Mega-producer Scott Storch recently put his yacht on the market via ebay, fueling rumors that his estate is in financial distress.

According to TMZ, Storch allegedly paid $20 million on the boat and is now hocking it on ebay for $600,000. On the ebay posting it says the reason for the rock bottom asking price is because the “owner bought her and got short on money.”

Though the producer rakes in millions every year and has made beats for the likes of Lil’ Wayne, Fat Joe, 50 Cent, Beyonce and other hit-making artists, this isn’t the first time his finances have come into question.

Back in January of ‘06, Storch’s baby’s mom, Dalene Daniel, took him to court, claiming he was two months behind on $7,500 a month child support payments. She also said the producer was “habitually late” in paying child support, and has bounced checks.

Around the same time, The New York Post printed a story saying Storch owed $435,602 in back taxes on his house in Miami and that he also never paid for a $7,500 painting he had on display in his home, prompting the Miami gallery owner to reclaim the art.

At that time, Forbes placed Storch’s income at $17 million for the year, or $1.4 million a month.

www.hiphop-elements.com

 By Dr. Andre M. Perry

The private school minority almost landed a legislative coup when they advanced Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposal to give tax deductions for private school tuition. Astute Northern Louisiana legislators, whose districts’ comprise largely of public schools, tacked on breaks favoring public families. The addition may make the bill cost prohibitive for the state and would consequently kill it. Don’t fret. If the bill does not pass, it may save everyone a boat ride.

Businesses have the nasty habit of raising prices based on consumers’ ability to pay.

Schools need more money, but from where? Educational costs have exceeded the pace of family earnings over the last twenty-five years. Therefore, states, institutions, families and legislators constantly look for subsidies. Personal tax breaks for schooling are political pacifiers used by policymakers who are trying to close the gap between family contributions and actual costs of a quality education.

It comes with out question that schools and colleges require more capital from a broader range of resource pools than in the past. Technology certainly raised the real costs of education. Computers, smart boards, data projectors and software packages did not exist during the good ole days of ditto machines.

However, giving more cash to consumers often lengthens the school cost hike.

Consider higher education. Bill Clinton’s policies expanded the eligibility requirements for financial aid. We did not increase the grant awards for low income high school graduates, but we enlarged the ability to take out loans for middle and low income individuals and families. The middle class originally saw this as relief. Instead of saving for Jr.’s college education, they bought a new boat to celebrate their son’s departure to a prestigious college in the Northeast. Jr. consequently would take out titanic loans, major in philosophy and start drowning in the thirty year ocean of debt.

Colleges and universities acquiesced to indebted student wallets and increased tuition to new heights. We saw exponential rate increases in state and private colleges. Simultaneously, states’ governments started withdrawing funds from higher education and moved this money to primary and secondary grades as well as to health care systems and prisons.

What eventually happened? The income educational gap may have widened, Jr. has a bad credit rating, and student loans are approaching or in some cases exceeding house notes.

What did educators learn from Clinton’s higher education “relief” efforts for middle-class families? Don’t give financial breaks to people who don’t need them. Businesses will probably take advantage.

The question is not whether states’ should give breaks to private or public school families. So many families send their children to private and parochial schools that lines of private and public are blurred. The question should be, how can we give breaks to people who actually need them? Until we figure that question out, Jr. can work on the boat you bought with his tuition.

www.louisianaweekly.com

TOMS RIVER – The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 16-06 is holding state approved and USCG authorized safe boating sessions this spring. Attending the course meets state requirements for obtaining a required safe boating certificate issued by the state police.

The one day sessions are available on April 19, May 17 and June 21. Sessions are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Cattus Island Park.

The fee is $60 and includes a CD and instruction book as well as coffee, buns and lunch.

Anyone wishing to attend a session can register by calling 732-244-7906 or 732-255- 6585.

www.tomsrivertimes.com

By Patricia Kranz 

IN a shipyard in Germany, Blohm & Voss workers are building a mammoth yacht called the Eclipse.

