So earlier on bluesky, I came across the post above. The poster subsequently indicated this incident occurred the night of the 3rd, and indicated the vessel in distress “was 2 women, a kid and a dog and basically they were going too far with too little gas; we gave them some and helped find an anchorage for the night”

Zuck’s yacht Launchpad (above) is a $300million, 390′ long vessel built by dutch builder Feedship, and delivered in 2024. it. reportedly has space for 26 guests alongside a crew of roughly 50. By comparison, The cruise ship Wilderness Legacy (below) was built in 1984 as a replica Chesapeake Bay coastal steamer. It is a 192′ long, and has space for 86 guests in 42 cabins. The ship operates with 28 crew.

So did it happen? The US Coast Guard Provided the following statement.

The Coast Guard can confirm that a 21-foot Hewescraft vessel hailed the Coast Guard for assistance on VHF-FM channel 16 at approximately 9:32 p.m. August 3^rd in the vicinity of Point Highland, Alaska. At approximately 9:56 p.m., the Coast Guard determined they were not in distress and issued a marine assistance request broadcast on their behalf. The vessel Wilderness Legacy responded to the Coast Guard’s marine assistance request broadcast and arrived on scene with the 21-foot vessel at approximately 10:58 p.m. The Wilderness Legacy towed the vessel to Farragut Bay, and the 21-foot vessel was reported to be safety anchored in the bay at approximately 12:50 a.m. August 4^th.

USCG Arctic District Public Affairs.

A 21-foot Hewescraft is a welded aluminum boat, and the style is pretty common on the pacific coast.

The AIS tracks of the two vessels seem to confirm what the original poster said. Launchpad was in front, but then slowed to a stop, and the Cruise Ship Wilderness Legacy sailed on by to the assistance of the vessel. once the vessel requiring assistance was safely at anchor, and the Wilderness Legacy had Departed, Launchpad continued on its way.

So far i have been unable to find any publicly available recordings of marine VHF ch16 for that area. The AIS seems to line up with what was reported the captain of the Wilderness Legacy said. Per the USCG, they determined that this was not a distress situation, so that may, under maritime law remove the requirement to render assistance. This might suggest that Launchpad may have hung back in case they were required, but decided not to be the first vessel to assist.

Either way, this is the sort of thing that gets noticed, and it certainly doesn’t make Launchpad or Zuckerberg look good.

UPDATE Aug 9/26: A spokes person for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative reached out and offered the following statement.

”Mark and his family were not on board at the time of the incident. As the Coast Guard noted, the boat was not in distress, and by the time the crew reviewed the Coast Guard contact on a different radio channel from the one they were operating on, the assist was already underway. We’re grateful all parties are safe.”

Video report here:

A small comment on a reddit thread let me to generate some Stadler trains in GO Transit livery. GO operates heavy rail service around the GTA and Golden horseshoe using a Bombardier BI-Level Cars and a mix of diesel Locomotives. (Above) FLIRT is a single level car. this trainset is already in use in Ottawa. (Below)KISS, is a bi-level version.

These Images were generated by ChatGPT, and are pure fantasy.

I have posted Harbour Cartography in the past, notably, my 1 month of traffic maps (2012, 2016, and 2020). recently i acquired a laser cutter, so it was time to make a bathemetric map.

I Originally tried this project using cardstock and a Cricut. The cardstock cut decently well, and the project assembled nicely, but the margin limitations made it difficult to print any street networks, and have it line up with the cuts.

The contours are 15m, and were extracted from my nautical chart file (see post, how to make a Nautical Chart) each contour as its own layer.

Each layer was created as a print layout in QGIS and exported as an SVG, then imported directly into LightBurn, and cut on 3mm Birch Ply from the local big box store. The map is 6 layers in total. I lightly sanded and Stained the top layer to give it a Nautical chart like colouring, then each layer is painted in Behr Flat Paint and primer (221ml sample size) Colours are (top to bottom) Sydney Harbour, Yacht Blue, Treasure Map, Shipyard, and Superior blue.

these are available for sale, $75 each. Contact me for details.

The French Research vessel l’Atalante Arrived at BIO on April 22nd, and spent today (April 26th) at anchor in the basin.

The ship is owned by a french research institute, and operated by the French navy’s oceanographic office. it may be here to complete annual science that would have been accomplished by the Hudson, and will be taken over by the new oceanographic research vessel under construction at Seaspan in Vancouver.

The ship features a manned submersible and several science labs.

SailGP just announced the first 6 race locations for 2026, and Halifax is back in June! From the Release:

In 2026, the Rolex SailGP Championship will set sail in Perth, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Bermuda, New York, Halifax, Portsmouth, Saint-Tropez and Dubai, followed by the winner-takes-all Grand Final in Abu Dhabi….

The full calendar – including remaining host cities and dates – will be confirmed in due course…
This 2025 Season, SailGP welcomed a record fleet of 12 national teams, including two new additions to the start line: the Mubadala Brazil SailGP Team and Red Bull Italy SailGP Team. The championship has confirmed plans to add two new expansion teams to its roster in 2026.

As far as the 2025 season goes, the Next race is Rio was cancelled after Australia suffered a wing failure in San Francisco. SailGP has identified a defect in the wings. New Zealand had also suffered a similar failure in a previous season. Both teams boats were built and sailed in the 2017 Americas Cup. The Next event will be in June in New York.

Enercon’s E-ship 1 made its first call to Halifax this week, delivering components for a windfarm currently under construction in Lunenburg county. The Components are being stored on Pier 9 untill they are needed then trucked to the site.

E-ship 1 is propelled by 4 Fletner rotors, which make use of the magnus effect to propel the ship. Essentially the spinning rotors create a low pressure area, which then pulls the ship forward.

E-ship 1 has called on sheet harbour in the past, but this is the ships first call in Halifax.

The Tuffs Cove power station is able to produce power using with natural gas or Bunker C Oil, and maintains a supply of Oil. the power plant is visited by a tanker usually around once a year to top up the tanks.

Larvik sailed from Houston, and arrived March 2. the ship was built in 2006 by Sumitomo Heavy Industries Marine & Engineering in Yokosuka Japan. its commercial operations are run out of Norway, but the ship is manged from Singapore.

On Feb 15, the container ship MSC Baltic III, Montreal for Cornerbrook, was sailing off the coast of Newfoundland when it lost power and drifted onto the shore. The 20 crew were rescued by an RCAF Cormorant out of Gander.

T&T marine salvage have been hired by MSC, and the coast guard is standing by, however work is being hampered by weather

View our Initial report:

And Latest update.

Crews are currently evaluating the situation. No pollution has been detected, however several containers have been damaged. and the hull is showing signs of stress.

The famous Heavy lift Semi Submersible vessel Mighty Servant made a very brief stop in Halifax yesterday to swap some crew. the ship entered port, and was met by a Dominion diving vessel off Ives Knoll to perform the swap.

The ship then turned and headed out of the harbour, with the total stay in port of less then 5 minutes. The ship sailed from Cadiz Spain, bound for the US East Coast, with wind farm components. The ship will likely begin transporting towers from staging in Newfoundland, to the installation site, as other Boskallis vessels have been perfroming this work.

One year ago, the titan submersible imploded at the titanic wreck site, killing all on board. 1 year later, we have an update into the investigation.