Thursday, March 28

Browsing: Cruising Life

The Coast Guard just rescued six people in the water 25 miles off the coast of North Miami as their boat was sinking, and it said the people were saved because they set off their EPIRB as their boat started to take on water. A crew on a Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter from Miami received the emergency alert from the boat’s EPIRB about 9 a.m. on Saturday. It located the boat while the 87-foot Coast Guard cutter Cochito raced to the scene. By the time the Cochito arrived, all six people were in the water, and the boat was almost gone. A…

Here’s some great advice from Skipper Tips about how to dock safely and securely even when the space you’re assigned is just a few feet more than the length of your boat. We’ve all been there. The face or fuel dock is full of large boats, or at least the space you’re aiming for is flanked by two of the largest, most expensive yachts in sight, and you know that a lot of people nearby will be looking to see how you pull this off. Not exactly the time to brush up on your docking skills. Here’s what to do, and…

You’ll probably want to keep this. Here’s a bucket list of ten top adventures in the Caribbean, places to go and things to do this year, next year, or over a period of many years. You may already have your own favorites, but you also may want to add some, if not all, of these chosen by Coastal Living. Take a look: 1.Dive beneath a full moon in Curacao (see picture, above). There’s an aquatic wonderland beneath the waves around the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao), all found in the region’s vast coral reef. You can take a night…

Simrad just introduced its new Simrad Cruise chartplotter, which it says is the most intuitive chartplotter on the market. It’s designed for simple and straightforward navigation, with a user-friendly interface and a sunlight-viewable display. And it starts at just $399. The new Simrad Cruise comes preloaded with U.S. coastal charts, a mounting bracket and a sonar transducer. It combines GPS features with depth-finding capability. You control it with a rotary dial and keypad, so that it’s easy to navigate through menus that give you the information you need – speed, depth, GPS location to course, battery level and temperature. You…

Motor Boat & Yachting, the British magazine, has just announced the finalists for its annual Motor Boat Awards. The winners will be named in London on May 7. The Grand Banks Eastbay 44, pictured above, is one of the finalists. Here are all the nominations: Sportsboats and RIBS Agapi 950 Finnmaster T8 Jeanneau Cap Camarat 9.0 Nimbus W9 Parker 850 Voyager Superboats: Brabus Shadow 800 Cockwells Titian Tender Levi 8.5 SACS Strider 10 Sealegs 9.0 Hydrasol Zeelandeer Z44 Sportscruisers Up To 45 Feet: Fairline Targa 43 Open Grandezza 34 OC Keizer 42 Pardo 43 Prestige 460S Sportscruisers Over 45 Feet:…

If you’re thinking about a real charter adventure, take a look at Aroona, a 70-foot Outer Reef in Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef, home to some of the most exotic cruising, fishing and diving grounds in the world. Aroona can hold up to nine guests in three staterooms, all with en suite heads and showers, and is based in Cairns in North Queensland. Aroona is privately owned, and is outfitted for a memorable charter, with three tenders, snorkeling, scuba and fishing gear, two SUPs and one kayak. It has ABT stabilizers for comfort, a washer and dryer and an available sat phone.…

Here’s the final chapter of a tragic story we’ve been covering since Sept. 22, 2015. A U.S. District Court Judge has just put the captain of a Princess 60 that ran over and killed an 81-year-old man on his 23-foot Steiger Craft center console off Westerly, Rhode Island, on two years’ probation. The judge also ordered the captain, Cooper “Chick” Bacon 80, to pay $1,800 restitution for the removal of the ruined center console and said he could not operate any boat larger than 26 feet. At the time of the accident, Bacon, who had a Coast Guard license, was…

If you’ve ever had a hard time finding your boat in a mooring field after a late dinner or a night out, and you realize all the anchor lights look the same – or worse yet, you don’t see any anchor lights  at all – you can relate to this story. Three men left their boat, the Russian cargo ship Alana Evita, anchored in the Bristol Channel in South West England, for a night of drinking on shore. They took the ship’s 13-foot RIB eight miles to the waterfront town of Barry. They left the bar there at 3:45 to…

If you’re in Florida in the next few months, here’s a timely warning from the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission: Look out for the alligators. They’re more active in warm, spring weather, and their mating season is from April to June. The state has 1.3 million alligators, so you could easily come across them near lakes, ponds, rivers, golf courses, or just about anywhere else they want to go. Indeed, a few days ago, a 12-foot-long gator weighing more than 700 pounds was caught while it was wandering around an office park near Jupiter. The Fish and Wildlife people…

Here’s a new, easy, cost-effective way to stay connected almost anywhere in the world that was just unveiled at the Palm Beach International Boat Show. It’s a new subscription service by FMC GlobalSat that uses Kymeta’s flat-panel antenna for satellite communications. “We believe that our 4G solution can be a game-changer for private vessels that want full-time broadband connectivity,” Emmanuel Cotrel, the CEO of FMC GlobalSat, told me. “Our offering is self-contained and maintenance-free, has no moving parts, and it weighs less than 100 pounds.” FMC GlobalSat has just formed a partnership with Nauti-Tech to offer the service to the…

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