Boat

Mitt Romney is on a charm offensive. He took reporters' questions after a campaign rally Thursday instead of keeping them at bay. He brought them warm chocolate chip cookies for the flight from Jacksonville to Palm Beach, Fla. After he got off the plane, he walked over to show reporters a picture of his 5-year-old grandson, Parker. It was "wild hair day" at school and the grandfather of 18 had to share what had just come into his iPad. "You know how he did that? With Elmer's Glue and egg whites.

While at home in Marion one evening in April, John Redler heard that a 20-foot fishing vessel was taking on water in Nasketucket Bay, and two people on board needed help. Even though the weather was bad, he took his tugboat out to assist. "He felt he needed to step up to the plate and help these people out," said his wife, Juli Collins-Thompson. "Whenever he would hear something on the radio, he would go out. " As a captain working for a towing service for boaters, Mr. Redler liked helping people so much that sometimes after finishing a job, he would bring the people...

STONINGTON, Conn. -- A Connecticut fisherman will be getting paid for an unusual catch of the day -- a nuclear submarine. Alan Chaplaski said the Navy has agreed to pay him for damages to his boat from an incident last summer when the USS Montpelier, a 362-foot-long submarine, allegedly snagged his gear and almost capsized the boat. "I'm satisfied because I got just compensation," Chaplaski said Tuesday. "They gave me what I asked for. " The Aug. 25 incident occurred 95 miles southeast of Stonington as Chaplaski's boat, the Neptune, was trawling for shrimp.

New Zealand's government says it is introducing new rules to address workplace problems aboard foreign-owned fishing vessels. Academic and media reports in recent years have detailed appalling conditions and abusive labor practices aboard some foreign-flagged fishing vessels operating in New Zealand waters. Those reports prompted the government last year to launch an inquiry. On Tuesday, the government announced that by 2016, it will require all foreign-owned fishing vessels to "reflag" in New Zealand, making them subject to stricter local rules governing workplace conditions and...

AUGUSTA, Maine -- A Maine company has acquired a Massachusetts boat builder and plans to relocate the business to Maine. Kenway Corp., a fiberglass manufacturer in Augusta, has bought Maritime Skiff Inc., of Duxbury, Mass., according to the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. Maritime Skiff will be renamed Maritime Marine and be a sister company to Kenway Corp., with the same owners and managers. Maritime Marine will produce power boats from start to finish and ship to dealers directly from Augusta.

VALENCIA, Spain - Tearing along the Mediterranean so fast it nearly lifted all the way out of the water yesterday, BMW Oracle Racing’s monster trimaran made up for a bad start and put an American team on the verge of winning the America’s Cup for the first time since 1995. BMW Oracle Racing overtook two-time defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland and sped off with the first race of their bitter showdown, borne along on a radical wing and a computer-age tycoon’s staggering budget.

It may be the dead of winter, but next summer's schedule of Maine lobster boat races is coming into shape. The Maine Lobster Boat Racing Association says the season will kick off June 16 with races in Boothbay, followed the next day with races in Rockland. Additional races are planned in Bass Harbor, Jonesport, Searsport, Stonington, Friendship, Harpswell, Winter Harbor, Pemaquid and Portland before wrapping up with a final competition in Eastport during the Eastport Pirate Festival on Sept.

THE DEVASTATING FIRE WAS MONTHS PREVIOUS, BUT THE AIR THIS LATE winter morning still smells of charred wood as John Kiley gingerly prods the skeletal remains of sailboats clumped at his feet. Kiley, 54, has raced Wianno Seniors since early childhood. So did his father and grandfather. The fire in December seared the heart out of the fleet, but Kiley has no doubt it will rebuild, "because this class of boat may best preserve an identity with the past hereabouts. " Of this he is also certain: His children's grandchildren will be racing the boat.

Federal environmental regulators are evaluating a proposal by the state of Massachusetts to bar the discharge of all sewage from boats in Mount Hope Bay. If approved, discharges of treated and untreated boat sewage would be prohibited within the coastal waters of Dighton, Berkley, Freetown, Somerset, Swansea, and Fall River. Secretary of energy and environmental affairs Richard Sullivan Jr. said the state's goal is to ban discharge in all coastal waters. (AP)

The Coast Guard said a passing vessel rescued two people from the waters off Portsmouth yesterday after engine failure on their boat prompted them to jump overboard. The pair were taken by the Coast Guard to an ambulance and brought to Newport Hospital. Officials said the two jumped overboard at about 1:45 p.m. near Prudence Island. Coast Guard Ensign Gus Seyler said they weren’t in the water for long and there were no reports of serious injuries.

