A high-tech digital-imaging project has created incredible and entirely new detailed views of the wreck of the Titanic lying 2.4 miles below the surface of the North Atlantic. The images are the result of a six-week expedition to the wreck last summer that produced a “digital twin” of the Titanic, the largest ocean liner in the world when it sank on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912, after it hit an iceberg. More than 1,500 people perished that night. The expedition last summer was organized by Magellan Ltd., a deep-water mapping company. It sent two submersibles, Romeo and Juliet,…
Wally Launches 2,400-hp 58X Outboard
Wally just launched their first outboard boat, a Wallypower 58X driven by four 600-hp Mercury Verados that hits a top speed of more than 50 knots. The new 58 manages to keep all of Wally’s iconic clean lines, and it still has the massive aft deck with fold-down bulwarks and swim platforms that flank the outboards to create a beach-club affect all the way aft. The original Wallypower 58X made its U.S. debut at the Palm Beach show in March, with twin 600-hp Volvo IPS800 pod drives. That boat had a top speed of 38 knots. The new outboard-powered version,…
Put the Right Gas in Your Tank: BoatUS
Here’s a timely warning from BoatUS about the need to make sure you’re putting the right gas in your boat at the pump: SPRINGFIELD, Va., May 22, 2023 – Today’s gas station pumps no longer provide clear and transparent information to help consumers make the right fuel choice. Dispensing pumps have become a marketer’s dream, chock full of attention-grabbing video screens blasting amplified sound that visually plaster a captive audience with a mishmash of eye-catching advertisements from two-for-one coffee to $1 hot dogs. With all that distraction and summer boating season kicking off this Memorial Day weekend, Boat Owners Association…
Kadey-Krogen Buys American Tugs
Kadey-Krogen just keeps on growing. In the past 46 years, the company has built 640 full- displacement trawlers in Taiwan, creating a loyal group of owners who are interested in cruising both the coastal water and the oceans around the world. Recently, Kadey-Krogen expanded, starting a new series of Summit Motoryachts, with a 54 and a 62 performance cruiser designed by Michael Peters. Now, the Kadey-Group announced that it just bought American Tugs, based in LaConner, Washington, that makes five models from 36 to 48 feet. Announcing the acquisition, Tucker West, president of the Kadey-Group, said, “They have a healthy…
Iliad Launches Long-Range 53S Power Cat
Iliad is celebrating the global launch of its new 53S power catamaran this week at the Sanctuary Cove show in Australia, a long-range cruiser with impressive space and performance. The profile of the new Iliad is marked by a low, sporty, modern look. Inside, there’s a large L-shaped lounge on the port side, opposite the helm station with two seats. A large, U-shaped galley is aft, facing a dining area for six to eight people. The galley is equipped with upscale European appliances, and has an island bench, full-size fridge and freezer, and extra storage. A standard skylight overhead lets…
Arksen 85: Ready To Tackle the World
Arksen, the highly creative, fairly new British builder, just launched its first 85 Explorer that’s built to cut through ice and survive a 360-degree rollover. It also has a range of 6,000 nm at 7 knots, according to the company. The key to the new 85 is Arksen’s all-aluminum, lightweight, slippery, fuel-efficient, semi-displacement hull developed by Rob Humphreys Yacht Design and subjected to some sophisticated testing. The hull, which has broader and flatter aft sections, is meant to be indestructible, and it’s built to commercial specifications, meeting the UK’s Workboat Code for unrestricted ocean voyages. The interior is by Design…
Riviera 585 SUV Makes Debut Down Under
The new Riviera 585 SUV, with its clean, low, sleek profile, will make its world debut at the Sanctuary Cove show in Australia starting May 25. The largest builder in the Southern Hemisphere, Riviera showcases its SUV line as a combination of an offshore performer and a social gathering and entertaining venue. The 585 is a three-stateroom, three-head cruiser, made for everything from an overnight to a weeks-long (or longer) voyage. (It also has a crew quarter with a dedicated laundry, although that space can also be used for extra storage.) One of the most distinguishing features of the new…
Nordic Tugs To Show Latest 40 Pilothouse
Nordic Tugs just launched its latest 40 pilothouse cruiser, and it will be on display at the show in Anacortes, Washington, this weekend. With its nostalgic looks, full keel and solid build, the Nordic Tug is a serious pilothouse cruiser. It can be handled easily by a couple, but it also can sleep six people on a cruise and hold many, many more for onboard entertaining. Powered by a single 370-hp Volvo diesel, it tops out at more than 17 knots, and has a range of about 1,000 nm at 8 knots. The first Nordic Tug, a 26, was introduced…
Sealine Launches 40-Knot Sport Cruiser
Sealine just launched its latest sport cruiser, the S335v, with a five different layouts, lots of space, and 40-knot power from twin 300-hp Mercury V8 Verado outboards. The new Sealine is designed by Bill Dixon from the UK and made by Hanse near Greifswald on Germany’s Baltic coast. It’s one of Sealine’s 12 models from 33 to 53 feet. The new S335v has an open deck layout with sun roofs over the helm deck and the cockpit. There’s seating on the foredeck and on a large U-shaped settee aft in the cockpit with a table that can be converted to…
First Sargo 45 Flagship Heading to U.S.
