Here’s a look at an American-built long range cruiser that embodies the very best of classic trawler design and construction. Hull number one was launched in 2022 in Anacortes, Washington. The Northern Marine raised-pilothouse 57 is long-range expedition yacht, designed for an owner-operator to cruise anywhere in the world. The 57, powered by a single 325-horsepower John Deere, has a range of 5,000 nm at 8.75 knots. The boat holds 2,600 gallons of fuel and burns 4.2 gph at that speed. Top speed is over 10 knots. Northern Marine has a rich heritage of building commercial fishing boats, working trawlers…
Tiara Yachts of Holland, Michigan, announced this week that the highly respected American builder will be introducing their all new Tiara 46 Luxury Sport at the Palm Beach International Boat Show on March 25. The new design is a performance cruiser powered by three 600-horsepower Mercury Verado engines that drives a deep-V hull with a dead rise at the stern of 21 degrees. This combination of power and hull form will give the 46 an eye watering top end speed and as soft a ride through the waves as can be created. “The 46 LS is a meaningful step forward…
Northman is a brand from a Polish builder that has been making boats for the European market for a couple of decades but has not had a real presence in North America. They now have a dealer in Miami Beach, Florida, Performance Yachts, that will elevate the brand’s visibility. That’s a good thing since Northman builds high quality boats, both power and sail, that combine thoughtful designs with fine yacht construction. The new Northman 1300 is their latest trawler-style family cruise and has a lot going for it. At 42 feet overall the new design packs a ton of social…
Here’s an interesting new design from a builder we have not reviewed before. FDC Yachts, based in Bodrum, Turkey has been building custom yachts, both power and sail, for 25 years and has more than 100 skilled craftsmen on staff. The brand is not well known in North America but has a stellar reputation in the Eastern Mediterranean. The builder recently circulated images of their latest build known as Project Umai. The boat, at 86 feet, is not really a super yacht –over 100 feet, say—but appears to pack all of the DNA, sophisticated systems and luxury accommodations that we…
At last week’s Miami International Boat Show, the Italian designed and built Azimut Seadeck 7 won multiple NMMA Innovation Awards in the motoryacht, cabin cruiser and trawler categories. Said judge Ben Stein, “The Azimut Seadeck 7 is a tour-de-force of innovative new features and refined design in a 70-footer, with an emphasis on sustainability in propulsion and materials. The open main deck floor plan makes this already sizeable yacht feel huge, and Volvo Penta’s hybrid-electric IPS propulsion system enables fully electric navigation for short distances and zero-emission hotel mode at anchor.” In the last few years, Azimut has embraced an…
Here’s an Scandinavian-built express family cruiser that is well worth considering for North America because it has a well established dealer in Connecticut. Nord Star, a family-owned builder of express cruisers and offshore yachts from 28 to 49 feet, has been building boats in Finland since the 1920s. To date they have launched over 4,000 fiberglass hulls and have a well-earned reputation for offering a wide range of options and customizations. The Nord Star 49 is the company’s flagship and demonstrates the builder’s commitment to an elegant combination of comfort, pilot house styling and performance. It is a modern example…
Chuck and Barb Shipley, who are retired and live aboard their Krogen 48 North Sea, are living the cruising dream They determined when they retired to move aboard and explore the world. They sold their Georgia home, and the rest is history. Barb was able to retire a year before Chuck, so she took that time to become a certified captain with a 50-ton license. This competency has proven valuable in every aspect of their cruising life aboard North Sea. The Shipley’s made the leap to cruise from the U.S. to the Bahamas and then on to the Caribbean by…
We came across a listing for a remarkable and unique cruising powerboat that we want to share with you. Wind Horse is a true world cruiser with a salty pedigree. Steve and Linda Dashew occupy a unique position in the worldwide cruising community. When their children were young, they pulled them out of school and moved aboard a cruising sailboat with the intention of sailing around the world. That trip and ensuing cruises kept them afloat for six years. The experience taught them a lot about what works in a cruising boat and what doesn’t. They determined that an ocean-going…
One of the most eagerly anticipated new launches at last week’s Miami International Boat Show was the Sabre 51 Salon Express. The new design was initially introduced at the Newport boat show in September 2024 and hull number one was launched in Maine for sea trials back in December. But now, this all-weather, Downeast-style family cruising boat is ready for prime time. For those of us who haven’t yet been aboard, we thought it would be fun to show the boat in all its glory through the exquisite photos that were recently published. The 51 fits in Sabre’s Salon Express…
