www.nation.com -- It might be time for the phrase: ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’ to enter retirement.

For this mighty vessel, the largest ever passenger ship, dwarfs all that stands next to it, making the thousands of spectators which came to see it’s launch look little more than ants as they waved the graceful ship out of the port.

The 315m-long ship is so wide it barely squeezed out of the Papenberg watergates, but ably helped by two tug-boats it escaped on it’s to the North sea, where it will head to Denmark. She is one of five Solstice ships launching between now and 2012, and can carry nearly 3,000 passengers. And, after thousands of years, landlubbers might be able to escape their phobia of the sea... This cruiser is the first one to boast an authentic grass lawn on its top deck. The ship is ‘virtually complete’ - 98 per cent, to be exact - and is on track for it’s November debut, when it will begin life as a U.S. cruise ship.

(AP) -- Wayne Pritchard's itinerary for his intercontinental boating adventure might stoke envy — 13 days near Ottawa, a long weekend docked in Havana. The only trouble is that both locales are in Illinois.

For several weeks, Pritchard and dozens of other boaters taking part in a yearlong trek snaking around eastern North America have been held hostage, of sorts, in the Land of Lincoln, unable to get off the rain-swollen Illinois River because the Coast Guard had closed off lower portions of it for safety reasons.

The Coast Guard finally opened up the final 20-mile stretch Monday, urging the bottlenecked boaters to take it slow, keeping the wakes in check.

Rejoicing boaters, who'd been slowed by the aftermath of Hurricane Ike's remnants that pounded the Midwest this month, didn't need to hear that twice.

"It's a happy moment when they clear the waterway and all the boats can get under way," Pritchard told a reporter by cell phone aboard the Seguey, which he expected to keep docked for a third day in Havana, Ill., before continuing his circumnavigation Tuesday to his home in Knoxville, Tenn.

MOGADISHU (AFP) — The US Navy on Wednesday piled pressure on Somali pirates holding out for a 20 million dollar ransom for a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying tanks and other arms.

Warships from the United States and other navies have blockaded the MV Faina in a pirate lair off Somalia's Indian Ocean coast.

The US Defence Department has suggested it could wait days for a Russian warship to arrive, before taking action, and has laid the emphasis on ensuring a "peaceful resolution."

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed urged Somalis and the international community to combat rising piracy off the lawless nation's waters, which has seen 60 ships being seized this year alone.

"They (pirates) are imposing an embargo on the Somali people and the international community because they are blocking movement between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, which affects not only Somalia but the whole world," Yusuf said at a press conference in Mogadishu.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Cayman Islands announced plans Tuesday to scuttle a decommissioned U.S. Navy ship to create an underwater attraction for scuba divers and snorkelers.

Ownership of the USS Kittiwake, a 2,290-ton (2,077-metric ton) submarine rescue ship, will be transferred from the U.S. Maritime Administration to the Cayman Islands government as early as next month, project manager Nancy Easterbrook said.

Toxic materials must first be removed by contractors from the vessel built in 1945, before the ship is sunk next year in the Caribbean Sea as an artificial reef. It has been anchored for years among rusting hulks of the James River Reserve Fleet, commonly known as the "Ghost Fleet," in St. Eustis, Virginia.

The 251-foot (76-meter) Kittiwake should attract large schools of fish to deserted cabins and halls, according to Charles Clifford, the islands' minister of tourism.

The Boston Globe -- (DETROIT) Clay Dyer is a professional angler by trade and a profile in courage in heart.

Dyer was born with no limbs except a partial right arm. He casts his fishing line by placing his rod under his neck - like Isaac Stern playing the violin at Carnegie Hall - and whips his body seaward. It looks like a golf swing. When he scores, he reels in the line and removes the fish with his teeth, thanking the Lord.

To make up for his limitations, Dyer possesses other skills. Standing 40 inches tall and weighing 86 pounds sopping wet, he can sweet-talk a bass like a Casanova at closing time. He can cast a lure into a bucket 60 feet away with better control than Josh Beckett.

Nothing fazes him. During a recent fishing tournament, his boat engine exploded. Unfazed, he kept right on fishing, drifting with the current. He has battled 6-foot waves in a boat on Lake Erie, giggling like a kid on a roller coaster.

"My message to the world is: If I can, you can," says the sunburned pride of Hamilton, Ala.

CAIRO, Sept. 29 -- The U.S. Navy on Monday strengthened its force of warships standing watch over a hijacked Ukrainian-operated vessel off Somalia, intent on ensuring that the pirates holding the vessel do not unload its cargo of 33 Soviet-designed T-72 tanks and other arms, a U.S. Navy spokesman said.

The United States has deployed "several" warships off Somalia, Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, said by telephone from Bahrain. The Navy initially assigned only the USS Howard, a guided-missile destroyer, to trail the Faina after Somali pirates hijacked it Thursday.

The hijacked ship was within a few miles of the Somali port of Hobyo, and within sight of the American sailors, he said. The U.S. crews would maintain "a vigilant, visual watch," Christensen said. "We're deeply concerned about the cargo, and we don't want it to go into the wrong hands," he said.

Kenya's government has said the tanks and arms were meant for its military.

www.txcn.com -- (BAYTOWN, Texas) In some cases, the Hurricane Ike cleanup process seems to be moving along in high gear in Baytown. For boat owners at the Bayland Marina, though, it’s a different story.

“I got one of my cushions from my boat and I have been sleeping on it for two weeks,” said boat owner Tom Chitwood.

Because of Ike’s huge storm surge, the entire marina was picked up, tossing boats like toys and placing them on land. About 85 boats are now landlocked with few answers as to how and when help will come to get them back in the water.

The New York Times -- NAIROBI, Kenya -- The Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition said in an interview Tuesday that they had no idea that the ship was carrying arms when they seized it on the high seas.

“We just saw a big ship,” the pirates’ spokesman, Sugule Ali, told The New York Times. “So we stopped it.”

The pirates quickly learned, though, that their booty was an estimated $30 million worth of heavy weaponry, heading for Kenya or Sudan, depending on who you ask.

In a 45-minute-long interview, Mr. Sugule expounded on everything from what the pirates want — “just money” — to why they were doing this — “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters” — to what they eat — rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, “you know, normal human being food.”

He said that so far, in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits,” he said. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.”

(NY TIMES)--For years, technological visionaries have painted a seductive vision of using ocean tides and waves to produce power. They foresee large installations off the coast and in tidal estuaries that could provide as much as 10 percent of the nation’s electricity.

The Scottish company Pelamis Wave Power plans to turn on a small wave-energy farm — the world’s first — off the coast of Portugal by year’s end. Finavera Renewables, a Canadian company that recently salvaged its sunken, $2.5 million Oregon wave-power machine, has signed an agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric to produce power off the California coast by 2012. And in the East River, just off Manhattan, two newly placed turbines with tougher blades and rotors are feeding electricity into a grocery store and parking garage on Roosevelt Island.

Roughly 100 small companies around the world are working on converting the sea’s power to electricity. Many operate in Europe, where governments have pumped money into the industry. Companies and governments alike are betting that over time, costs will come down. Right now, however, little electricity is being generated from the ocean except at scattered test sites around the world.

(MSNBC)--SAN FRANCISCO Arrival Timed So Yacht Can Fit Under Golden Gate Bridge

The 289-foot Maltese Falcon sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge at 2 p.m. Saturday.

The yacht's arrival was timed so its 191-foot masts can fit under the bridge during low tide.

Considered the most technologically advanced yacht in the world, the Maltese Falcon's computer-controlled masts have 15 sails that cover nearly a 26,000-square foot sail area.

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