Like many things in the secretive world of superyachts, its exact length is hard to pin down. So is the name of its owner, and the cost of building it.

But according to the Web site of The Yacht Report, one of several publications that track yachting with the same intensity that gossip magazines cover Hollywood hunks, the Eclipse is 531.5 feet long.

That’s six and a half feet longer than the Dubai, an 11,600-ton behemoth that now holds the record as the world’s largest yacht. Its owner is the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

The extra length on the Eclipse isn’t an accident. Supersized yachts are the latest examples of one-upmanship among billionaires, many of whom already own a private jet, a Rolls-Royce or two, and multiple mansions.

Despite fear of an economic recession and unrelenting job pressures among those who remain yachtless, there’s still a lot of money floating around the world. And as the superrich get richer, the size of yachts grows bigger and bigger, too.

“When a yacht is over 328 feet, it’s so big that you lose the intimacy,” says Tork Buckley, editor of The Yacht Report. “On the other hand, you’ve got bragging rights. No question, that’s a very strong part of the motivation.”

Who will be the one to wrest bragging rights from the sheik? Blohm & Voss, a leading shipbuilder, isn’t saying. According to an executive at a different yacht company, who requested anonymity because he was concerned about losing clients, it is being built for Roman Abramovich, a Russian tycoon.

Mr. Abramovich already owns the 282-foot Ecstasea and the 377-foot Pelorus, and Web sites that track yachts speculate that he may be the owner of a new 394-foot yacht called Sigma that resembles a battleship. A spokesman for Mr. Abramovich declined to comment.

Just four years ago, when Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of the Oracle Corporation, took possession of the 454-foot Rising Sun, he gained crowing rights over Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder. Mr. Allen’s yacht, the Octopus, is relatively minuscule at 417 feet. (Since then, David Geffen, the Hollywood mogul, has bought a 50 percent share of the Rising Sun from Mr. Ellison.)

Many yacht owners are entrepreneurs or industrialists, rather than royalty or bold-faced names from Silicon Valley, according to yacht designers and builders. “One of my clients is a woman who started her own business and ended up making cocktail-type quiches sold through Costco and Wal-Mart,” said Douglas Sharp, who owns a yacht design company in San Diego.

Like Mr. Abramovich, a growing number of yacht buyers are from emerging markets. “There’s an incredible amount of disposable money in the world at the moment, and a lot of money is coming out of new markets like Russia and Ukraine, as well as India,” says Jonathan Beckett, chief executive of Burgess, a company that helps owners build and charter yachts. “These people have made a lot of money very quickly and have an appetite.”

According to ShowBoats International, a luxury yacht magazine, 916 yachts measuring 80 feet or longer — the traditional definition of a superyacht — were on order or under construction as of last Sept. 1, four times the number in 1997. The biggest gains were among the biggest yachts: 47 yachts were 200 to 249 feet long, up 68 percent from a year earlier, while 23 were 250 feet or longer, an increase of 28 percent.

“When I started in the early 1970s, a 60-foot boat was considered pretty large,” Mr. Sharp said. “A 150-foot boat was queen of the show in Monaco in 1982. In 2008, you wouldn’t be able to find that boat in the marina.”

Some new megayachts are so big that they have to dock in commercial ports. The growth in the number and size of yachts is also making it hard to find qualified crew members.

Still, many yacht owners trade in their boats every few years for bigger models.

“People want more toys to play with. That’s something that drives it,” says Wim Koersvelt, director of Icon Yachts in the Netherlands. “Gyms were unusual 20 years ago, and no yacht is being built now without a gym. They’re buying two- to four-person submarines, have four Jet Skis and little sailboats stored on board, as well as helicopter landing pads.”

