A wooden boat modeled on a 15th century Ming dynasty warship was hit by a cargo vessel and sank 30 nautical miles (55.5km) off Ilan County just one day before it was due to complete a historic roundtrip crossing of the Pacific.
The Princess Taiping departed Keelung last June and arrived in San Fransico last October via Japan and Hawaii. It was due to arrive in Keelung today.
Early yesterday, however, it collided with a vessel identified as the Liberian-registered Champion Express.
Although Princess Taiping broke up and sank, all 11 crewmembers were rescued in a joint effort by the military, the police and the Coast Guard Administration. They suffered minor injuries.
The 62-year-old captain, Nelson Liu (劉寧生), decided to build the boat in the style of Ming warship because he wanted to challenge the records set by Ming Admiral Zheng He (鄭和), who had sailed as far as the East African coast in the 15th century.
The Princess Taiping, 16m in length and 4.5m wide, was built with traditional materials and using traditional methods.
“I feel worse than the word ‘regret’ can describe, that I’ve completed 99 percent of the trip but failed to finish the last 1 percent,” Liu told reporters after being rescued. “I feel sorry for all the people who have supported me along the way.”
Liu said that he had communicated with the Champion Express before the accident, but it didn’t have enough time to avoid a collision.
The Coast Guard asked the Champion Express to sail to Taiwan for further investigation, but its captain refused and continued northward after finding out that no one had been killed in the incident. The Coast Guard could not force the Champion Express to sail to Taiwan because the collision occurred in international waters, but officials said that information on the collision would be provided to the Princess Taiping’s insurance company.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS