "A Palestinian fishing boat exploded as it neared the Israeli coast from the direction of Gaza. IDF sources estimated that the booby-trapped boat was activated by remote control and meant to explode near an Israeli Navy vessel or a coastal community. A naval patrol followed the boat for about an hour and spotted no people on board. As it was several hundred meters off the Gaza shore and...

04/13/2009 SNIPPET: "A home-made fire-bomb exploded at 3:25 a.m. at the KAPA Marines showcase, and the ensuing fire quickly spread throughout the two land plots where the company's pleasure craft are on display, totally destroying or causing extensive damage to more than 20 boats." SNIPPET: "Police bomb disposal experts are investigating the site, and have so far come up with two propane canisters."

For three days in September, an ordinary-looking cargo ship traveled up and down Norway's Oslo Fjord. Few casual observers would have guessed that the 272-foot (83-meter) -long vessel was gliding on a carpet of air.

SNIPPET: "The fire was reported about 11:23 p.m. Thursday by someone who called 911 reporting flames coming from the covered slips at the Halls Crossing Marina, a remote part of Lake Powell on the Kane/San Juan County border. National Park Service firefighters from all over responded, some flying up from Page, Ariz., to help. Photographs provided to the Deseret News showed boats engulfed in flames and burned out hulls floatingon the water. There were more than 150 boats moored at the marina — firefighters saved about 130 of them." SNIPPET: "Anyone with information on the fire is asked to call...

Print By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Ramola Talwar Badam MUMBAI, India – The gunmen who attacked Mumbai set out by boat from the Pakistani port of Karachi, then later hijacked an Indian fishing trawler that carried them toward this financial capital on their suicide mission, a top police official said Tuesday. As evidence of the militants' links to Pakistan mounted, Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Ghafoor said ex-Pakistani army officers trained the group — some for up to 18 months — and denied reports the men had been planning to escape the city. "It appears that it was a suicide attack," Ghafoor...

<p>An annual parade of boats on a Long Island river that dropped "Christmas" from its name has apparently lost lots of supporters.</p> <p>About 1,000 people showed up Sunday for the Patchogue (PACH'-awg) Boat Parade of Lights. That's 500 fewer than usually showed up when it was called the Patchogue Christmas Boat Parade.</p>

(The high price of fuel has boating enthusiasts spending more time anchored and less time with the motor running) Down on the boat docks, fishermen and weekend sailors are getting keeled by high fuel prices. Marina gas generally sells at about 50 cents a gallon more than auto fuel. By the peak of the power-boating season, in July, boaters could pay nearly $5 for a gallon of fuel that in some cases lasts only a few miles. Even now, a few hours of fishing on Lake Michigan costs George Artka several hundred dollars in fuel. He keeps his 39-foot power...