Cruising Life

Granocean Building Luxe 72 Power Cat

By Peter Janssen on July 12, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Granocean just started building a new luxurious 72 power catamaran in its yard outside Sydney, Australia, with the interior space and design of a good-sized condo in New York or London. The company says it can customize the new 72 to suit an owner’s tastes. Hull number one is under construction for a European owner, and it has a sophisticated mint-green exterior color that’s bound to turn heads anywhere in the world. The interior, by Vripack in The Netherlands, has an elegant minimalist design, while the hull was designed by Howard Apollonio of Washington State and the structural engineering by…

Nordhavn 76 Cruises to Fiji and Beyond

By Peter Janssen on July 12, 2023 Cruising Life

The Spirit of Ulysses, a well-travelled Nordhavn 76, just left Fiji on its epic 9,900 nm cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Perth, Australia, and things are going well so far. They are going so well, in fact, that the captain, Nikolay Alexandrov, just posted on the yacht’s blog that the owner, Kris Townend, “is happy, great trip so far! He likes the boating life more and more, and his other job less and less.” Welcome to the world of blue-water cruising. Townend, an Australian, bought Spirit of Ulysses last February in Fort Lauderdale. Built in 2007, the boat had already…

Catana Unveils New Brand of Power Cats

By Peter Janssen on July 11, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Catana Group in France that’s been making sailing catamarans for the past 40 years just announced that they’re starting a new power cat brand, called YOT. They will introduce their first boat, the YOT 36, at the Cannes Yachting Festival in September. A family company, Catana makes Catana and Bali sailing cats in five different yards, three in France and one each in Portugal and Tunisia, with more than 1,300 employees. But recently, the power cat market beckoned. As Boris Compagnon, the group’s sales and marketing director, said, “Knowing that eight out of ten boats in the world today…

New Princess X80 with Luxury Sky Lounge

By Peter Janssen on July 11, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The new British-built Princess X80, with its creative glazing, super-sized sky lounge and a foredeck with a Jacuzzi, is now in the U.S. It also has a large main deck with an extra space all the way forward that can be either a dinette with 270-degree views or a fifth stateroom, complete with its own head and shower and door to the side deck. (So far, about half the buyers in the U.K. have ordered the dinette, while the other half want the stateroom.) The new Princess X80 doesn’t lack for power. It comes with twin 1,900-hp MAN diesels, producing…

SAY Reveals New, Lightweight, Carbon 52

By Peter Janssen on July 10, 2023 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

SAY Carbon Yachts in Germany just unveiled their new flagship, the SAY Carbon 52, a long, low, lean and very lightweight cruiser that is bound to turns heads on both sides of the Atlantic. SAY will hold the worldwide premiere of the new 52 at the big Düsseldorf show next January, and then roll it out in the European and the U.S. markets. SY is a high-tech company that already makes a 29 and a 42 in its factory in Allgäu, near Lake Constance (Bodensee). With a carbon fiber hull and deck, the SAY 52 weighs in at just 15,000…

Simrad Launches Faster NXS Operating System

By Peter Janssen on July 10, 2023 Cruising Life, Electronics, On Watch with Peter Janssen

Simrad just introduced a new NSX operating system for mid-sized dayboats and center consoles with redesigned charts, its fastest routing ever, and seamless integration giving you more control of your boat. The NSX system is meant to be user-friendly, letting you spend less time playing with the screen and more time enjoying your time on the water. It is smoother, faster, and more intuitive than previous versions. It includes a new activities bar, a reconfigured activities menu, and a fully customizable instruments panel so you can make the system work the way you prefer. The new auto-routing is three times…

Report: Coast Guard Cutter in Fatal Collision

By Peter Janssen on July 10, 2023 Cruising Life

The Coast Guard just announced the findings of its investigation of the fatal collision of a 23-foot Robalo center console and a 154-foot Coast Guard fast-response cutter off the coast of Puerto Rico last August. It turns out that even though the cutter, Winslow Griesser, had radar and AIS and several crew members on the bridge, no one saw the Robalo until after the cutter hit it. At that point, the cutter, which had been cruising at about 29 knots, reversed course and returned to the scene, where it picked up the two men who had been ejected from the…

New Forecast: More Hurricanes This Year

By Peter Janssen on July 10, 2023 Cruising Life

As if the weather hasn’t been bad enough already, now the hurricane experts at Colorado State University say it’s going to get worse, even worse than other experts had predicted. The CSU hurricane researchers recently updated their forecast for the Atlantic hurricane season this year, predicting that it will be an above-average year because of warmer sea temperatures. They also say there is a larger-than-normal degree of uncertainty because of conflicting signals involving those temperatures and a stronger-than-normal El Niño, producing increased wind shear in the Caribbean and the tropical Atlantic that actually could damage storms forming there. The new…

Targa 37: For Some Serious Adventures

By Peter Janssen on July 5, 2023 Cruising Life

Targa has been making boats in Finland for more than 40 years, but they’re just starting to appear on the U.S. market, appealing to the year-round, serious-cruising or adventure market. The Targa fleet now runs from 23 to 46 feet, but the 37 seems to hit the sweet spot here. It’s easily handled by a single person, but it’s large enough to hold a family in its protected pilothouse/salon and two cabins. The pilothouse, with Targa’s reverse-raked windshield to reduce glare (and shed water), has doors opening to the decks on both sides, so the captain or mate can step…

Doubling Down on Sirena 68s

By Peter Janssen on July 5, 2023 Cruising Life

Willie Urbieta, 65, a semi-retired oil company executive in Fort Lauderdale, knows a good thing when he sees it. A passionate boater since he was in his 20s, Urbieta bought a Sirena 58 a few years ago so he could cruise in South Florida and beyond with his family. “I wanted to go back to being part of this very particular boating culture and lifestyle as I absolutely love it,” he said. Urbieta took delivery of the 58 in Turkey, where Sirenas are built, and explored the Turkish coast and the Greek islands before shipping it back to the U.S.…

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