DES MOINES - The bodies of four people missing after a boat crash on the Mississippi River near Burlington, Iowa, were found Sunday within 100 yards of the crash site, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. None was wearing a life vest. Paul Kay, a department officer, said three men and a woman, all believed to be in their 20s, were killed. Their names have not been released, pending notification of their families. Along with the four killed, eight people were injured when two johnboats - flat-bottomed boats often made of aluminum - crashed in the O'Connell Slough area of the...

The Chinese Embassy in North Korea says Chinese fishermen detained there after their boats were hijacked have been released. Chinese media said last week that a North Korean boat hijacked three boats with 29 Chinese fishermen on board on May 8. The media did not say who the captors were but said they demanded $190,000 for the fishermen's release. A statement on the Chinese Embassy website Sunday said that vessels and crew have been freed and are on their way back to China.

Lucio Adan Nelson dozed on a riverboat ferrying him home from a visit with his mother when helicopters appeared overhead and started shooting. He and about a dozen other passengers traveling in the middle of the night jumped into the water for cover. Nelson was hit in the arm and back, but says he couldn't seek help. "I had to stay in the water for some time because they kept shooting," he said Sunday from a hospital bed. Honduran police, who with DEA agents were aboard U.S. helicopters for an anti-drug operation, have said they were shooting at drug traffickers who fired...

The French government says a fishing boat sank off the French island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, leaving two adults and three children dead. Fifteen people are still missing. The small, motorized vessel was carrying around 40 people, witnesses said. It went down Saturday afternoon after setting off from the African Comoros Islands. In a statement Sunday, the Overseas Territories Ministry said 19 people were rescued and taken to the hospital in Mayotte's capital, Mamoudzou.

The bodies of four people missing after a boat crash on the Mississippi River in Iowa were found Sunday within 100 yards of the crash site, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. None was wearing a life vest. DNR officer Paul Kay said three men and a woman, all believed to be in their 20s, were killed. Their names have not been released, pending notification of their families. Along with the four killed, eight people were injured when two johnboats — flat-bottomed boats often made of aluminum — crashed in the O'Connell Slough...

Gerard Butler is at the Cannes Film Festival, but he's avoiding the famous red-carpeted stairs. The Scottish actor was sitting on a yacht in the Rivera harbor Sunday, ready to chat about his upcoming revenge thriller, "Motor City. " Shooting starts in September, and Butler is about to start "beefing up" for the role. He says he won't be seeing any of the movies premiering at Cannes because he doesn't want to upstage the other actors. Butler says: "You can't really go down other people's press lines.

At Town Meeting Monday, residents voted to adopt a 7.5 percent local meals tax, and approved $24,000 to purchase a boat for the harbormaster. They also defeated a proposed demolition delay bylaw, voted to take no action on a revision of the animal control laws, and made the assessor an appointed rather than an elected position. Voters also approved an annual operating budget of $12.6 million for fiscal year 2013, and approved $12.7 million for its portion of the Manchester Essex Regional School District budget.

If Paul Revere had a cellphone, he could have made one call and gone home. Revere, played by Michael LaPage, has the following itinerary: Old North Church (8 p.m. Lantern Service), United States Coast Guard Base in the North End to embark on the Paul Revere Row to the Charlestown Navy Yard (starting point of the original ride), where Revere is expected to arrive between 9:30 and 10 p.m. While you wait, enjoy fife and drum music and a reading of Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.’’ April 18 at 7 p.m., rain or shine.

State and federal officials are marking the National Safe Boating Week by reminding Massachusetts residents to put on life jackets as soon as they step into a boat and behave responsibly in the water. Experts say accidents on the water can happen much too fast to reach and put on a life jacket. Fifty one boating deaths were reported in the 1st Coast Guard District in 2010, including 44 people believed to have not been wearing life jackets. A representative of the state government and the Coast Guard Auxiliary are scheduled to launch the annual National Safe Boating Week in...