The last 12 months have been tough on boaters.
From spiking fuel prices to the plummeting boat market, mariners navigated some choppy economic seas in 2008. But whatever the times, it is always fun to look back at the best stories of the year.
Thus, we are proud to give you Mad Mariner's second-annual Year in Review, a dozen of the best articles – and some worthy runners-up – pulled from the archive by our editors. (We also did The Year Ahead, just for balance).
Mad Mariner publishes more than 2,500 feature articles, news stories, tips and blog posts each year, and choosing can be tough. We looked at scores of articles to create this list, and many were strong contenders, from a profile on the sailor who was the oldest Olympian on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team to a piece on the rising popularity of WWII-era Duck Boats.
The articles we selected, however, stood above the rest. Some were moving. Others were disturbing. There were even a few to make you laugh. All, we believe, are worth a read.
As usual, we start with number 12 and save the best for last. Enjoy reading.
In the spirit of Falling Boat and the Coast Guard Capsize, two great stories from 2007, we search for amazing photos each year and tell you the story behind them.
This year, that came in the form of 19 snapshots of two massive tractors tearing apart a 52-foot Sea Ray on a beach on Harbour Island in the Bahamas. The shots were passed around the Internet amid much speculation about whether they were real. We set out to answer that question.
We quickly found that the accident that led to the grounding was real enough; we interviewed islanders who saw it and a salvage crew that bid on the job. We then consulted an image specialist, who concluded that the images were authentic, based on the presentation of shadows and angles. While anything is possible in the PhotoShop era, our conclusion was that the photos are probably genuine.
There were a few good photos that presented themselves in 2008, such as the town in Australia's New South Wales that found itself covered in sea foam and the surfers in Britain's Cornwall whose wipeout was captured on film in spectacular fashion. We saw so much good photography that we actually started a Flickr page.
But nothing this year could really beat the tractors.
One of the best stories of 2008 was the revelation that the world's largest garbage dump – more than 3.5 million tons of trash and swill – is actually in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The North Pacific Gyre, a clockwise vortex of four converging ocean currents, has been collecting globs of rope, netting, fishing line, bottles, plastics, foam and other trash at a menacing rate. Often called the "plastic island," though it is not a solid mass and much of it is submerged, the pollution collection has grown to cover an area larger than the United States, according to experts.
As the plastic photo-degrades, breaking down to particulates in sunlight, it threatens many species of birds and fish. Animal autopsies reveal bellies full of indigestible manmade plastic.
While there was much news on the environmental front this year, the Gyre gets our vote as an alarming hazard to the waters we all love. We're not alone, because the article by Amanda Martinez was viewed more than 20,000 times.
Mad Mariner wrote a great deal about weather in 2008, from the explanatory stories in our Weather Section to the daily feeds on our Weather Page. How could we not? The hurricane season brought 16 named storms that did an estimated $10.6 billion in damage, setting five new weather records in the process.
So alongside news about the wrath of Hurricane Ike, which slammed into the Texas coast and destroyed entire marinas and hundreds of boats, we detailed how a Nor'Easter works, how to read satellite weather images and other weather basics.
But few weather stories were more compelling than that told by Hal Weidner, who recalled sailing the 32-foot cutter So Long straight into the teeth of Hurricane Cleo, a Category 5 monster that left him adrift for days before being rescued by a cargo ship. Weidner's experience was chilling and his tale well told.
