Floating classroom on the Mississippi offers marine career advice
Innovation comes in many forms. Trying to enthuse the next generation workforce is never an easy task, but this initiative struck me as being a novel idea and it deserves to succeed. The Mississippi River Institute is using a floating classroom and barge to help young adults and school age children consider careers within the marine sector
The story goes – with over 1.3 million US jobs on the Mississippi River alone, a floating classroom and hands-on workshop is helping young people understand and appreciate the economic and environmental opportunities this giant US river can present. Continue reading “What caught my eye: September 2025”
You don’t need me to remind you of the safety concerns and issues surrounding lithium-ion battery technology. My views are well known! But this is the first instance I am aware of a narrowboat on the UK canal network exploding as a result of this battery technology. Reports suggest that debris was thrown 40ft across the canal and witnesses said the explosion was very loud and shook their boats. Fortunately, there were no injuries. This is yet another wake up call, but sadly, I suspect we will never know what caused the batteries to blow given the total destruction of the boat. 
What a truly bizarre spectacle this is. It seems that climate change is causing excessive weed growth in UK canals as of July 2025. The poor guy in the boat (pictured above) seems to have been almost swallowed whole by the green stuff which is clearly out of control. Here’s the story.
This is the first of three stories I have chosen to highlight this month, all of which originate from Norway.
In recent years, IIMS has published a number of articles about the growing problem of what to do with end-of-life boats and the challenges of recycling them. It remains a thorny subject and will be discussed in this edition of what caught my eye: February 2025.
Let’s face it, we all love a good ghost story, don’t we? Engineers (along with a different branch of the surveying family) have braved spooks and spectres to inspect the Harecastle Tunnel in Staffordshire, UK to ensure it is safe for waterway users to navigate, this and other things caught my eye in January 2025.
Dear member and fellow maritime professionals
When I read this story in December 2024 despite the report coming out in October, it did not shock me, but it certainly saddened me. I guess we all know the inherent dangers that fishers the world over face. So, I read that a global safety charity is calling for urgent change and investment after its latest report named fishing as the world’s most dangerous occupation.
Well, who wouldn’t want to take a trip down the river in their very own floating hot tub. Sounds like a great and rather cool idea to me. And now you can add San Francisco to the list of cities offering hot tub rides through its scenic waters. This seems to be part of a larger trend as last winter the City of Chicago made headlines by offering holiday hot tub tours down the Chicago River.