It takes two to four years to build a yacht, and prices are rising so quickly that some owners are selling their boats before they’re even finished — for a tidy profit. Mr. Beckett of Burgess says prices have risen 10 percent to 20 percent in the past two years alone. He estimates that a yacht 328 feet long would cost about $230 million today, with prices rising to $650 million for a 500-foot yacht.

Some owners recoup part of their costs by chartering their yachts. Want to sail the Maltese Falcon, the innovative clipper ship built by Tom Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist? That will put you back around $539,000 to $555,000 a week, not counting expenses for fuel, food or crew. Or the Mirabella V, the elegant sloop owned by Joe Vittoria, the former chief executive of Avis Rent A Car System? That’s $325,000 to $375,000 a week, depending on the season.

There are no signs that demand will slacken. “There are 2,000 superyachts in the world today” over 120 feet long, “and nearly 200,000 people who could afford to buy them,” Mr. Beckett says.

The arms race in yachts echoes the competition among business titans in the last century to build the world’s tallest skyscraper. In his book “Mine’s Bigger,” David A. Kaplan describes the battle between Mr. Perkins and Jim Clark, the co-founder of three Silicon Valley companies, including Netscape, as they competed to build the world’s biggest sailing megayacht.

By the time Mr. Perkins completed his Maltese Falcon, measuring 288 feet, in 2006, it was substantially longer than Mr. Clark’s Athena if measured at the water line.

“Clark could console himself only with the fact that if you included his 33-foot stainless steel bowsprit as part of the length, then his was bigger than anybody else’s,” Mr. Kaplan writes.

Mr. Vittoria holds a different record. His 247-foot Mirabella V has a 292-foot mast — so tall that it can’t fit under the Golden Gate Bridge.

www.nytimes.com

U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 2-5 of Hartwell and Keowee lakes is offering free vessel safety checks to the public.

From now until May 1, qualified vessel examiners will visit people’s home docks on Hartwell and Keowee lakes to perform the safety checks. A check typically lasts roughly 15 minutes per boat.

Examiners also will be able to visit homes along the same two lakes to inspect a boat even if a boat owner does not own a dock. The inspection insures that a vessel is in compliance with all federal and state — Georgia or South Carolina — boating regulations.

No citations will be issued in relation to a vessel that does not pass inspection.

For more information or to schedule a safety check, contact David Haus by e-mail at pegndave@charter.net or by calling (864) 225-9307.

www.independentmail.com

The International Yacht Restoration School will host an Open House at the school’s satellite facility in Bristol (R.I.) on Saturday, April 5. The Bristol facility, located at 257 Franklin Street, was opened in 2007 to serve as the teaching locale for the school’s new courses in marine systems.  The event runs from 10 am to 2 pm.   

“The Bristol Open House is a great opportunity for individuals interested in learning about our marine systems courses, as well as the career paths this type of training can open up,” said Susan Daly of IYRS. “The school worked in close coordination with the marine industry to develop the systems courses, and the training is very specific to the types of skills local companies look for in their employees.” 

The IYRS Marine Systems Program offers comprehensive training in installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting onboard systems such as electrical, electronic, steering, plumbing, and propulsion. The school offers a 10-month certificate program, which begins each Fall, as well as Continuing Education courses. Graduates of these courses are in high demand by the region’s marine businesses.  

In developing the program, IYRS worked closely with the Rhode Island Marines Trades Association and the American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC), the organization that develops the safety standards for boat building and repair and serves as a leader in marine education and certification.  The Marine Systems Program and the Bristol facility are designed to be state-of-the-art to keep students in step with changing technology.     

Individuals who would like to schedule an appointment to meet with a member of the IYRS staff during the Open House should contact IYRS Director of Admissions John Freer.

www.bymnews.com

By Becky Shetler 

With Pittsburgh smack in the middle of three rivers, it is imperative that area boaters obey the rules of the waterways.

The Unites States Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 7-8 is holding a 

boating course in Crafton this weekend.

