Arthur C Clarke News

2015 will mark the 300th anniversary of the sinking of a dozen Spanish ships known as the 1715 Plate Fleet; plata being the Spanish world for silver. On the 30th of July 1715 twelve galleons, overloaded with Mexican gold and silver, left Cuba and sailed north carried by the Gulf Stream. Just off the coast of Florida between present day Sebastian and Fort Pierce they were struck by a ferocious hurricane. Some of the ships sank in deep water, some broke up in shallower water, and others ran aground near shore.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology should be indistinguishable from magic" — Arthur C. As we are swept along in the surge of technology that pervades almost every aspect of our lives, we sometimes take for granted the innovations that intervene in our most complex interactions as well as our most mundane. The passenger shipping industry is no exception: from mooring systems to active stabilizers, Internet access and TV broadcasting ability; technology has 'infiltrated' every area. And these days, with virtually none of the processes undertaken by humans being completed without a technological interface of one form or another, technology has asserted itself as a sort of animated inanimate 'man's best friend'.