The new Sargo 45, the flagship of the Finnish builder’s fleet, is heading for Liberty Landing Marina in New Jersey, where it will be the first 45 in North America. After commissioning there, it will cruise up the Hudson and take the basic Great Loop route to Chicago or Duluth, where it will be put on a truck and driven to the Inside Passage Yacht Sales docks on Lopez Island, Washington (unless it’s sold along the way). A tough, user-friendly, all-season cruiser, the Sargo 45 has wide side doors opening to the pilothouse, plus a gate in the hull side…
New, Cruiser-Friendly Offshore 54 PH
The new Offshore 54 Pilothouse is the latest iteration of a popular cruising design built for easy handling by a couple. Offshore says the 54 is the “finest Offshore yet,” and that’s saying something since the company has built more than 300 yachts since its founding in 1948. The 54 PH has a semi-displacement hull with a fine entry for parting the waves and a full keel for directional stability and protection for the props. Standard power comes from twin 715-hp Cummins with straight shafts, producing a top speed of a bit over 20 knots and a cruising speed of…
New Radar Helps with Search and Rescue
The Coast Guard just announced that it’s buying a new radar system that will improve their search-and-rescue efforts significantly. The new next-generation weather radar system, the Honeywell IntuVue RDR-7000, uses automated technology; it will be used to upgrade the radar now on Coast Guard Jayhawk and Dolphin helicopters, replacing the current manual systems with fully automated tilt-and-gain controls. With the current system, a pilot has to manually adjust the controls to direct the radar beam. The new automated system, which captures weather as far as 80 nm away, will be particularly valuable to Coast Guard crews on search-and-rescue missions that…
New Motorola Link Connects Anywhere in World
Motorola is unveiling its new Defy Satellite Link that enables two-way satellite messaging anywhere in the world on a smartphone at the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona. The Defy Satellite Link means you can add satellite communications to any iPhone (iOS14 or higher) and any Android phone (10 or later) using a dongle. The Link is not integrated into the hardware of the phone; it connects to the phone via Bluetooth, and it comes with a device so you can clip it to your jacket or gear. The Link has a 600mAh battery that’s supposed to support a…
New Sharrow Props Win More Recognition
The revolutionary no-blade Sharrow propellers, introduced just two years ago, are gaining in popularity and notoriety. Sharrow, which represents the first major design change in fixed props in a century, won an Innovation Award at the 2020 Miami show. And it just won another award, for Marine Power Innovation, at the latest one. Sharrow, developed by Greg Sharrow, a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, basically solved the problem of cavitation in traditional props. His props use loops to produce thrust, not blades. The loops eliminate cavitation and vortices that form around traditional props, reducing their efficiency,…
Raymarine Launches New MFDs, Sonar, Camera
Raymarine just rolled out a new series of faster and more use-friendly chartplotters and sonars plus a new marine camera. The five new launches include Raymarine’s Axiom 2 Pro and Axiom 2 XL family of multifunction chart plotter displays. The Axiom 2 Pro MFD is Raymarine’s most powerful yet, with a six-core processor and Raymarine’s LightHouse 4 operating system. It’s available in 9-, 12- and 16-inch screens in two variations and it includes embedded High CHIRP sonar for cruising boats. The new Axiom 2 Pro RVM includes standard, brand-new, RealVision MAX 3D built-in sonar. It has CHIRP DownVision, SideVision, and…
Moorings Plans Croatia Rendezvous
The Moorings just announced that they’re holding their first rendezvous ever in Croatia next fall. Starting in historic Agana, not far from the airport in Split, the rendezvous will take place from October 14 to 21, and the week-long cruise will explore the best of Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast. The coast there, in central Croatia, offers some of the Med’s premiere cruising grounds, with more than 30 islands, ancient fortresses, protected national parks, rocky outcroppings, historic villages and translucent water. There are also pristine beaches, secluded coves, unspoiled natural settings, and wonderful small restaurants to try some exquisite local cuisine. To…
15 Favorite Boating Spots: MarineMax
Now that boating season is starting again, we have to face the perennial question of where to go. We all have our favorite spots, but much of the adventure of boating involves finding new ones. To help with that, MarineMax, the retail giant with 125 locations (including 78 dealerships and 57 marinas) around the world, should have some expertise here, and they just put together a list of their 15 favorite boating spots. Spoiler alert, they are: The Chesapeake; Florida Keys; Mackinaw Island; Nantucket; Ogunquit, Maine; Lake Lanier, Georgia; St. Augustine; Galveston; Lake of the Ozarks; the Mississippi; Lake Tahoe;…
Harbour Island: A Little Gem in the Bahamas
It’s only about 3.5 miles long and a little more than a mile wide, but Harbour Island, just off the northeast coast of Eleuthera, is a little gem of a boating, fishing, or vacation destination in the Bahamas. Once there, you won’t find any casinos, high-rise condos or big chain hotels, but you will find a charming community, Dunmore Town, with pastel houses (some dating to the 1700s), winding streets, quiet resorts and vacation rentals, two first-class marinas, and Harbour Island’s iconic Pink Sand Beach, a three-mile stretch of soft sand that’s on almost everybody’s list of best beaches in…