The course, titled “America’s Boating Course,” is set for this Saturday at the Craftonian Hall on Division Street.

The course will be offered from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., and the cost is $30 (including lunch).”America’s Boating Course” is a joint project between the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary and the United States Power Squadrons.

The auxiliary itself is totally volunteer, composed of civilian members, and it has been in existence since 1939.

The non-profit organization specializes in search and rescue, public education, vessel examinations and examinations of privately owned vessels. Flotilla 7-8 is an individual unit within the auxiliary.

Jim Feeny, of Coraopolis, who will be teaching the upcoming class, is an instructor and vessel examiner for the Flotilla division 7-8, which is based on the Beaver River.

Feeny, originally of Chicago, started boating in 1947 on Lake Michigan. He moved to Coraopolis in 1966.

The beginner class offers the knowledge needed to obtain a boat license or safety certification in many states, including Pennsylvania.

Many boat insurance companies will offer discounts on boating insurance to boaters who successfully complete the course.

Feeny, who obtained his instructor certification in 1993, has instructed classes of 20 to 60 people in various areas, including the marina in Glenfield and local schools. Flotilla 7-8’s area of responsibility is from Sewickley down to Steubenville, Ohio.

“We teach the ‘Rules of the Road,’” Feeny said.

“There are traffic signals and signs on the rivers and this is what we teach the people. We also teach people how to go through the locks. You can’t go into the chamber unless you have a line. The lock tender has to let you in.”

The boat and water safety course topics include boating law, boat safety equipment, safe boating and navigation.

By law, anyone born since Jan. 1, 1982 needs to obtain a boating safety education certificate issued by Pennsylvania’s Fish and Boat Commission in order to operate anything with more than 25 horsepower or any wave runner, jet ski, or personal watercraft.

Anyone born before that date, still needs a certificate, but only if they are going to operate a personal watercraft.

“People need the basic knowledge of boating,” Feeny said.

A second “America’s Boating” course is scheduled for April 26 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the Craftonian Hall.

To register for either upcoming class or for further information, contact Jim Feeny at 412-269-1892.

www.gatewaynewspapers.com

 By Becky Shetler

With Pittsburgh smack in the middle of three rivers, it is imperative that area boaters obey the rules of the waterways.

The Unites States Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 7-8 is holding a boating course in Crafton this weekend.

The course, titled “America’s Boating Course,” is set for this Saturday at the Craftonian Hall on Division Street.

The course will be offered from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., and the cost is $30 (including lunch).

“America’s Boating Course” is a joint project between the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary and the United States Power Squadrons.

The auxiliary itself is totally volunteer, composed of civilian members, and it has been in existence since 1939.

The non-profit organization specializes in search and rescue, public education, vessel examinations and examinations of privately owned vessels. Flotilla 7-8 is an individual unit within the auxiliary.

Jim Feeny, of Coraopolis, who will be teaching the upcoming class, is an instructor and vessel examiner for the Flotilla division 7-8, which is based on the Beaver River.

Feeny, originally of Chicago, started boating in 1947 on Lake Michigan. He moved to Coraopolis in 1966.

The beginner class offers the knowledge needed to obtain a boat license or safety certification in many states, including Pennsylvania.

Many boat insurance companies will offer discounts on boating insurance to boaters who successfully complete the course.

Feeny, who obtained his instructor certification in 1993, has instructed classes of 20 to 60 people in various areas, including the marina in Glenfield and local schools. Flotilla 7-8’s area of responsibility is from Sewickley down to Steubenville, Ohio.

“We teach the ‘Rules of the Road,’” Feeny said.

“There are traffic signals and signs on the rivers and this is what we teach the people. We also teach people how to go through the locks. You can’t go into the chamber unless you have a line. The lock tender has to let you in.”

The boat and water safety course topics include boating law, boat safety equipment, safe boating and navigation.

