Cruising Life

What To Do If You Lose Your GPS Signal

By Peter Janssen on December 21, 2021 Cruising Life, Electronics

What should you do if you’re cruising and you lose your GPS signal? Never happen? Well, yes it will. Not often, but it happens on new boats, old boats, coastal boats and offshore boats. But not to panic. Here’s some great advice from Simrad about what to do next: What happens to my boat if I stop receiving satellite positioning data? In the very rare event that the satellites of the GPS global positioning system fail, are taken offline or are blocked, you’ll still be absolutely fine. Here are five useful tips covering what to do if you lose live…

Brunswick Showcasing AI, Electric Power

By Peter Janssen on December 21, 2021 Cruising Life

Brunswick, the recreational boating giant, will be showcasing its move into Artificial Intelligence, autonomous driving and electric power at the Consumer Electronics Show that starts Jan. 5 in Las Vegas. The company says that “its futuristic exhibit will put you behind the helm in a new way with proprietary innovations that promise to change the future of marine technology forever.” David Foulkes, the Brunswick CEO, said the exhibit will include simulation showing how a boat owner might experience a voyage with the help of a suite of autonomous systems. The exhibit will have an immersive 200-degree simulator where you can…

Windy Launches New Long-Range 60

By Peter Janssen on December 20, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Windy has just launched its new flagship, the SLR/SR 60, a chase boat or tender or luxury sport boat with long, low lines and a range of 850 nm at 25 knots. The new 60 was originally designed as a tender for a superyacht owner, and it has seats for 15 people. But Windy says the main deck can be configured so the boat also be used for fishing or diving or exploring far-flung coves and harbors on its own, far from the mothership. At 60 feet, the Windy SLR/SR is large enough to be used for just about anything…

All-Electric Q30 From Finland Coming to U.S.

By Peter Janssen on December 20, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Q30 all-electric, minimalist and elegant day cruiser from Q Yachts in Finland will make its U.S. debut at the Palm Beach show in March. The Q30 is 30’ 7” long with a beam of 7’ 3” and it’s powered by twin Torqeedo 10kW sailpods and a Torqeedo 30-kWh lithium battery. It has a maximum range of 60 nm; at a cruising speed of 9 knots the range is 42 nm; at its top speed of 14 knots the range is 21 nm. An optional second battery can extend the range. The boat can be charged anywhere with a standard…

Historic Trip: Sicily to LA on a RIB

By Peter Janssen on December 19, 2021 Cruising Life

Sergio Davi, the ocean-crossing adventurer, has just started an epic 10,000-nm voyage on a 36-foot RIB from Salerno, Sicily, to Los Angeles. He expects the trip to take about 100 days, arriving in LA toward the end of February. The route is from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands, then Cape Verde, and across the Atlantic to French Guyana in South America. Next, up to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal and then north to L.A. Davi will be alone for most of the voyage, but some friends and sponsors will join him for a few of the 23 legs involved.…

Pardo Launches New Endurance 60 Flagship

By Peter Janssen on December 18, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Pardo has lunched its Endurance 60, an aggressively styled, low-profile cruiser that’s the Italian builder’s new flagship. With its slightly reversed bow, highly raked windshield, tinted wrap-around salon windows, graceful but broken sheerline and a flybridge that’s barely visible, the Pardo 60 has staked out a distinctive position in the cruising universe. In just the past two years, Pardo has built about 100 other cruisers, from 38 to 50 feet. The 60 represents a major move up. But Pardo has solid roots. It’s owned by Grand Soleil, which has built more than 4,000 sailboats since it started in 1973. The…

Nordhavn 76 Completing Epic Transatlantic Voyage

By Peter Janssen on December 16, 2021 Cruising Life, On Watch with Peter Janssen

The Spirit of Ulysses, a Nordhavn 76, is within days of the finish line of its epic 2,000-nm transatlantic voyage from the Canary Islands to Barbados. If conditions hold, the crew now expects to make landfall in Barbados on Sunday morning. Ulysses, a 2007 Nordhavn with twin 400-hp Detroits, left Lanzarote in the Canary Islands on Dec. 3 and almost immediately ran into some gnarly conditions, including wind gusts up to 53 knots and sea swells from 10 to 15 feet. At first the crew couldn’t even land a Dorado they hooked up, and cooking and eating was problematic. After…

A Blowout Winterfest Parade in Fort Lauderdale

By Peter Janssen on December 15, 2021 Cruising Life, Destinations

Everybody loves a parade, and it seems that boating people particularly love a boating parade. There are boat parades across the U.S. this holiday season, where owners deck out their vessels with lights, Santas, reindeer and lot of other things to get in the holiday spirit. It’s not surprising that holiday parades are big in Florida; indeed, boat parades started there in the 1920s when owners decorated their boats with candles and cruised the waterways singing Christmas carols. Things have changed a bit since then; the candlepower, and horsepower, have grown. The wattage was most on display last Saturday night…

Life on Board a Stricken Nuclear Sub

By Peter Janssen on December 14, 2021 Cruising Life

The USS Connecticut, the Navy’s 353-foot-long, billion-dollar nuclear sub, arrived unannounced at San Diego earlier this week, completing a 6,000-mile journey on the surface from Guam. The sub, with 15 officers and 101 enlisted personnel, cruised on the surface because it hit an underwater seamount on Oct. 2 in the South China Sea, ripping off the entire forward sonar dome and doing other unspecified damage (although the nuclear reactor was not involved). It could no longer safely travel underwater, and it cruised on the surface for a week to reach a repair facility in Guam. Here’s a story from The…

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