San Francisco becomes the latest city to offer hot tub boat rides
Well, who wouldn’t want to take a trip down the river in their very own floating hot tub. Sounds like a great and rather cool idea to me. And now you can add San Francisco to the list of cities offering hot tub rides through its scenic waters. This seems to be part of a larger trend as last winter the City of Chicago made headlines by offering holiday hot tub tours down the Chicago River.
In an interview with ABC7 News, Adam Karpenske, the founder of Hot Tub Boats, said, “I lived on a boat for many years, and it was a good way to get through a cold Seattle winter. We wanted to have a hot tub, and we decided ‘why not build ourselves a hot tub that would float?’ We called it a hot tub boat. I was a wood boat builder at the time, so it was a natural progression into what we have here today.”
He continued, “There’s a little joystick over here and the captain who drives the boat just points that joystick where they want to go. It’s a very user-friendly experience for the lay person who hasn’t been driving boats their whole lives.”
“No, you don’t need a license,” says Karpenske. “The boats are short enough and they’re not overly powered, so they don’t fall into the classification of needing a boat registration card.”
I was going to close this story by saying what a cool story this is, but that would seem to be at odds with a hot tub!
007 donates motorcycles to the RNLI
James Bond (also known as Daniel Craig) has donated two of his personal limited edition 007 Triumph motorcycles to the RNLI.
Subsequently, both bikes were auctioned by Bonhams at the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show in Staffordshire, UK and combined sold for £60,000. The two motorcycles were inspired by the bikes that featured in the 25th James Bond film, No Time To Die. Specifically, they’re the #003/250 Scrambler 1200 Bond Edition, which sold for £28,000 and the #001/250 Tiger 900 Bond Edition, which made £32,000.
“The RNLI has been close to my heart all my life since growing up near the RNLI station at Hoylake,” says Craig. “I have incredible memories of going afloat with the RNLI crew at Ramsgate to experience firsthand what it’s like to be part of the organisation that has saved over 146,000 lives since starting up over 200 years ago.”
Nice touch 007.
New technology uses cameras and AI to reduce whale strikes
You know my fascination with AI already and here is yet another brilliant application of this technology. Let’s face it who doesn’t love a whale? And if you are lucky enough to have seen one in the ocean close-up, it is a sight never forgotten. I was horrified to learn that vessel strikes account for an estimated 20,000 whale deaths globally each year. Clearly, this is a major issue – AI to the rescue!
The new Whale Detection Cameras (WDC) developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are designed to enhance marine wildlife protection by reducing vessel strikes on whales. The ship-mounted camera systems utilize thermal imaging technology to detect whales’ bodies or exhalations in real time, alerting ship crews within seconds about their presence. This capability allows vessels to change course or slow down, significantly reducing the risk of fatal collisions.
The WDC system provides timely alerts, ensuring crews receive accurate notifications while minimizing false alarms. Its artificial intelligence filters out thermal signatures from boats, birds, and waves, focusing solely on indications of whale activity, WHOI explains.
When a mobile phone ‘selfie’ turned killer …
Mobile phones are wonderful things – great inventions – how could we live without them? But in this case, it seems that a combination of vanity and the desire for selfies led directly to the death of two Brazilian women and should serve as a warning to all.
Investigations continue about the deaths of two women returning from a party on a luxury yacht. The city’s chief police officer, Marcos Alexandre Alfino, has told local media that some passengers refused to wear lifejackets as they were taking selfies – and their boat back to shore was overloaded.
“Some didn’t want to wear life jackets because they kept taking selfies. They said that they get in the way of getting a tan,” says Alfino, based on the testimony of the smaller boat’s skipper.
The decision to refuse lifejackets highlights how the obsession with capturing the perfect image can lead to poor decision making and sometimes fatal consequences. The transport boat sank with seven people in Garganta do Diabo in São Vicente.
Alfino says the boat could take five people, but the contractor insisted the skipper take six. And, during the journey, the group asked to change their destination to São Vicente, where the incident occurred. Two women died and five other people survived. The women who died have been identified as Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim and Beatriz Tavares da Silva Faria.
What a senseless loss of two lives!
I’ll be back in 2025 with some more gems for you.
Mike Schwarz