By law, anyone born since Jan. 1, 1982 needs to obtain a boating safety education certificate issued by Pennsylvania’s Fish and Boat Commission in order to operate anything with more than 25 horsepower or any wave runner, jet ski, or personal watercraft.

Anyone born before that date, still needs a certificate, but only if they are going to operate a personal watercraft.

“People need the basic knowledge of boating,” Feeny said.

A second “America’s Boating” course is scheduled for April 26 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the Craftonian Hall.

To register for either upcoming class or for further information, contact Jim Feeny at 412-269-1892.

www.gatewaynewspapers.com

By Penny Robins 

NSW High School students can now obtain their boating licence and learn crucial safety techniques at school.

State boating regulator NSW Maritime now recognises a marine studies course taught through NSW high schools as appropriate to obtain a licence to drive a powerboat.

This agreement between NSW Maritime and the Marine Teachers Association of NSW builds upon efforts to raise safety standards across the State’s waterways.

This maritime education initiative follows on from NSW Maritime’s offer of free Water Safety Activity booklets to primary school students statewide.

The Marine Teachers Association of NSW has developed a suitable marine studies course, has appropriate licence test questions in the assessment phase and includes a practical component.

The high school course incorporates NSW Maritime’s Safe Boating Course which is compulsory for all those wishing to sit for a boat driver’s licence test.

Under the agreement, marine teachers in more than 120 NSW high schools can now provide the marine studies course to students from years 7 to 12. It is expected that 8,000 students will undertake the course each year.

NSW Maritime will accept a certificate of completion of the course as satisfying both the compulsory Boating Safety Course requirement and the general boat licence test.

A general boat licence (or young adult general boat licence for those under the age of 16 years) will be provided to students upon presentation of the certificate and payment of the boat licence fee.

www.yachte.com

By Robin Fitzgerald 

Warmer weather beckons boaters and fishermen to South Mississippi waterways, and with the change in seasons comes an increase in boat-related accidents and deaths.

Seasonal reminders of public-safety precautions hit home Tuesday as marine patrol officers spent a fourth day searching for a fisherman who disappeared in the Bay of St. Louis. Lee McWilliams Jr. was in a party of four whose boat capsized in choppy waters Sunday. McWilliams and another man aboard the boat were not wearing life jackets.

Boating laws and regulations don’t require anyone over the age of 13 to wear a life preserver, but marine patrol officers “would like to see everyone wear their life jackets,” said Lt. Frank Wescovich, head of the state Department of Marine Resources boat and water safety program.

Public safety groups that specialize in water safety are adamant that simple precautions can save lives and prevent accidents.

Operator error accounts for 70 percent of all boating accidents, and drowning remains the leading cause of boating-related deaths, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Its latest-available statistics show 710 people died and 3,474 were injured in boat-related accidents in 2006.

In Mississippi seven people died and 31 were injured in boating accidents reported to the Coast Guard that year.

National statistics show boat-related accidents and deaths begin to increase in April.

At least two boating-related accidents have made local headlines in recent months. A Vancleave fisherman died and another was injured when two boats collided in Jackson County on Feb. 7. In October a Jackson County man was found dead five days after he failed to return from a fishing trip.

DMR and the Coast Guard urge those who enjoy boating to take a boater-safety course, then check weather conditions before heading out on the water.

They also recommend filing a float plan with a responsible friend or family member. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but should include the place you plan to depart, where you expect to travel, the time you expect to return and the names of everyone on board. The information can be given to authorities for search-and-rescue or recovery efforts if needed.

DMR’s marine patrol officers are in the search-and-recovery stage in efforts to locate McWilliams. The Picayune man, his sister and their partners went fishing near Henderson Point on Sunday. A passer-by notified authorities that their 16-foot vessel had flipped in choppy waters. One man and two women were rescued.

“Day and night shifts continue the search for Mr. McWilliams,” Lauren Thompson, DMR public relations director, said Tuesday.

www.sunherald.com