The Wooden Boat News

Thirteen people were confirmed dead with dozens more missing after a boat ferrying around 100 passengers capsized on Saturday in Niger state in north-central Nigeria as they headed to market, authorities said on Sunday.Twenty-six people, mostly women and children, were rescued from the wooden boat, said Yusuf Lemu, an official of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency.Local official Isiyaku Akilu said the boat driver, who was among those rescued, could not confirm the number of passengers on the boat.

People in a wooden boat opened fire on a Comoros-flagged livestock carrier in the Red Sea near Yemen on Thursday, and the vessel was detained by the Yemeni Coast Guard, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO).A maritime security official in the Yemeni government told Reuters the vessel was released after being held on suspicion, with naval forces concerned because its AIS tracking system was turned off and it was sailing north from the Horn of Africa.British security firm Ambrey said the vessel…

Even though there is still a substantial amount of wooden yacht construction and restoration out there, wooden hull construction has pretty much gone the way of the mastodonts.To find a new commercial wooden vessel project would be quite a challenge. Except if you happen to know Scarano Boatworks. Scarano Boats was founded by brothers John and Rick Scarano in 1986. They are located in an old waterfront fertilizer factory in Albany, New York and, too quietly, have built a variety of boats that boggles the mind. Their portfolio defies description.

Saving migrants from one of the shipwrecks that have left dozens dead or missing off Italy's shores involved walking through bodies to find barely alive survivors, the NGO captain involved in one of the rescues said on Tuesday.One boat with 51 survivors and 10 bodies was intercepted about 90 kilometres (56 miles) south of the island of Lampedusa, while another was spotted about 200 kilometres east of the southern Italian region of Calabria.Eleven survivors from the second shipwreck and the body of a woman were taken ashore on Monday…

Nine people, including a baby, have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the Mediterranean in stormy weather, and another 15 people are feared missing, Italy's coast guard said on Thursday.The Italian coast guard said it received a cooperation request from the Maltese search and rescue (SAR) authority after the boat capsized approximately 30 miles (50 km) southeast of the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday .The coast guard said it dispatched its own patrol boat to the scene…

The 2023 IMO Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea has been presented to Caleb Halle, Aviation Survival Technician Second Class (AST2) of the United States Coast Guard (USCG). He was recognized for the outstanding courage, endurance and determination he showed during the rescue of the seven-strong crew of the tugboat Legacy in January 2023.AST2 Halle, based at the Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City, received the award at the annual IMO Awards Ceremony in London. The ceremony…

At about 5.15pm local Singapore time on August 13, the Marine Safety Control Centre operated by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) was notified that an Indonesian-flagged vessel was partially submerged and drifting south of Changi.Two MPA and two Police Coast guard vessels were immediately despatched to render assistance, and all 12 people on board were safely transferred and sent ashore. No Singaporeans were onboard the vessel.The partially-submerged vessel has now been towed to safety. No debris or oil spill were observed.

Tunisia's coastguard has recovered 15 more bodies of migrants, bringing the death toll from a shipwreck off Tunisia to 25, a security official told Reuters on Thursday.A wooden boat packed with about 110 migrants sank on Wednesday off the coast of the city of Sfax. Seventy-six people were rescued while the rest are still missing.Drowning accidents off Tunisia have dramatically increased in recent weeks, leaving dozens dead and missing, amid a sharp rise in migrant boats heading towards Italy from the Tunisian coast.The coastguard recovered the bodies of 14 migrants…

The Italian coastguard launched multiple rescue operations on Friday to save hundreds of migrants packed aboard several boats off the toe of Italy, less than two weeks after at least 73 drowned in a shipwreck."More than 1,000 people are in danger," the coastguard said in a statement.The president of the southern Calabria region, Roberto Occhiuto, said a total of around 1,300 migrants were aboard boats which the European Union's border force Frontex had warned could run into problems.Three…

Italy has arrested three people who they believe trafficked up to 200 migrants aboard a wooden boat that smashed apart on rocks off southern Italy on Sunday, killing at least 64 people, police said on Tuesday. Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Lippolis said a Turkish man and two Pakistani nationals had sailed the boat from Turkey to Italy despite the terrible weather, and were identified by survivors as "the main culprits of the tragedy"."According to initial investigations, they allegedly asked the migrants for about 8…

Four times the tonnage of the original Open Arms rescue tugboat and with a capacity to carry up to 1,000 people, the Open Arms Uno made its first rescue on Wednesday, picking up 101 migrants stranded on a wooden boat off the Tunisian coast."Sit down, if you don't sit down we don't continue," a crew member shouted to the excited migrants from a speed boat launched from the vessel operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms before all were taken aboard.One had jumped into the water to try to reach the speed boat…

German rescue charity Sea-Eye said on Thursday it had asked Italy for a safe port to disembark some 800 migrants it rescued from boats in distress in the central Mediterranean.The charity vessel SEA-EYE 4 Took onboard another 400 people from a wooden boat on Wednesday night in a seventh rescue operation since it set sail in mid-October, bringing the total to around 800, Sea-Eye said in a statement.It said Rise Above, another rescue ship operated by NGO Mission Lifeline, reached the split-level wooden boat first…