CCA Publishes New Digital Guide to Maine
The Cruising Club of America just launched its new digital Maine Cruising Guide, offering detailed information and local knowledge about more than 70 harbors and anchorages along the coast from the Isle of Shoals on the New Hampshire border up to Eastport on the Canadian border. You don’t have to be one of the CCA’s 1,400 members to access the guide; it’s free to everyone, and it builds on members’ experience with the first guide, written last year. It provides up-to-date local knowledge shared by 30 veteran CCA members who either homeport in Maine or have cruised there for decades.…
Best EPIRBs and Personal Safety Devices
Every year, the people at nmeaboater.com (the National Marine Electronics Association), ask manufacturers to name a model in a particular category that they consider their best. It’s not necessarily the most technically advanced, or the newest, or the one with the most bells and whistles, but rather the one they rate highest in that category for one reason or another. Here’s the list for boating safety and survival devices – three personal survival devices and two EPIRBs. Take a look: Personal Survival Device ACR Electronics ResQLink View RLS Introducing two-way confirmation between a 406MHz beacon owner and search and rescue…
NOAA Satellites Saved 397 People Last Year
Here’s some very good news from NOAA: NOAA satellites, which are crucial in weather and climate forecasts, helped rescue 397 people from potentially life-threatening situations throughout the U.S. and its surrounding waters in 2022. NOAA’s polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites are part of the global Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking system, or COSPAS-SARSAT, which uses a network of U.S. and international spacecraft to detect and locate distress signals sent from emergency beacons from aircraft, boats and handheld Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) anywhere in the world. A graphic showing three categories of satellite-assisted rescues that took place in 2022: Of the…
Avikus’ AI Nav System Wins Award
Hyundai’s Avikus autonomous navigation system just won an Innovation Award at the big Consumer Electronics Show, a recognition that will surely give a boost to the use of artificial intelligence in recreational boating, The award was in the Vehicle Tech and Advanced Mobility category, and it was for Avikus’ NeuBoat, already in its second phase of autonomous navigation. NeuBoat uses a Navigation Assistant System and a Docking Assistant System to navigate and dock in real time without human intervention. It also works with an Augmented Reality screen that indicates risk levels with different color boxes. Humans can control the systems…
Starlink Offers Fast Internet to Yachts
You now can have fast, reliable internet service to your yacht, thanks to Starlink, a new service from SpaceX. With download speeds up to 350 Mbps, it’s very fast. Right now it’s transatlantic, but it plans to offer full global coverage next year. Starlink now has 3,177 satellites in the sky, thanks to its SpaceX connection, and they fly on a scheduled pattern, meaning that some parts of the Earth are less visited than others. Since it started its launch operations in 2019, Starlink has completed 66 launches, and the company says it plans to continue launching “at an ambitious…
Solar-Powered SILENT 64 Starts Mallorca Charter
The charter season starts at the end of April in Mallorca, Spain, one of the most beautiful spots in the world, and SILENT Yachts announced that it has a SILENT 64 there for a crewed charter. The SILENT 64 is a sister ship to what the Austrian company says is the first solar-powered production yacht to cross the Atlantic. Charters on the 64 start and end in Port Adriano, on the southwest coast of Mallorca, and offer cruises through the Balearic Islands, with beautiful bays and turquoise waters. On the luxurious SILENT cat, you can enjoy all this without any…
The Moorings Offers a Sale on Bareboat Charters
The Moorings just announced a summer special offer with up to 20 percent off on bareboat power and sail charters. To qualify, you have to book the charter by May 1, and take the charter by June 30. And the offer is good for The Moorings destinations around the world except for Brazil, Tonga, and St. Pete and Key West in the U.S. The Moorings has charter operations in the Caribbean, the Americans, the Med, the Indian Ocean, the Far East, and the South Pacific. The Moorings power cats are all built by Robertson & Caine in South Africa, and…
You Too Can Charter the Yacht on Succession
The fourth, and final, season of HBO’s Succession has just started, and it picks up where season three ended, with some of the most crucial scenes taking place on a 279-foot megayacht cruising in the Adriatic not far from Dubrovnik, Croatia. At that time, the fictional Roy family, owners of the media giant Waystar (if you don’t think of Fox and Rupert Murdoch you’re not paying attention) have gathered for a critical business meeting. The first evening on board, Logan, the patriarch, announces that he will have to fire one of them (or another leader of the company) to satisfy…
Visit Movie Settings on European Waterways
If you’re looking for an excuse to charter a luxury hotel barge on some of Europe’s most beautiful rivers and waterways, think about this: Now you can charter a barge to visit the sites of some of your favorite movies and TV shows, in England, Scotland, France, and Italy on a European Waterways boat. Why not? These visits are what the travel industry now calls “set-jetting,” but I’d prefer to think of them as just plain fun, a fillip on an already memory-making vacation. European Waterways is the largest luxury hotel barging company in Europe. It started out 40 years…