Cruising Life

Helmsman 37 Sedan: An Affordable Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on March 7, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Helmsman 37 Sedan is an affordable single-diesel, comfortable trawler with everything you need for a liveaboard or coastal cruiser. It comes with one or two cabins, and you also can use the second cabin as an onboard office. The Helmsman fleet ranges from 31 to 54 feet. The 37 is a slightly simpler version of the popular 38 Pilothouse model. Standard power is one 250-hp Cummins diesel; the boat comes with both bow and stern thrusters to make maneuvering easy around a dock. Helmsmen are built in Fuzhou, China, and are designed for owners who want a quality cruising…

Grand Banks 85 To Debut at Palm Beach Show

By Peter Janssen on March 7, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Grand Banks will introduce its new 85 flagship at the Palm Beach show, starting March 24. The 85, with three times the volume of the popular Grand Banks 60, will be available for private viewing. Like the Grand Banks 60 and the 54, the new 85 has the company’s patented V-Warp, semi-displacement hull that results in a highly efficient performance that leaves only minimal wake behind. Powered by twin 1,000-hp Volvo IPS1350 pod drives and carrying 2,650 gallons of fuel, the 85 has a range of 1,000 nm at 21 knots. Hull number one of the 85 has three large…

Faulty Assumption Caused Collision: NTSB

By Peter Janssen on March 6, 2022 Cruising Life

A faulty assumption and poor communication resulted in a collision between an offshore supply vessel and a Coast Guard cutter on October, 2020, in the Sabine Pass between Texas and Louisiana, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Actually, the supply vessel managed to hit the cutter twice. The NTSB just issued its report after investigating the accident, basically saying the captain of the supply vessel made an incorrect assumption about the location of the cutter and the buoy it was working on that caused the first collision, and then both captains were involved in a lack of communication that…

Oligarchs Saying Do Svidaniya to Yachts

By Peter Janssen on March 6, 2022 Cruising Life

The U.S. and many European nations are seizing Russian oligarchs’ megayachts as part of the sanctions imposed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So far, authorities have seized (or tried to seize) oligarchs’ yachts in France, Italy and Germany, among other places. They are acting under both European Union and American sanctions. Addressing the oligarchs in his State of the Union speech, President Biden said “We are joining our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-gotten gains.” The French Customs Service made one of the first seizures,…

Sergio Davi Reaches Colombia on 36-foot RIB

By Peter Janssen on March 2, 2022 Cruising Life

Sergio Davi, the 65-year-old Italian adventurer, just arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, the ninth stop on his 10,000 nm voyage from Palermo, Sicily, to Los Angeles on his 36-foot RIB. Davi tied up at the Club Nautico Marina in Cartagena (see picture at top), after a 26-hour, 443-nm trip from Curacao, the Dutch island in the Caribbean. He has been skirting the coast of South America ever since he arrived in French Guyana on Feb. 10. That was after the longest leg of his entire expedition – 1,770 nm from Cape Verde – and took six hours and eight days. It…

Lyman-Morse Completing Hood 35 Hardtop Express

By Peter Janssen on March 2, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Hull number one of the instant-classic Hood 35 Lyman-Morse Hardtop Express is nearing completion in Thomaston, Maine, and will be launched this summer. And Lyman-Morse is already working on hull number two, a flybridge version, that will be ready next year. (The boat is also offered in a soft top version as a day boat.) In any configuration, the new 35 has the elegant, Down East lines that never go out of style. And it has superior performance from twin 440-hp Yanmar diesels with Hamilton water jets. The water jets, of course, offer a safety factor and low draft of…

Ship Carrying New Porsches, VWs, Sinks Off Azores

By Peter Janssen on March 1, 2022 Cruising Life

The cargo ship carrying thousands of VWs and Porsches from Germany to the U.S. that caught fire almost two weeks ago off the Azores just sank in the Atlantic. The 650-foot Felicity Ace was battered by waves and “lost stability and sank,” according to the Portuguese Navy, while it was being towed by a large salvage tugboat. The ship sank 253 nm off the Azores on Tuesday morning. It tilted about 45 degrees to starboard, and then went down in more than 9,000 feet of water. The Felicity Ace was carrying 3,965 new cars from the Volkswagen Group from the…

Climate Change Increasing Too Fast: UN Report

By Peter Janssen on March 1, 2022 Cruising Life

Climate change is happening so fast that we may not be able to turn it around, according to a new report by a global group of scientists working with the United Nations. Rising sea levels are a particular concern, along with increasingly intense storms, particularly on the Gulf and East Coasts of the United States. By 2050, sea levels could be as much as 10 to 12 inches higher than they are today, affecting metropolitan areas, waterfront communities, power plants and oil refineries. The report, issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, involved 270 scientists from 67 countries. It…

Autonomous Ferry Cruises 149 Miles, Docks Itself

By Peter Janssen on March 1, 2022 Cruising Life

What claims to be the world’s first autonomous ship has completed a 149-mile trip and then docked itself, without any human intervention. The 728-foot, 15,000-ton Soleil ferry navigated Japan’s Seto Inland Sea with a cargo of cars and reached speeds of 26 knots entirely on its own, setting a milestone for autonomous boating. Autonomous boating is still in infancy stage and has to operate under international regulations. Soleil had crew of seven on board for its autonomous run but they didn’t do anything. Mitsuyuki Unno, executive director of the Nippon Foundation, said, “I hope this will lead to further development…

CL Yachts Launching New 65 Family Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on March 1, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

CL Yachts, the luxury brand from Cheoy Lee Shipyards, is expanding its B Series of family-friendly cruisers. A freshly designed CLB88 was on display at the Miami show last month, and the Hong Kong-based company just announced that its brand-new CLB65 will be ready for its debut at the Newport International Boat Show in September. The 88 is notable for its design. Indeed, it won a Good Design award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. The new 65, designed by veteran naval architect Howard Apollonio with Interiors by Carmen, will try to follow that success. A flybridge…

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