Browsing: America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Cruising 15,000 Miles on an Aquila Power Cat

April and Larry Smith, and their one-eyed dog Abby, don’t know how to quit. They completed the Great Loop in 2017 on a 52-foot Hatteras motoryacht; they completed it again in 2019 on their then-new 44-foot Aquila power cat. And they’re still going strong; in fact, earlier this week they were working their way up the East Coast, stopping in Ocracoke to explore the Outer Banks. Along the way, the Smiths have become well-known for their travels, as well as for Abby. They named their boat One Eye Dog, which helps make friends. They have electric bikes for exploring towns…

Cruising Life
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Lock Closures on Illinois River Start on July 1

The Illinois River stretches 327 miles, from Chicago down to Grafton, Illinois, where it connects to the Mississippi. It’s a major part of the Great Loop; in fact, it’s the only way to get from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. But there are eight aging dams and locks on the river, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has scheduled closings this summer and fall for long-overdue maintenance. Some of the closings, when no vessels will be able to transit, start on July 1 and run as long as Oct. 29. Here’s the…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Jock Williams, 80, Completes Down East Loop in His Stanley 36

Last summer, when he was 80 years old, Jock Williams completed the 2,700-nm Down East Loop in a Stanley 36, a boat that he built in his own yard in Maine. Now, Williams says he’s ready to go cruising again, although he’ll have to wait for the coronavirus pandemic to end. Williams, who owns the John Williams Boat Company on Somes Sound on Mt. Desert Island, is no stranger to cruising. (He’s on the right in the picture above, with Reg Elwell, a cruising companion.) Williams grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, joined the Navy after graduating from Colby College, worked…

Cruising Life
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California Couple Tackle Great Loop on New Nordhavn Coastal Pilot

In a recent email, I asked Larry McCullough, an experienced boat owner who’s now about half way through the Great Loop with his wife Jamie, why they had bought hull number one of the Nordhavn 59 Coastal Pilot. “Yesterday was a good example of why Nordhavn,” he replied. “We are in Lake Michigan, which can be very treacherous. NOAA was calling for three-foot seas but the wind picked up more and we were in some seven-footers that were very close together. I must say the boat handled it better than some of the crew.” McCullough, a retired stockbroker from Tiburon,…

Cruising Life
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Retired British Submariner Completes Great Loop in a Kayak

After more than 5,700 miles and 14 months, Steve Chard, a retired Royal Navy submariner, is going to hang up his paddle. He’s tired. Chard, 61, just completed the Great Loop in his kayak, and he was all alone the entire way. Even more remarkable, Chard went the long way around. He started on June 1, 2018, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and went counterclockwise, up around Nova Scotia, past Prince Edward Island, into the St. Lawrence and down to the Rideau Canal, where he joined the Great Loop as most people know it. He lost 46 pounds in the first…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Grumpy Completes Great Loop, with Some Lessons for Us All

Mission accomplished. John Hauck, 80, a retired Army special forces major and helicopter pilot, just finished the Great Loop, arriving back home in Demopolis, Alabama, 110 days and 6,303 miles after he left. He put 416 hours on the twin 150-hp Mercury outboards that drove Grumpy, his RF-246 Rosborough, and said they “performed flawlessly.” Hauck did the Loop solo, except for 21 days when a lady friend joined him, from the Erie Canal to Ludington, Michigan, on Lake Michigan. He says if he does the Loop again, it would be nice to have company onboard. Hauck’s journey was a major…

Cruising Life
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Nebraska Couple Completes the Great Loop on 153 “Good Days for a Boat Ride”

Every morning for 340 days, Dale and Merna Hartwig from Grand Island, Nebraska, woke up on their 2002 Navigator 4000 and asked each other, “Is this a good day for a boat ride?” He wrote me that, “if the weather/seas/destination were ok, then we went. If they were outside our ‘good day’ parameters, we simply stayed another day where we were and enjoyed the area.” The Hartwigs found enough good days – 153, in fact – that they just completed the Great Loop, crossing their wake in Savannah, Georgia. All told, they cruised 6,200 miles and went through 123 locks,…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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New Jersey Couple Ride the Great Loop on Their Yamaha WaveRunner, and Love It

When most people start planning a cruise on the Great Loop, they have to decide whether they want to do it on a 30-foot, 40-foot or even a 50-foot boat or more. Not John Cacciutti, a builder of luxury vacation homes from Ocean City, New Jersey. Cacciutti thinks outside the box. He and Barbie Evangelisti, his riding partner, are doing the 5,800-mile Great Loop on their Yamaha WaveRunner. And they’ve already put 1,700 Loop miles behind them. Cacciutti and Evangelisti are not the first people to do the Loop on a PWC. Indeed, Larry Harcum completed the Loop in 87…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Florida Couple “Enjoyed Every Second of Every Day” on Great Loop. Plan To Do It Again

Steve and Jane McKinney just completed the Great Loop in Sabbatical, their 1988 Albin 36, crossing their wake just north of red day beacon 74 in Charlotte Harbor in Florida. The trip took 369 days and lasted for 6,845 miles, and they had such a good time they’re going to do it again. “We enjoyed every second of every day,” Jane told me. The McKinneys are not life-long cruisers. Indeed, they didn’t start thinking about the Loop until two years ago. They’d been married for 33 years and have four grown children, and they were approaching a time in life…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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On Watch

After the Great Loop, the McVeys Keep on Cruising: “There is so much more to see.” By Peter A. Janssen Charlie and Robin McVey from Louisville, Mississippi, just don’t know how to quit. Indeed, they’ve been cruising on their 42-foot 1986 Jefferson Sundeck trawler The Lower Place most of the time since they retired more than two years ago. After a few break-in cruises, they started the Great Loop at 5 am on Oct. 23, 2016, and completed it 343 days later, passing through 17 states, the District of Columbia and parts of the Bahamas and Canada. Back at their…

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