International News

Seventy-two-year-old Jean-Jacques Savin this week floated across the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea, marking the end of his 122-day journey across the Atlantic in a 9-foot-long, bright-orange barrel.

Soundings editors roamed the docks and tents on the first day of the 2019 Miami International Boat Show. Here are six products that made a big impression.

The 2018 Golden Globe Race, a nonstop, solo sailing race that prohibits the use of modern technology, started on July 1, 2018. So far, two hardscrabble entrants have finished, but only two remain in a field that started with 18 boats.

In the Philippines, a charitable organization provides yellow school boats to children, so they don’t have to swim to school.

The magnetic north pole’s movement has sped up dramatically in the last 25 years, moving from Canada towards Siberia and causing cartographers and scientists headaches. READ MORE

Horizon Yachts of Taiwan announced they broke the world record for a single-shot resin infusion to create a 140-foot hull.

Jean-Jacques Savin, 71, says he has sailed across the Atlantic four times. Now, he is attempting to cross in a barrel using only ocean currents for propulsion.

Seventy-six-year-old Jeanne Socrates on December 19 made what is believed to be her third rounding of Cape Horn. Socrates is on a quest to become the oldest person to sail solo around the world without assistance

The world’s first hybrid cruise ship will launch in 2019. The technology should reduce the ship's carbon footprint by 20 percent.

Susie Goodall, the youngest participant in the 2018 Golden Globe Race, was rescued in the South Pacific by a cargo ship after her boat was dismasted and taking on water.

A New Zealand surf fisherman thought he was plucking a doll out of the sea, but instead saved a toddler from drowning.

A Norwegian non-profit commissioned a series of humorous videos to promote sober boating. WATCH

Working from speeding boats and helicopters, the Italian Coast Guard uses Newfoundland dogs to rescue people from the water. READ

An Indonesian teenager survived being adrift at sea for 49 days after his fishing raft broke from its mooring. He was rescued by a ship near Guam, 1,200 miles away.

A Swiss company debuted the world’s first ocean-going solar super yacht design at the Cannes Yachting Festival. The vessel will use solar power as its principal propulsion source and an innovative hull design to minimize wave action and seasickness. READ MORE

The news has been filled with frightening stories about great white sharks off the coast of Massachusetts, but now large, harmless basking sharks off the coast of France are making headlines. READ MORE

Political and economic crises are causing a massive uptick in pirate activity from Venezuela to Nicaragua and Haiti.

More builders are getting in on the electric boat movement, but a Finnish electric propulsion maker, which has been installing its electric saildrives in various manufacturers’ boats, is now getting into the game with its own stunning motorboat. WATCH

Apparently, manta rays can fly. It took less than two minutes for a helicopter to airlift a nearly 900-pound manta ray with an 11.4-foot wingspan from a Bahamas aquarium to the nearby ocean. WATCH

The Dutch city of Amsterdam has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to develop autonomous boats, called Roboats, to deliver people and goods via its canals. WATCH

Launched on April 28 this year, Russia’s 474-foot long Akademik Lomonosovis the world’s first floating nuclear power plant. Capable of producing 70 megawatts of power, the ship is currently making its way across the Arctic Ocean to Eastern Russia.

For those boat operators who do not relish the thought of docking a yacht, Volvo Penta may just have invented a dream solution, advanced self-docking technology that will allow a yacht to dock itself. WATCH

A German World War II U-boat captain, who brought warfare to America’s doorstep in 1942 and who was the last of the “Aces of the Deep,” died on June 9 at the age of 105. READ MORE

Hawaii’s erupting Kilauea volcano has destroyed more than 600 homes and smothered hundreds of acres of land in lava since early May. But what happens to marine life when that lava enters the sea?