Author Peter Janssen

Boat Reviews
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All-Electric Q30 From Finland Coming to U.S.

The Q30 all-electric, minimalist and elegant day cruiser from Q Yachts in Finland will make its U.S. debut at the Palm Beach show in March. The Q30 is 30’ 7” long with a beam of 7’ 3” and it’s powered by twin Torqeedo 10kW sailpods and a Torqeedo 30-kWh lithium battery. It has a maximum range of 60 nm; at a cruising speed of 9 knots the range is 42 nm; at its top speed of 14 knots the range is 21 nm. An optional second battery can extend the range. The boat can be charged anywhere with a standard…

Cruising Life
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Historic Trip: Sicily to LA on a RIB

Sergio Davi, the ocean-crossing adventurer, has just started an epic 10,000-nm voyage on a 36-foot RIB from Salerno, Sicily, to Los Angeles. He expects the trip to take about 100 days, arriving in LA toward the end of February. The route is from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands, then Cape Verde, and across the Atlantic to French Guyana in South America. Next, up to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal and then north to L.A. Davi will be alone for most of the voyage, but some friends and sponsors will join him for a few of the 23 legs involved.…

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Pardo Launches New Endurance 60 Flagship

Pardo has lunched its Endurance 60, an aggressively styled, low-profile cruiser that’s the Italian builder’s new flagship. With its slightly reversed bow, highly raked windshield, tinted wrap-around salon windows, graceful but broken sheerline and a flybridge that’s barely visible, the Pardo 60 has staked out a distinctive position in the cruising universe. In just the past two years, Pardo has built about 100 other cruisers, from 38 to 50 feet. The 60 represents a major move up. But Pardo has solid roots. It’s owned by Grand Soleil, which has built more than 4,000 sailboats since it started in 1973. The…

Cruising Life
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Nordhavn 76 Completing Epic Transatlantic Voyage

 The Spirit of Ulysses, a Nordhavn 76, is within days of the finish line of its epic 2,000-nm transatlantic voyage from the Canary Islands to Barbados. If conditions hold, the crew now expects to make landfall in Barbados on Sunday morning. Ulysses, a 2007 Nordhavn with twin 400-hp Detroits, left Lanzarote in the Canary Islands on Dec. 3 and almost immediately ran into some gnarly conditions, including wind gusts up to 53 knots and sea swells from 10 to 15 feet. At first the crew couldn’t even land a Dorado they hooked up, and cooking and eating was problematic. After…

Cruising Life
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A Blowout Winterfest Parade in Fort Lauderdale

Everybody loves a parade, and it seems that boating people particularly love a boating parade. There are boat parades across the U.S. this holiday season, where owners deck out their vessels with lights, Santas, reindeer and lot of other things to get in the holiday spirit. It’s not surprising that holiday parades are big in Florida; indeed, boat parades started there in the 1920s when owners decorated their boats with candles and cruised the waterways singing Christmas carols. Things have changed a bit since then; the candlepower, and horsepower, have grown. The wattage was most on display last Saturday night…

Cruising Life
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Life on Board a Stricken Nuclear Sub

The USS Connecticut, the Navy’s 353-foot-long, billion-dollar nuclear sub, arrived unannounced at San Diego earlier this week, completing a 6,000-mile journey on the surface from Guam. The sub, with 15 officers and 101 enlisted personnel, cruised on the surface because it hit an underwater seamount on Oct. 2 in the South China Sea, ripping off the entire forward sonar dome and doing other unspecified damage (although the nuclear reactor was not involved). It could no longer safely travel underwater,  and it cruised on the surface for a week to reach a repair facility in Guam. Here’s a story from The…

Cruising Life
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Canada Delays Luxury Tax on New Boats

There’s some good news from north of the border. The Canadian government just decided to delay carrying out its luxury tax on new boats that was to have started on January 1. Implementation of the tax has been pushed back; details will be released after the start of the year. The delay represents a major victory for the Canadian boating industry, which warned that the tax would lead to millions of dollars in lost sales and the loss of almost 900 full-time jobs. The tax is calculated on 10 percent of the value of the boat, or 20 percent of the…

Boat Reviews
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Rosborough Comes Back with Wild Island 25

Over the years, the Rosborough 246 trawler earned a reputation as a reliable, salty, pocket cruiser, popular in the Northeast and even (when a buyer could find one on the brokerage market) on the Great Loop. The iconic 246 was made in Nova Scotia by Rosborough Boats, which was founded in 1955 and started out refurbishing commercial fishing schooners into pleasure boats. Built for the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic, Rosboroughs were basic, rugged and not terribly expensive. Rosborough sold the molds to the 246 to Eastern Boats in New Hampshire in 2012, and concentrated on making military and…

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Platypus Swordfish: New Semi-Submersible Trimaran

Here’s something new from Platypus Craft, a French company: The Platypus Swordfish, a 40-knot, 29’ 5” boat that has a submersible pod so you and half a dozen others can enjoy underwater views anywhere in the world. The boat will be built by a subsidiary of L2 Concepts in Antibes that has worked on other submersible projects. It can be ordered with twin gas outboards, or eco-friendly all-electric power. The Swordfish looks like a trimaran; its central hull is connected to the two outer hulls by arms. But push a button, and the central hull drops 6’ 5” under the…

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Aquila Starts New Line of Offshore Cats

Aquila Power Catamarans just announced that it’s starting a new line of offshore boats called the Aquila 28 Molokai Power Catamaran and the Aquila 28 Molokai Cuddy Power Catamaran. Aquila says the Molokai name was chosen because the new cats are designed to perform like the boats that cruise in the Pacific among the Hawaiian chain of islands. “Aquila enters the offshore segment with a modern twist on a proven Hawaiian layout by shifting the paradigm of innovative boats and designs,” said Lex Raas, the president of Aquila Catamarans. Until now, Aquila has made power cats from 28 to 70…

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