Author Peter Janssen

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Solar-Electric Boat Tackles Inside Passage to Alaska

A father and son team are heading 1,000 nm up the Inside Passage from Bellingham, Washington, to Juneau, Alaska, and back, on a 27-foot solar-electric boat. They say they will be on the first totally solar-electric boat to make the trip. The boat is a Solar Sal 27, built by Sam Devlin at Devlin Boat with the father and son team, David and Alex Borton; the electric power was designed by BRJ Solutions. (David is a retired professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.) The boat, named Wayward Sun, has a 4kW Torqeedo electric motor, an array of…

Boat Reviews
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Brooklin Boat Yard Building Fast 32 Express Cruiser

Way Down East, the Brooklin Boat Yard, in Brooklin, Maine, is building a new BBY 32 Express Cruiser that’s going to be one of the fastest boats up there. Indeed, the yard says the new BBY 32 will hit a top speed of 50 knots, driven by two electronically controlled 250-hp Mercury outboards. The new BBY 32 was designed by the yard’s in-house design team for a client. The yard is owned by its employees. The new 32 has a V-berth below, plus a full head (with a hot shower) and air conditioning. A settee is to port, opposite the…

Cruising Life
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GetMyBoat, the “Airbnb for Boats,” Takes Off

Even before the pandemic, GetMyBoat, founded in 2013, was gaining in popularity. Often called the “Airbnb for Boats,” GetMyBoat skyrocketed in the past year; it now expects to handle more than one million boat rentals this year. Here’s the story from Business Insider: Boat sales skyrocketed during COVID-19 while other forms of leisure travel like international flights and cruises stayed docked. One startup, GetMyBoat — the self-titled “Airbnb of boats” — is riding that wave of high demand and says it’s seen a massive increase in rental bookings ahead of a projected summer travel boom in 2021. The company first started in…

Boat Reviews
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Lazzara Launches First UHV 87 with Lots of Room

Lazzara just launched its new UHV 87, the first in its Ultra-High-Volume series. It doesn’t look like most other cruising yachts, but that’s the point. Lazzara says the UHV 87 has the largest gross tonnage in its class, and it’s designed to have more interior volume than other yachts. And all that room is built to superyacht standards, according to the company. The UHV 87 has four staterooms below, plus two for crew, and they have enough room to rival a much larger yacht. But what’s really unusual comes up top. The Sky Lounge is built for luxurious living and…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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New Silent 60: Solar-Powered Cat with a Kite

Silent Yachts just launched its first new 60, and it comes with a sail-kite to give the solar-electric cat an extra 5 knots or so of speed. The new 60 was built at the company’s yard in Thailand; eight more are under construction there. The basic boat is powered by two 50kW electric motors with a 143kW lithium battery and a 100kW generator, producing a cruising speed of 6 to 8 knots and a top speed of 14 knots. The boat’s most advanced power comes from two 340kW electric motors, a 268kW lithium battery, and a 150kW generator, with the…

Cruising Life
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MAN Building Hybrid Diesel-Electric Engine System

MAN, the major German engine builder, just announced that it’s developing a new hybrid engine system, called the Smart Hybrid Experience. The new system combines conventional diesel and electric modes, as well as providing another mode with zero emissions at anchor. The new system is designed around the way you want to cruise, and it can be customized to focus on performance, comfort and efficiency. The different modes include battery-electric, diesel-electric, cross-over, hotel, and boost. Several driving and operating profiles can be set up, depending on the owner’s wishes. An efficient, economical mode can be used to boost the range,…

Cruising Life
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Branson Reopens Luxurious Necker Island Resort

Sir Richard Branson’s luxurious Necker Island resort in the British Virgin Islands has now fully recovered from the hurricanes and has just come up with a Private Family Hideaway package involving a six-person private jet, a private pool, a DJ, and rooms for all for just $137,000 for a week. This month, Branson formed a partnership with evoJets to offer “the ultimate exclusive luxury experience in a setting that is just about as exclusive as it gets.” The exact price varies according to the departure city; the above far is from New York. The flight is round-trip to Beef Island…

Cruising Life
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Erie Canal Closed at Lock 17 in Little Falls, NY

The Erie Canal is closed at Lock 17, in Little Falls, New York (between Albany and Utica), because the door is stuck. Canal officials bought in huge cranes from Pennsylvania to work on the lifting mechanism that operates the lower lock gate. The lift-mechanism on the guillotine-style door on Lock 17 is broken. Apparently the cranes will be used to deal with the counterweight. In a Notice to Mariners, the New York State Canal Corporation said “the full repair is expected to take an extended period as mechanical parts, specific to this historic infrastructure, must be designed and custom fabricated.”…

Cruising Life
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World’s Largest Iceberg Breaks Off in Antarctica

The world’s largest iceberg, larger than the state of Rhode Island, has just broken off in Antarctica. The iceberg, 105 miles long and 15 miles wide, is now floating on the Weddell Sea, where British explorer Ernest Shackleton lost his ship Endurance to pack ice in 1915. The iceberg was spotted by satellites from the European Space Agency as it calved from the western edge of Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf. It is named A-76, after the Antarctic quadrant where it was first seen. The ESA issued a picture showing that the iceberg, measuring 1,667 square miles, is larger than the…

Cruising Life
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Bass Pro Shops Buys Hatteras Yachts

Johnny Morris, who founded Bass Pro Shops in the back of his father’s liquor store in Springfield, Missouri, in 1971, just bought Hatteras Yachts, one of the most respected names in boating. The purchase was announced by North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper at the Hatteras factory in New Bern, N.C. The actual purchase was by The White River Marine Group, which is owned by Bass Pro Shops. The seller was Versa Capital Management LLC, a Philadelphia venture capital firm, that bought Hatteras from Brunswick in 2013. The terms were not disclosed; all the entities involved are privately held. White River…

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