Monthly Archives: July 2020

Automobili Lamborghini and The Italian Sea Group present the worldwide premiere of Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63, the Tecnomar fleets new motor yacht available in a limited edition in reference to Lamborghinis 1963 foundation.

Performance, driving pleasure, attention to quality and details, emotion: these are the emotive features combined within the Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63, thanks to innovative engineering solutions and a distinct design unique to shared Italian style and tradition.

This motor yacht project, developed by The Italian Sea Group, started with several collaborative sessions with the contribution of Lamborghinis Centro Stile and inspiration from the Lamborghini Sin FKP 37: the hybrid super sports car incorporating benchmarking new supercapacitor and materials science technologies, that anticipates the future with an unmistakable design and completely customizable colour and details.

The challenge of re-interpreting the common DNA traits of both brands has inspired all phases of the project, from the design principles to the definition of technical characteristics ensuring incredible performance, without neglecting the quality of materials and careful attention to detail.

Continued here:

Lamborghini takes to the high seas - Paint and Panel

My Australian uncle just spent close to a month locked in his cabin on what he described as his "last cruise ever." No one died or caught the coronavirus, like on so many other vessels. But instead of sailing from Singapore to London, the ship brought him all the way back to Australia without a single stop along the way. That was followed by two weeks of mandatory quarantine in a Perth hotel.

One week later, my uncle emailed me to say he had already booked his next cruise! I couldn't believe it. He wrote that the company had given him a full refund for his "trip to nowhere," along with a 50% discount for a Perth-to-Singapore cruise next year the opposite to what he'd just done, but with shore leaves this time. I wondered if that would be enough to repress those dreaded memories.

Not the cruise of a lifetime

Reports show the coronavirus broke out on at least 55 ships across the world's oceans. Some public health experts said the vessels helped carry the virus around the globe. Many sailed for weeks after the disease was first detected on a cruise liner. That was, until ports refused them entry, stranding tens of thousands of passengers and crew at sea some for months.

A study in March by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked cruise ships with 17% of coronavirus cases in the United States in the early weeks of the global spread of COVID-19. That included the Diamond Princess, the site of one of the world's biggest outbreaks. Prosecutors argued the Ruby Princess was the main importer of cases to Australia. A criminal investigation was launched.

DW Senior Business Editor Ben Fajzullin at Hamburg Port

'The problem stayed on board'

However, the industry said it took extraordinary measures to limit outbreaks. The German government's maritime coordinator Norbert Brackmann (CDU) agreed. "The problem stayed on board," he told me. "The cruise liners are built according to the latest standards."

On a boat tour of Hamburg Port, industry veteran Walter Krombach told me cruise ships were more susceptible to the coronavirus than other places. "Where you have big crowds of people: 4,000 up to 6,000, plus the crew on a narrow area together, mixed together, the risk is there," he said.

'Ships don't have laboratories'

Ukrainian cruise entertainer Ivan Lytvynenko was one of the thousands trapped aboard the German ship, MV Artania, off Australia, when the virus broke out. It led to evacuations and deaths. His main concern was the lack of medical equipment on board. "The ships don't have laboratories, to carry out tests. That's something they'll have to think about,' he told me.

Brackmann said "you can be certain, the cruise operators will be taking this experience from the pandemic and using it to ensure their vessels are even more secure in the future." But the big boats wouldhave to consider setting sail with only half the passengers, if they wanted to adhere to social distancing rules. There was also talk of fewer stops and going local: discouraging passengers from flying to their port of departure and taking a cruise closer to home.

At least the big cruise operators scored well when it cameto providing disinfectant on board to clean your hands. Whereas the rest of the world (except for parts of Asia)only just started installing disinfectant dispensers, they have been a mainstay in front of restaurants on cruise liners for years now. That is because they have had to deal with all sorts of outbreaks before: measles, chickenpox, salmonella, E. coli and the dreaded norovirus.

My holiday from hell

I caught the norovirus on my first and last cruise in 2016. I spent two whole days with severe chills, fever, diarrhea and vomiting, locked in my cabin. That turned me into a bit of a skeptic. Coincidentally, the Spanish operators of the cruise Pullmantur just went bankrupt. There were reports that its fleet of three ships (one just renovated in 2017) washeaded for the scrap heap.

COVID-19 took its toll. But like any health scare, consumers tend to forget quickly. And those who only watched the drama unfold on their flat-screen TVs from the comfort of their own homes wouldfeel even more disconnected from the horrors.