At January’s boot Dusseldorf show, Nimbus Yachts of Sweden introduced their new 495 Coupe, a couple’s cruiser designed specifically for long-term living aboard and for cruising inland waterways. The new coupe has the same hull as the 495 Flybridge that was launched last year but in many ways is a very different boat. Without the flybridge, the cabin top can now have a huge retracting sun roof for fair weather living. Plus, there is plenty of room for solar panels that will power all systems while at anchor for many hours with running the genset. For inland cruising, boats need…
At last fall’s Cannes boat show, Sirena Yachts of Turkey launched their all new Sirena 60, a all-new design intended to replace their successful 58. Sirena celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2024 so they are kicking off their second decade with a stylish new 60 footer. The new yacht, designed by German Frers, carries all of the design DNA that has made the company such a world-wide success, including the plumb bow, extended swim platform and huge dark glazing that contrasts dramatically with the gleaming white of the hull and deck. The new boat has an improved flybridge design with larger…
At the Ft. Lauderdale International Boats Show, I had the chance to test out the performance of Seakeeper’s Ride stabilization systems aboard a 35 foot performance cruiser capable of hitting 40 knots. We took the boat to government cut and ran it in and out through a nasty washing-machine seaway. The stabilizers are mounted on the stern and make trim adjustments in micro seconds. The effect was dramatic. With the Ride system engaged, the boat leveled off, did not roll or pitch and did not yaw as it moved through the mixed up sea. Turned off, the boat’s motion was…
YANMAR Marine International has announced the launch of its VC30 at Metstrade, a third-generation Vessel Control System, with advanced design and functionality, a newly designed precision-engineered joystickand easy installation. YANMAR’s most advanced control system to date, the VC30 is designed to simplify throttle control and docking in one integrated system, whilst making it easier to view data and create a seamless dashboard. The full system is enhanced by a high-quality display and modern design, including alarger, 4.3” 1000cd optically bonded screen, to reduce reflection and improve readability, with NMEA2000 output. The display unit has an auto dimming function for dark…
On September 10, 1982, three passengers aboard a light aircraft crashed into the sea off the Canadian Maritimes. They were able to deploy their life raft and they had with them the earliest version an Emergency Position Indicating Beacon (EPIRB). They switched it on and set in motion the very first COSPAS-SARSAT rescue. They were found and rescued in a matter of hours instead of the days such search and rescue missions took before the satellite rescue system was in place. Since then, more than 50,000 people have been saved from a watery end by EPIRB technology. For those of…
Whether you are looking to add radar to your boat or it’s just time to replace an old and out of date unit, there are a lot of considerations that should go into the decision-making process. To start, you need to be certain that a new or replacement radar is compatible with your existing marine electronics. In other words, will the radar display appear on your multifunction display so you can overlay the images onto the digital chart. For simplicity’s sake, it makes sense to stick with one brand for all electronics. The size of radar you choose depends on…
Larry Graff, the founder and president of Aspen Catamarans, is an adventurer at heart and there are no adventure he likes better than leading a flotilla of Aspen cats and their owners to wild and wooly destinations. In this flotilla, that was the west coast of Vancouver Island off British Columbia. Twenty Aspens gathered in Anacortes, Washington and set off for a cruise in company. Aspen cats are designed for long-haul, efficient cruising and can make excellent average speeds. The design that Larry Graff developed is actually a proa configuration. In a proa, one hull is narrower than the other…
The 4500-square-mile body of water on the U.S. East Coast known as the Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North American. It is fed by freshwater rivers at its head and then flushed by oceanic tides in is lower regions. The result is an aquatic stew that can be divided into three distinct regions. Blessed with many sheltered harbors, coves and river mouths, the Chesapeake Is a cruising paradise with historic towns like Annapolis and Oxford to visit and easy access to the Potomac River and the historic attractions around Washington, DC. Famed for it seafood –oysters, shrimp and…
The coast of British Columbia in the Pacific Northwest has long held an allure for cruisers. Yet, it is hard to get to on your own boat unless you are based in the Seattle or Vancouver areas so the next obvious option is to charter a boat for an adventure cruise Every year, the Bellingham, Washington-based charter company NW Explorations runs a Mother Goose flotilla charter from their base to Desolation Sound and back. It’s a distance of roughly 300 miles. They have a fleet of mostly Grand Banks trawlers that each can take six or more passengers. The adventure…