King Khufu's Boat, an ancient vessel that is the oldest and largest wooden boat discovered in Egypt, has been painstakingly moved from its longstanding home next to the Giza pyramids to a nearby giant museum, officials said on Saturday.The 4,600-year-old vessel, also known as the Solar Boat, was moved to the nearby Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), due to be inaugurated later this year."The aim of the transportation project is to protect and preserve the biggest and oldest organic artifact made of wood in the history of humanity for the future generations…

German NGO Sea-Watch said on Friday it had rescued nearly 100 migrants in the Mediterranean overnight, many of whom were injured, some with severe "fuel burns" - chemical burns caused by exposure to gasoline mixed with seawater.Migrant boat departures from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and other parts of Europe have increased in recent months with better weather.According to the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 1,100 people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East have perished this year in the Mediterranean.Late on Thursday…

A boat ferrying about 200 people capsized in the northwestern Nigerian state of Kebbi on Wednesday but the number of casualties remains unclear, a state spokesman said.The wooden boat capsized near Wara, a town on the shores of Kainji Lake, part of the Niger River, said Yahaya Sarki, a spokesman the governor of Kebbi.It had about 200 passengers on board, coming from the neighboring country of Niger."Bodies are still being recovered. We can't ascertain the number for now," Sarki said.One survivor…

About 115 people are missing and feared to have drowned and another 134 were rescued by Libyan coast guards and local fishermen after a wooden boat carrying migrants capsized off Libya, a Libyan navy official said on Thursday.Earlier, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said that up to 150 people were feared dead."The worst Mediterranean tragedy of this year has just occurred," UNHCR head Filippo Grandi said in a tweet.There were about 250 people on board, mainly from Eritrea and other sub-Saharan Africa and Arab countries, when the boat capsized off the coast near Komas, east of the capital Tripoli, Libyan navy spokesman Ayoub Qassem said.Libya is a hub for migrants and refugees…

At least 116 migrants are missing and another 132 were rescued by Libyan coast guards and local fishermen after a wooden boat capsized off the coast of Komas, a town east of the capital Tripoli, Libyan navy spokesman Ayoub Qassem said on Thursday.Qassem cited survivors as saying there had been more than 200 migrants on board the boat.Earlier, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said that up to 150 people were feared dead in the shipwreck while another 150 were rescued. (Reuters, Reporting by Ahmed Elumami Writing by Lisa Barrington Editing by Frances Kerry)

Carnival Fantasy assists the Coast Guard in Rescuing 23 Individuals on the High Seas.The Coast Guard and the crew of the cruise ship Carnival Fantasy rescued 23 individuals on the high seas, 130 nautical miles off the Yucatan Peninsula, The Coast Guard received a report at 1:15 a.m. from a Cuban national stating his brother and 22 other individuals were adrift aboard a disabled sports fisher. It was reported that 22 Cuban nationals started their voyage from Cuba to Mexico on a…

Indonesian teams searching a lake for a sunken ferry in the hope of recovering nearly 200 bodies trapped inside have to contend with dangerous currents and cold, murky water far deeper than any scuba diver can ever go.The over-loaded ferry Sinar Bangun sank in bad weather in Lake Toba on Sumatra island on Monday. The lake, in the crater of an ancient supervolcano, is ringed by steeply sloping mountains, and is about 450 meters (1,500 feet) deep.Three people have been confirmed…

An estimated 18 people were rescued and one was confirmed dead from among about 80 passengers aboard a ferry that sank on Monday in Lake Toba in Indonesia's North Sumatra province, a disaster agency official said.The Sinar Bangun ferry sank in rough weather at around 5:30 pm (1030 GMT) about a mile from the port of Tigaras, carrying passengers from the lake's Samosir Island, Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPT) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.Nugroho added that search and rescue efforts had involved two other ferries and one wooden boat had been hampered by weather conditions in the area on Monday night.It was not immediately clear if any of the missing passengers were foreigners.Ferry accidents are common in Indonesia, a vast archipelago, especially during the Islamic holiday of Eid when

The International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday that 21 migrants were missing, and had probably drowned, after two boats, a rubber dinghy and a wooden boat, set off from Libya for Italy and had to be rescued.   IOM spokesman Joel Millman told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva that all 132 people on the rubber dinghy had been rescued, but 21 were missing from the 51 on the wooden boat, and two dead infants had reportedly been discovered on board, bringing the likely death toll to 23.   Reporting by Tom Miles

Driving south on the coastal highway from the ancient city of Split in Croatia in late October, one is amazed to come on a forest of masts. These are not your usual sailboat masts lined in orderly rows in a marina, they are masts of all shapes and they are supported by a range of what at first appear to be spectacularly well maintained mega-yachts. A few are classic, bright finished wood but bold, white, steel-hulled ships with cruise ship style raked bows predominate. On the shore…

Five years after the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, life was unbearable for those who fought beside their American allies. Seven-year-old Lauren Vuong and her family had no choice but to escape. They left under the cover of night, cramming 62 people into a small wooden boat in a life or death gamble. After 10 days of storms, they were lost at sea and nearly out of food, water and fuel. In those waning hours of hope, the American-flagged LNG Virgo spotted and rescued them. For the past 20 years, Vuong has been searching for the crew of the LNG Virgo, the ship that rescued her and 61 others. “We never forgot the compassion that saved our lives. It has always been my parents’ dream to find the captain and crew to thank them.