Author Peter Janssen

Cruising Life
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New: Bugatti Pool Table for Yachts

Just when you think you’ve seen it all: Here’s a new stabilized pool table for yachts, brought to you by Bugatti, the French luxury car maker. It costs about $300,000, but then if you can afford a yacht large enough to hold the pool table, that might not be an issue. Bugatti says this is the most expensive pool table ever built. It’s a high-tech, carbon-fiber pool table with gyroscopic sensors to keep the surface stable, even when the yacht is on a gnarly passage (although there’s a very good chance that a yacht large enough to hold the pool…

Cruising Life
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Ever Forward Floating Again in Chesapeake

More than 35 days after it ran aground outside a shipping channel in the Chesapeake, the 1,095-foot container ship Ever Forward is free – floating on its own bottom once again. The ship was freed by five tugs and two pulling barges, jockeying the huge vessel backward and side to side until it refloated Sunday morning on a high tide and full moon. The ship ran aground outside the Craighill Channel after it left Baltimore, heading for Norfolk, Virginia. It draws 42 feet and it was stuck in 24 feet of water. After the ship floated again, tugs pulled it…

Cruising Life
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Studies: Climate Change Causing More Hurricanes

Climate change has already caused a “decisive increase” in violent  hurricanes, according to this Grist story about two new studies: In our world of warming waters, extreme Atlantic hurricane seasons are becoming more likely and much wetter. That’s according to a pair of studies published this week. The fact that heat and moisture fuel hurricanes isn’t new, but the two studies offer fresh insights into how climate change is shaping today’s hurricanes. “Climate change is often thought about as a long-term problem,” said Kevin Reed, an extreme weather expert at Stony Brook University and lead author of one of the studies,…

Boat Reviews
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Bavaria Launches 36 Family Cruiser

Bavaria Yachts has launched its new SR36 family cruiser, a scaled-down version of the popular SR41 it introduced a year ago, but with slightly more aggressive styling. The sporty new 36 from the German builder of sail and power boats is a two-cabin, one-head family cruiser that’s designed for safe cruising and comfortable living and entertaining on board. Bavaria is offering the boat with a variety of power options, from twin 240-hp to 350-hp gas or diesel engines. The lines for the Bavaria SR36 are from Marco Casali of Too-Design, an architect and superyacht designer in Rome who says that…

Cruising Life
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Cranes Unloading Ever Forward in Chesapeake

Cranes have started lifting containers off the grounded 1,095-foot container ship Ever Forward that’s been stuck in the Chesapeake since March 13. The idea is to lighten the ship enough so that it may be refloated at the full moon early next week. The Ever Forward, registered in Hong Kong, ran aground after leaving Baltimore, heading for Norfolk, Virginia, with a pilot on board. AIS data say it was running about 13 knots when it left the Craighill Channel and stopped suddenly outside the Patapsco River in about 24 feet of water. The ship draws more than 42 feet. The…

Cruising Life
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Sergio Davi Heading Up Mexico Coast

Three weeks ago, when we last wrote about Sergio Davi, the 65-year-old Italian adventurer, he had just gone through the Panama Canal on his 10,000 mile expedition on his 36-foot RIB from Sicily to Los Angeles. Now, Davi has reached Manzanillo, Mexico, just below Puerto Vallarta, on his 16th stop since he left Palermo on Dec. 15. He wrote that he had “a particularly challenging leg” because of headwinds and he cruised close to the coastline to get some protection. It took Davi 27 hours to cruise the 530 nm up from Crucecita, Mexico, on his Nuova Jolly Prince RIB,…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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New Absolute 60 Fly; Light Everywhere

It catches your eye by day, but the Absolute 60 Fly is simply stunning at night, when all the light from the windows all around, even in the large cutouts in the hull forward and amidships, show their stuff. Absolute calls the new Fly line Prisma, or prism, and the name is certainly appropriate, given the combination of light and space throughout the yacht. The 60 Fly is designed for an owner-operator, and it’s powered by twin 725-hp Volvo IPS950 pod drives, with fingertip joystick control. Absolutes also have Volvo’s Assisted Docking system that coordinates GPS and sensors to make…

Cruising Life
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Can Lettuce Save the Manatees?

Florida manatees, particularly those in the 156-mile-long Indian River Lagoon that stretches from the Ponce de León Inlet up to Cape Canaveral, have been dying in record numbers as pollution destroys their food supply. But this year, in an experiment to save them, federal and state wildlife officials (helped by $116,000 donations from the public) have been feeding them lettuce, lots of lettuce. It turns out the slow-moving mammals love the stuff. In the first three months of this year, they ate 202,000 pounds of lettuce, including romaine. And during those months, January, February and March, manatee deaths fell to…

Boat Reviews
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Leen Finishing 72 Explorer Trimaran

Leen Trimarans is putting the final touches on its new flagship 72 in its factory in New Rochelle, France. It plans to sea trial the massive tri in the next few weeks, and then deliver it to its American owner in time for the Annapolis power boat show in October. The Leen 72 is meant to be a fuel-efficient, stable, long-range explorer yacht. The trimaran design has the main 330-hp Cummins diesel in the center hull, with an electric motor is each outer hull. The two electric motors help with low-speed maneuvering and provide silent running with no emissions when…

Boat Reviews
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Elling E4: Tough-As-Nails Cruiser

To say that the 49-foot, Elling E4 cruiser is built to be a safe boat is a bit of an understatement. Just take a look at the video below, showing the boat doing a complete rollover, with company head Anton van den Bos at the helm. And that’s a standard E4, complete with a washer, dryer, pop-up TV and furniture. After the boat righted itself, van den Bos fired up the boat’s 425-hp Cummins and went out for a spin around the harbor. Because they’re built like a lifeboat, Ellings have a CE ocean Category A rating for safety. Back…

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