Hydro International -

L-3 Klein Associates has introduced a lightweight, rapidly deployable side scan sonar (SSS) for search and recovery (SAR) applications.

The HydroScan implements advanced technologies not previously available in side scan sonars, according to the manufacturer, resulting in a compact profile delivering much higher quality imaging and range performance than other small SAR SSS systems.

From nose to tail, L-3 Klein’s HydroScan was specifically designed to anticipate the needs of today’s SAR and related applications.

The system utilises proprietary dual-frequency (455 and 900kHz) wideband FM Chirp sonar to provide high-resolution imaging, outstanding contrast ratios, and under certain conditions, as much as double the range of competitive lightweight systems in disaster, emergency and first responder surveys.

The HydroScan is rated to a full 100-metre depth and is designed with rugged components that are built to last.

In addition, the new design features an easy-to-access tow cable connection and a well-placed handle for effortless transport.

John Cotumaccio, general manager of L-3 Klein, said that during L-3 Klein’s performance and reliability testing, using typical tow speeds of 4-6 knots, the HydroScan system consistently captured very high-resolution imagery over 80 metres per side using 900kHz, and also over 175 metres at 455kHz.

The Jakarta Post - 

Australian researchers Thursday revealed they had filmed a pod of extremely rare Shepherd’s beaked whales for the first time ever.

The Australian Antarctic Division team was tracking blue whales off the coast of Victoria state last month when they spotted the reclusive mammals, which are so rarely seen that no population estimates of the species exist.

Voyage leader Michael Double said the black and cream-coloured mammals with prominent dolphin-like beaks had been spotted in the wild only a handful of times through history.

According to the Australian environment department, there have only been two previous confirmed sightings — a lone individual in New Zealand and a group of three in Western Australia

They have never been filmed live before.

“These animals are practically entirely known from stranded dead whales, and there haven’t been many of them,” Double told AFP, calling the footage “unique”.

“They are an offshore animal, occupying deep water, and when they surface it is only for a very short period of time.”

Full story…

Tuck Thompson - 

Gabe Watson’s diving buddy Michael Moore told a jury today he and Watson practised rescuing distressed and unconscious divers as part of their rescue certification course.

Mr Moore said he and Watson did open water dives in Florida and Mexico together, where they made drift dives in brisk current, dove to a depth of 50 metres and stuggled with visibility of less than a metre.

Watson, a 34-year-old bubble wrap salesman, is accused of murdering his bride of 11 days, Tina Thomas, during a Townsville wreck dive in 2003.

Watson’s lawyer, Brett Bloomston, claims Watson wasn’t experienced enough to cope when his wife panicked.

Prosecutors say Tina was killed in a scheme hatched in Alabama to collect a small fortune in life and travel insurance.

Mr Moore’s testimony didn’t help the credibility of his childhood friend: Jurors have heard an interview where Watson told Queensland Police he had not been trained to bring anyone to the surface in his rescue course.

Watson had obtained four diving certifications – open water, advanced, rescue and specialty spearfishing – about four years before Tina’s fatal dive on the SS Yongala.

Mr Moore said he and Watson did an accelerated course over a full Saturday with dive instructor Tom Jackson in an Alabama quarry learning how to search for missing divers and how to rescue them.

“Tom played the part of a distressed diver, moving his hands panicking and we assisted him,” he said.

“We had to go and get a diver sitting on the bottom and inflate their BC (bouyancy vest) to get them. Gabe and I did it to each other.”

Full story…

Paul Fraser Collectibles -

We need hardly remind readers of the constant draw of the Ferrari brand – especially with a Ferrari 250 GTO selling for $31.6m earlier this month, making it the second most expensive car ever sold.

However, the vehicle which has just been announced as being a part of an upcoming Monaco auction, (May 11-12) whilst legendary, is a little different.

The remarkable consignment is the famous Hydroplane racing boat, ARNO XI, which comes complete with a Ferrari engine.

A unique piece of history, ARNO XI was first conceived of by Achille Castoldi, who wanted to set a water-speed world record. In the years of 1952-3, Castoldi convinced Enzo Ferrari to assist, and a 12-cylinder, 4,500 cc V-12 Ferrari engine (identical to that used to ensure Ferrari’s first ever Grand Prix victory in 1951) was installed, assisted by twin superchargers.

In 1953 it set a world speed record for an 800kg boat on Lake Iseo in northern Italy (241.70 km/h or 150.19 mph ) – in fact so triumphant was the boat’s performance that the record still stands.

Nando dell’Orto then used it for racing, with great success.

Full story…

Tuck Thompson -

Igor Ogorodnev -

Everyone knows of the danger of sky-borne terrorism. Underwater terrorists get less publicity, but that doesn’t mean the world’s security agencies aren’t worried about them.

The Russian Interior Ministry has posted a tender for two underwater cannons, at a cost of 400 thousand dollars each, that are expected to be used for large-scale events such as the Sochi Olympics.

“The current state of security at our ports and dams leaves a lot to be desired, so the new systems will provide a layer of defense” a security insider told Izvestia.

The expected winners of the tender are Electric Rays – a homegrown product developed at a secret Russian military institute. Like their namesakes, these cannons use a powerful electric charge to create an underwater explosion that can stun intruders at a range of about 100 meters.

“This is a more humane method of fighting terrorism” says security expert Aleksandr Romanov. “Before, they just used to carpet bomb a certain area with depth charges, which killed, while this weapon will only stun.”

But ecologists are worried – there is little possibility of channeling the blast in a specific direction, and many sea creatures are bound to feel its impact.

