Travel video news

A couple of months back I posted about the return of a challenging round-the-world sailing event called the Golden Globe Race . At the time, we had just wrapped up our coverage of the Volvo Ocean Race , and the GGR was just ramping up. The differences between the two competitions were stunning however, as the VOR was a stage race with large crews of sailors helming ultra-modern vessels as they raced across the globe. In contrast, the GGR is for solo racers who must circumnavigate the planet non-stop, creating an entirely different level of challenge. Earlier in the week we learned just how difficult that challenge was, when one of the participants had to be rescued at sea. Indian sailor Abhilash Tomy, the first person from his home country to sail solo around the world, was rescued by a French ship after his vessel was severely damaged by a massive storm. The trouble began when Tomy's ship, the Thuriya, was caught by massive waves reaching 14 meters (45 feet) in height. The storm...

An Indonesian teenager has survived a harrowing journey at sea after spending 49 days adrift in the Pacific Ocean. The young man was rescued a few weeks back after spending more than a month and a half aboard a fishing hut that had come loose from its moorings and was blown out to open waters during a massive storm. 19-year old Aldi Novel Adilang already led a fairly secluded life even before he was sent drifting into the ocean. The young man's job was to maintain a fishing trap located 125 km (77 miles) off the Indonesian coast. That meant that he lived in a small floating hut, which was anchored in place. While there, he would see another human just once a week and could communicate back to shore using only a walkie-talkie. It was a way to earn a living, even if the conditions were not particularly great. On July 14, a storm blew through breaking the anchor that held his little hut in place and sending him adrift on the ocean. He spent the next several weeks fighting to survive,...