Measuring 1,040 feet in length and weighing 122,000 tonnes, the Celebrity Eclipse was always going to make an impact with her mammoth size.

So the ship was forced to make an undignified squeeze through the lock as she left the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenberg, Germany, on her maiden voyage today.

At one point it was such a narrow fit the 121-foot wide ocean liner had as few as two feet on either side of her as she eased through, during a rite of passage known as the conveyance.



What’s more the depth of the river and the draft of the ship allowed for mere inches – or even less – beneath her.

With such a narrow margin for error the makers of the ship and the shipyard owners had to carefully monitor the position of the moon and tidal conditions to identify the precise time when the depth of the river would be sufficient for the ship to pass through.



Captain Panagiotis Skylogiannis said: ‘Although I am accustomed to docking in tight ports, I prefer to be chasing sunshine in the open sea.

‘Celebrity Eclipse is only a few feet slimmer than the narrowest lock we have to navigate, which isn’t much room.

‘But we’ve done this twice before and I am entirely confident of another smooth and successful passage.’



The ship is the third of five from Celebrity Cruises’ $3.7billion Solstice Class fleet and features a ten restaurants and even a glass blowing studio.

The company’s fleet sail in Alaska, California, Canada/ New England, the Pacific Coast, Panama Canal, South America and the Caribbean.

 It is flat and it is huge, looking much like a white-and-blue space ship - and it is one skipper's dream.

German adventurer Raphael Domjan has come one step closer to realizing his plan to sail the globe in what he says is the world's largest solar-powered boat. The catamaran-style yacht called PlanetSolar sporting some 5,400 square feet (500 square meters) of solar panels was put into the water for the first time in the northern German city of Kiel.



Domjan is planning to start in April 2011 what he says would be the first-ever world tour in a large boat powered solely by the sun.

In the meantime, he wants to extensively test the boat, which took 13 months to build at the Knierim Yachtbau shipyard.



It is nearly 102 feet (31 meters) long, almost 50 feet (15 meters) wide and stands 24-1/2 feet (7.5 meters) high.

"The technology is new, and this type of boat with this type of construction is new," Ehlert-Meyer said.



Domjan is planning to stay as close to the equator as possible to catch the best sunlight on his trip from Europe to New York and San Francisco to Australia, Saudi Arabia and back to Europe. The trip is expected to take 140 days.

"This boat is completely new," the skipper said. "It is very fast."

The SS Silla is officially the world’s fastest floating sauna, setting the world record last Saturday, July 4th in Marstrand, West Sweden, during Match Cup Sweden. The sauna reached 15.5 knots (nautical miles per hour), the equivalent of 28.71 kph/17.84 mph. To give you an idea of of how fast that is, the fastest speed acheived by a boat was 275.9 knots, the fastest human swam 4.6 knots, and the fastest aquatic animal, the sailfish, can reach 59.1 knots. The SS Silla’s 15.5 knots will most certainly allow for relaxing in a jacuzzi in style.

The Eduard Bohlen was a ship that ran aground off the coast of Namibia's Skeleton Coast on September 5, 1909, in a thick fog. Currently the wreck lies in the sand a distance from the shoreline.



The ship was a 2,272 gross ton cargo ship with a length of 310 feet. In September 1909, it ran aground in thick fog and wrecked at Conception Bay while on a voyage from Swakopmund to Table Bay. This wreck is said to personify the loneliness of Namibia’s coast best. Its remains lie rusting in the sand, partially buried.