Environmentalist Konstantin Sobinin is also worried about the sensitivity of the cannon’s detection system. “The sensors on these devices usually cannot detect whether an object within its range is a terrorist or a dolphin or seal.”

Full story…

News.com.au - 

Gabe Watson was a liar and cold-blooded bride killer, who even took his wife’s engagement ring before she was buried, a prosecutor alleged in his opening statement.

“This whole case is not about murder, it’s about murder for gain,” Alabama Assitant Attorney General Andrew Arrington told a racially diverse jury of eight women and six men.

Gabe Watson is charged with murdering his wife Tina Thomas during a honeymoon scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef.

Mr Arrington said Watson wanted to collect a $165,000 life insurance policy from his drowned bride of 11 days.

Thomas stood to potentially gain much more from a lawsuit against a travel insurer, and took all of Tina’s personal belongings, and even the “engagement ring from off her finger.”

But Watson’s lawyer Brett Bloomston blamed Tina’s drowning on Townsville’s SS Yongala in 2003 on a “perfect storm” of tragic circumstances that had “nothing to do with Watson.”

He blamed a dangerous wreck, Tina, the dive boat, “bumbling” police, Tina’s dive leader, and an “additional equipment malfunction.”

Mr Bloomston, ad libing after his powerpoint presentation failed, blamed the Watson’s Townsville dive boat for taking the inexperienced Watsons to the Yongala – “a red flag dangerous dive” and even criticized the boat’s tour leader Wade Singleton, the man who brought Tina’s unconsious body to the surface.

Full story…

Tammie Souza -

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to swim through a shipwreck like this one? It may be easier than you think.

There are more than 400 shipwrecks in Lake Michigan and over the weekend of Feb. 17 to Feb. 19, everything scuba is at your fingertips during the Our World Underwater Convention at the Rosemont Convention Center.

“There are over 200 exhibitors from around the world. There’s dive manufacturers, equipment, travel destinations, great deals on travel and it’s very family oriented,” said convention organizer John Lally.

In recent years, scuba diving has grown in popularity, but who says you need an exotic location to enjoy diving. Although Lake Michigan may not look inviting right now, in several months it will be.

And our big lake holds many mysteries beneath it’s surface, like a wooden schooner sunk during a storm in the late 1800s.

Experts have called these some of the most spectacular wrecks in the world kept intact by the cold, fresh lake water.

There are also modern wrecks like The Buccaneer sunk a few years ago to create a reef 10 miles offshore.

One of the favorite sites is the historical old schooner Wells Burt which lies in 35 feet of water 3 miles off Evanston, where it has rested for the past 130 years.

Full story…

Warda Al-Jawahiry -

Nerves were strained as an Iranian patrol boat approached the USS Abraham Lincoln at speed.

A helicopter escort hovered above the vessel in a warning not to get any closer, and the grey boat, tiny compared to the massive U.S. aircraft carrier, eventually turned around.

The encounter involving U.S. and Iranian boats, common in recent weeks, underscores rising tensions in the Gulf region between rival powers since Tehran threatened to close the Hormuz Strait, the world’s most important oil shipping waterway, over Western moves to ban Iranian crude exports.

U.S. and Iranian warships shadow each other as they ply the Gulf in a standoff over Iran’s nuclear program the West fears is aimed at producing an atomic weapon. Many fear any incident could trigger a war.

“I watch it morning, noon and night. I take it (the threat to close Hormuz) very seriously. In fact it’s pretty much my life these days,” the commander of U.S. naval forces in the Gulf region, Vice Admiral Mark Fox, told a news conference in Bahrain ahead of the fleet’s voyage earlier this week.

The fleet, known as “Carrier Strike Group Nine” has been making forays through Hormuz despite the Iranian threats.

The 10-hour voyage through the waterway on February 14 was the second time the fleet had been through Hormuz in two months. Passage is done on a need-only basis as the U.S. Navy tries to avoid “escalation of hostilities or miscalculations,” as a result of their crossing, U.S. officials say.

With four helicopters circling overhead and two destroyers leading, the carrier entered Hormuz while up in the watch tower, some seven Navy commanding officers, intelligence chiefs and legal experts were gathered in a small but busy control room.

They inspected the Gulf waters intently. The head of the fleet, Rear Admiral Troy Shoemaker, spotted two small boats, thought to be of smugglers, being battered by the high waves.

“It is going very well, relatively quiet. We have had a couple of surveillance aircraft, a helicopter and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) but nothing in the way of surface activity,” Shoemaker said, referring to activity from Iranian side.

The geography of the Strait, where a third of the world’s seaborne oil trade passes, is challenging for a fleet of this size.

Full story…

Stephanie Pappas -

Here’s a tongue-twister for you: Crafty cuttlefish can complete contours to carefully choose camouflage.

What this means, without all the alliteration, is that the visual systems of these squidlike creatures are more sophisticated than previously realized.

In fact, cuttlefish can pick the perfect camouflage even without seeing the entirety of what they intend to blend in with, much as humans can translate simple line drawings into meaningful information.

“If you think of our ability to make sense of really basic visual information like cartoons and sketches and children’s pictures, we’re really good at just using ‘edge’ information and making sense of it,” said Sarah Zylinski, the author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University.

“It seems that for cuttlefish, too, edges are really important in making sense of the environment.”

The human visual system can “fill in” information to create shapes out of space, as illustrated by the famous “Kanizsa Triangle.”

This illusion consists of three angles and three black circles with pie-shape chunks taken out of them. The angles and circles are arranged such that the brain interprets them as two overlapping triangles.

Full story…