Boat U.S. - May 2008 - (Page 44) tangledline And This Megayacht Is Bulletproof Best of the Best Marine Art on Tour To mark its 30th anniversary, the American Society of Marine Artists has put together its most ambitious exhibit yet of works by its members, opening first in Wilmington, DE, on May 16. The 600-member society includes the top artists in the country who specialize ‘Brilliant’ by Anne Brodie Hill in maritime subjects in media from oils, watercolor, pencil and sculpture to pastels and scrimshaw. Subjects cover all things nautical and 100 juried works will be on display. The exhibit moves in July to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, MD, through September. From October through February ‘09, the show will be at the Noyes Museum just outside Atlantic City, NJ. In March ’09 it opens at the Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina through May and in June ’09 moves to the New Bedford (MA) Art Museum through September 2009. A 107-page color catalog has also been published for this show and can be purchased at the Society’s web site at americansocietyofmarineartists.com or at each of the museums. A French court has halted the sale of Saddam Hussein’s palatial yacht until a hearing is held to determine its ownership. Yacht broker Nigel Burgess listed the 270-foot ship late last year on behalf of a Cayman Island-based firm, Sudeley Ltd., which the Agence France-Presse reports is partly owned by King Abdullah of Jordan. But Iraqi officials believe the yacht is a state asset because it was purchased using government money and therefore belongs to Iraq. The officials fear that members of Saddam Hussein’s entourage are behind the Cayman Island firm and are hoping to profit from the sale of the ship, which is priced at US $35 million. The yacht, currently named Ocean Breeze, is described as a 28-passenger floating palace, with some unusual features not normally found on super-yachts — namely secret passageways, bulletproof windows and a missile launcher. Ocean Breeze was first named Qadissiyat Saddam, after a battle won by the Arabs over the Persians. It was custom-built for Saddam in 1981 by a Danish shipyard, but during Iraq’s conflict with Iran, it was kept at a Saudi Arabian port in the Red Sea. Saddam’s much larger super-yacht, the luxurious 350-foot Al-Mansur, was incinerated into a floating wreckage by coalition forces in April 2003. The White Whale Continues to Haunt Sailors Thar she blows! It may not be Moby Dick, but it was certainly a whale — a killer whale, actually — that did fit the definition of “white.” And it was what scientists aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research vessel Oscar Dyson called “the icing on the cake” of a winter research cruise in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. NOAA biologist Holly Fearnbach was able to photograph the whale’s white fin and back. “With hundreds of killer whales documented around the Aleutian Islands, this was equivalent to finding a needle in a haystack,” she said of the Feb. 23 sighting. Few white killer whales have ever been seen, much less scientifically documented. Lost … For 26 Years An Alabama boater who headed out on the water to test his new sonar device ended up solving a decades-long mystery. While looking for fish, Teddy Shepherd discovered an airplane submerged in 25 feet of water in Big Creek Lake near Mobile, AL, in early March. When authorities reported the plane’s tail number to the FAA, they discovered the single-engine airplane, a Beechcraft Sierra, had been missing since March 1982. But only the plane was lost for 26 years, not the pilot — Richard Doug Flint perished in the crash and his body was found in the lake about two weeks after the plane disappeared. Flint, 43, was an instructor pilot and was flying alone at the time of the accident. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents suspected the plane might have been carrying drugs because it disappeared at night without a trace, said former Customs staffer Jack Wyatt to the Alabama Press-Register. But the plane’s owners later calculated that Flint most likely ran out of fuel on his return trip from Freeport, TX. The wreck occurred just northwest of the Mobile Regional Airport. No drugs were found in or around the plane. “Now I feel like it’s been solved. Back then, we had no idea what had happened,” Wyatt told the newspaper. 44 BoatU.S. Magazine May 2008 Hone Your Skills at Women’s Seminars BoatU.S. is again sponsoring the 7th Annual Women’s Sailing Conference in Marblehead, MA, June 7 at the Corinthian Yacht Club, organized by the National Women’s Sailing Association. This unique day-long series of classroom and on-the-water clinics is a fun, pressure-free event for picking up knowledge and skills, and networking with other women sailors and instructors. In addition, for women on the West Coast a new, similar event is set for Aug. 2 in Port Townsend, WA, also sponsored by BoatU.S. and organized by NWSA. The Pacific Northwest Women’s Sailing Conference will debut at the Port Townsend Yacht Club, Boat Haven Marina. For its first year, attendance is limited to 50 participants. For more info, contact Linda Newland at newlan2dl@aol.com. For registration for both events, go to womensailing.org. http://americansocietyofmarineartists.com http://americansocietyofmarineartists.com http://womensailing.org
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