On France’s north coast, just south of the famous Normandy beaches, lies the Brittany Peninsula which is blessed with dozens of quaint seaside towns and many good harbors. But, the one hitch is the massive tides that rise and fall 20 feet twice a day. In some of the harbors, the mooring fields dry out completely at low tide so your boat has to be able to rest safely on its own bottom. The larger harbors and river mouths have locks for entry and exit which open on regular schedules. So, timing your arrival to make an open lock is…
Volvo Penta introduced Joystick steering two decades ago and has continued to pioneer ways to use the combination of engines, thrusters and GPS to help skippers maneuver their boats more easily and precisely. I was involved in the early demonstrations of the Volvo Dynamic Positioning technology back then and was amazed at how well even the prototype held a boat in position and allowed the skipper to turn a boat inside its own length. Last fall at the Ft. Lauderdale show, I got to test the latest Volvo Joystick iteration with the new Assisted Docking Function that allows you to…
At last September’s Cannes Festival of Yachting in the South of France, I attended Beneteau’s annual press event and was introduced to the innovative electric Island Cruising Concept Yacht. Always an innovator, Beneteau had a vision of boating and chartering in the future. Now, Dream Yacht Charters is offering that future in the BVI. Their fleet of sail and power boats now includes the boxy-looking electric hybrid power boats that are like floating beach houses with accommodations for a normal chart6er party The Island Cruising Concept is all about indoor-outdoor living and practical sustainability. The idea is to be close…
In the last few years as I’ve been making offshore trips as crew for my friends, whether back and forth to the Caribbean from New England or across the Atlantic, it seems that a lot of the crew aboard show up with their own hand-held GPSs and an InReach or a satphone. This is a “just-in-case” level of preparation by sailors who have in fact been on boats that were hit by lightning or suffered a battery bank collapse that meant built-in marine electronics were no longer working or reliable. Garmin has long been a leader in hand-held GPSs and…
Volvo Penta has been working on electric propulsion and hybrid diesel-electric systems for a decades. The diesel-electric system coupkled to IPS drives is now available for commercial and recreational use and provides an elegant and proven technology that will allow boats to run silent and carbon free. The electric motor in the system fits between the main engine and the IPS pod and is engaged with a clutch. The motors run off a bank of lithium-ion batteries that can be sized for each boat’s specific tasks and requirements. “A hybrid provides a flexible solution, one that maintains the high efficiency…
Owning a cruising boat can be pricey to start with and then expensive to operate on an on-going basis. This is particularly true for boat owners who cannot afford the time to to get the full benefit of the cruising life. It has no doubt occurred to many of us that running our boats like charter businesses, with income to offset expenses and other benefits of business ownership, would make the whole process more attractive. But, there are wrinkles to running a charter business on your own, not just with the IRS but with handling bookings, deposits, scheduling and more.…
Here’s a story from the Moorings about a different way to own and enjoy a cruising power catamaran. Richard and Deborah Heinegger, who haul from Kanasa City, have been life long boat owners and at one point lived aboard and cruised they 76-foot motoryacht. When the big boatwas soild and the couple were reensconced in Kansas City, the hankering to own a boat and reconnect with the cruising life was just too strong to ignore. Their solution? Dive into a yacht ownership program with The Moorings. Here’s their story. For Richard and Deborah Heinegger, life has always been closely tied…
Here’s a tragic story about a young, adventurous woman whose life was cut short. Last week, while moored in the Harbour Island resort and marina in the Bahamas, the crew of the 142-foot motor yacht Far From It was preparing the vessel for a charter when they noticed that their stewardess Paige Bell was missing. A search of the yacht brought tragic results. Bell was found stabbed to death in the engine room and near her was the yacht’s engineer Birgito Munoz with self-inflicted but non-fatal knife wounds. The scene suggested a violent and likely sexual assault. Munoz was arrested,…
We had just dropped the mooring off The Bitter End in Virgin Gorda’s North Sound in the BVI and started the 15-mile passage north to Anagada when a gusty squall swept in from the Atlantic and began pelting us with rain drops the size of grapes. But, there was no panic, no rushing to the mast to drop the mainsail, no frantic rolling up of the headsail. That’s because we were snug at the inside helm of a 45-foot power cat. The squall passed and soon we climbed to the bridge to enjoy the sunlight and the view of the…