My parents were already planning their next cruise. My father has health issues and cannot fly. A cruise was a great solution to travel. But what if he were to catch something on board, stuck out at sea, with little access to medical equipment? It was something I worried about.

Ukrainian cruise ship entertainer Ivan Lytvynenko may enjoy this land excursion, but he's raring to return to work on the MV Artania

Smaller cruises set sail

He was happy to hear that some of the first cruise operators were already gearing up for business again. In the same week that I was in Hamburg, a smaller expedition boat was the very first to venture back out onto the high seas for German customers. Less than a third of the boat was booked. As passengers checked in, staff checked their temperatures. I read that shore leaves were off the cards.

Whether it meant significantly fewer passengers or higher costs to offer what some companies called a "gold standard in public health," operators would be desperate to get any sort of revenues flowing again, after billions of dollars in losses and lawsuits. And the vast majority of firms continued to burn through billions in cash, with their vessels stuck in dock. Their share prices continued to take on water, as I wrote this article.

Bookings are surging

But booking platforms reported that reservations were surging again. Operators were offering big discounts, like in my uncle's case. On the one hand, some analysts expected another boom even bigger than before the crisis. Krombach, on the other hand, told me the boom was well and truly over and that the industry would never be the same. "Everybody thought in that business that the boom would continue forever. Corona made a stop a full stop."

Skyping with Ivan Lytvynenko, I was surprised to hear from him as well, that his ship wasbooked out. "Our passengers all want to come back. We're booked out for the next two years and I'm certain many, many people will want to do the trip."

And what about the 31-year-old, after being trapped with all those passengers and the threat of a highly contagious virus on board? "I can't wait. It's been my life the last 11 years. I've always been on cruise ships. I just don't know when I'll be able to again."

See the original post here:

Coronavirus fallout: Cruising into the unknown - DW (English)

We're wishing everyone a wonderful Independence Day celebrating America's founding.

COLUMBIA, S.C. Happy July 4th from News19!

The holiday, of course, commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which formally split the United States from Britain.

The legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain actually occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. (Founding father John Adams believed that it would be July 2nd that would forever be the day remembered by Americans with celebrations and fireworks. But alas...)

After voting for freedom, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence itself. Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the document, which Congress debated and revised, finally approving it on July 4.

We think perhaps way to pay tribute to the holiday is by reprinting the Declaration of Independence, that incredible document of freedom, which you can read below.

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Go here to see the original:

Happy 4th of July from WLTX! - WLTX.com

- Strong to gale north-westerly winds (60-75km/h) are expected in places over the Northern Cape and Western Cape on Thursday.

- Strong to gale north-westerly winds (60-75km/h) between Cape Columbine and Cape Agulhas of the Western Cape Thursday spreading to Plettenberg Bay by the evening.

- High seas with wave heights from 6m to 8m are expected between Hondeklip Bay and Cape Agulhas Thursday.

- Heavy rain is expected over the high lying areas of the Cape Metropole and Cape Winelands Thursday evening and Friday.

- A heavy rain leading to localised flooding is possible over the Cape Metropole, mountainous areas of Cape Winelands and Overberg from Friday until Saturday.

- Very cold conditions are expected over Western Cape and the southern high ground of the Northern Cape on Friday afternoon spreading eastwards by Saturday morning.

- Snowfalls are expected over the mountainous regions of the Western Cape and the southern high ground of the Northern Cape on Friday.

Read the rest here:

Special weather alert: Snow, heavy rain and strong winds to lash Western and Northern Cape - News24

National Sea Rescue Institute performs a life saving exercise during the learn to swim event at Monwabisi Beach.

The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has appealed to beach goers and smaller vessels at sea to be cautious because of higher and lower tides, which will peak on Sunday.

In a statement, the NSRI said high seas, combined with a Spring tide and the cold front, are expected to reach the Western Cape on Saturday along the south and south-west coastline and persist into Monday morning.

"The concern is for smaller vessels at sea navigating through the conditions, as well as for beach goers and coastal hikers, who may be caught off-guard by large waves at Spring high tide that could potentially sweep them off the rocks along the shoreline," NSRI CEO Dr Cleeve Robertson said.

"We are appealing to boaters, paddlers, beach goers, surfers, coastal hikers, anglers and the public to be cautious around the coastline and to follow SA Weather Service (SAWS) forecasts."

- Compiled by Alex Mitchley

More:

Sea vessels warned of higher and lower than normal tides - News24