Cruising Life

How To Swing Your Compass

By Peter Janssen on April 9, 2022 Cruising Life

Here’s a great primer from Ritchie about how to adjust your compass for deviation and compensation: As any new boat owner soon learns, the sport has a lingo all its own. But even old salts often have a hard time grasping the magnetic compass dialect. Ritchie Navigation explains two unusual but easily understood terms that are vitally important to the accuracy of a compass: Deviation and Compensation. Compass needles or dials react to the earth’s magnetic field and point true north. The trouble is, certain electrical equipment or metal items on the boat—and even local magnetic fields—can interfere with the…

Boating Luxury Tax (Again) in Canada

By Peter Janssen on April 6, 2022 Cruising Life

To quote Yogi Berra, this is a case of déjà vu all over again. Canada’s on-again, off-again 10 percent luxury tax on boats costing more than $250,00 looks like it’s on again, with new draft legislation calling for it to start on Sept. 1. Canada’s Liberal government last year enacted legislation for the tax to take effect on the first of January, 2022. But vigorous lobbying from the boating industry and others warned that the tax would lead to millions of dollars in lost sales, while costing almost 900 full-time jobs. In December, the government postponed the Jan. 1 deadline.…

Take Everything on ROAM 35 Shadow Yacht

By Peter Janssen on April 6, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

In case you’re worried about how to fit your dink or RIB on your boat’s swim platform for this summer’s cruise, take a look at the new ROAM 35 Shadow, a 120-foot cat that the company calls “the ultimate expedition vessel.” With the ROAM 35, you shouldn’t have to leave any toys behind. ROAM already makes two lines of smaller shadow boats, but it designed the 35 for a client that wanted room for his 50-foot Cigarette, as well as a host of other boats and toys. The flagship of the ROAM Shadow fleet, the 35 has a touch-and-go helipad,…

Next Step: Remove Containers from Stuck Ship

By Peter Janssen on April 5, 2022 Cruising Life

The 1,095-foot container ship Ever Forward is still stuck in the Chesapeake, and the Coast Guard just announced that salvors will have to unload some cargo containers in an effort to refloat it. Two separate attempts to move the ship by a series of pull barges and tugboats, plus continuing dredging, have all failed. The ship, which draws more than 42 feet, is hard aground in 24 feet of water. The Ever Forward ran aground on Sunday, March 13, after leaving Baltimore, heading for Norfolk, Virginia, with a pilot on board. AIS data indicate it was running about 13 knots…

Greenline 48 Fly: Hybrid Family Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on April 5, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Greenline 48 Fly, equipped with solar panels, electric motors, lithium batteries and two traditional Volvo 220-hp diesels, is a hybrid family cruiser that lets owners choose how they want to spend their time afloat. Under diesel power, the Greenline 48 tops out at 17.4 knots, a comfortable cruising speed for when you want to put some easy miles under your belt. At 15 knots, it has a range of 279 nm. (The Slovenian company says that at 5.1 knots, the range climbs to a staggering 1,668 nm, but I don’t know many people who want to cruise at 5.1…

Rescue Boat Sinks, Crew is Rescued

By Peter Janssen on April 5, 2022 Cruising Life

Here’s something you don’t see very often: A fire department rescue boat sank during a training exercise in the Chesapeake and the crew had to be rescued themselves. All four people on board, who were wearing life jackets and survival suits, were back on duty that evening. The Anne Arundel County Fire Department says they don’t know why their boat sank. It was refloated a few days later. The problem started when Fire Department Boat #1, based in Shady Side, Maryland, started to take on water off Gibson Island and the crew had to abandon ship. The Coast Guard and…

Eastport Growing, Moving to Florida

By Peter Janssen on April 4, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Eastport Yacht, the boutique builder in Annapolis, is moving to Florida, and launching a flybridge version of its classic Chesapeake Bay deadrise 32 at the same time. Eastport started in 2006 in the Eastport section of Annapolis, basically a boater’s haven, and they made a practical, no-nonsense 32 with inboard diesel power and a transom that dropped down to open the cockpit fully for loading dinks, diving gear, large fish, whatever. It was a true original of the SUV-of -the-water style that had the looks of a working bay boat. The original Eastport 32 (pictured at top) had a shallow…

SAY Launches 40-Knot Electric Boat

By Peter Janssen on April 4, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The new SAY 29E is a sleek, lightweight, state-of-the-art electric runabout with a top speed of 40 knots, a performance that the German builder says makes it the fastest electric boat in the world. Weighing just 3,900 pounds, including batteries, the SAY 29E is built with a carbon-fiber sandwich construction. It offers the acceleration of a sports car and virtually silent cruising, while leaving no emissions behind. The boat has a range of 25 nm at 22 knots. It’s powered by a 360kW Kreisel electric motor, a 120kWh battery, and a 22kW on-board charger. It takes just six hours to…

Lynx Launches 90-Foot Expedition Yacht

By Peter Janssen on April 3, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Lynx Yachts in The Netherlands just launched the first of its Crossover series, a 27M built for an experienced owner in California. The 89’ 9” displacement expedition yacht, powered by two 850-hp CATs, has a range of 1,800 nm at 12.5 knots. The company says the Crossover designation means the yacht “embraces the qualities of a graceful superyacht and the versatility of a support vessel in one fully customizable expedition yacht that delivers more than meets the eye.” They say it’s a long-range SUV on the water. The name of the new Crossover is Avontuur (Dutch for Adventure) and that…

Bumfuzzle: After Covid, Cruising Again

By Peter Janssen on March 31, 2022 Cruising Life

When we last wrote about the Schulte family (Pat, Ali, and their daughter, Ouest, 11, and son, Lowe, 9) a year ago, they were heading for Aruba on their 1984 Grand Banks 42 Bumfuzzle. They had been cruising in the Caribbean ever since they bought the boat in Florida in 2017. After Aruba, they planned to head for Colombia, and then…who knows. But Covid intervened. As nation after nation shut down, or adopted protocols not exactly welcoming to foreign cruising families, they left the boat in Aruba and flew home to the U.S. Now, they’re back in Aruba, and they’ve…

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