Author Peter Janssen

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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92-Foot Yacht Sinks Near Monterey, Coast Guard Rescues Crew

Going Coastal, a 92-foot Paragon Motor Yacht, just sank nine miles south of Monterey, California, despite the Coast Guard’s efforts to keep it afloat. The Coast Guard rescued the two men on board, who were not injured. The Coast Guard reports that the Going Coastal crew made a Mayday call at 11:45 a.m. on Channel 16, saying the yacht, built in Taiwan in 2006, was taking on water about 35 miles south of Monterey. The Coast Guard dispatched a 45-foot response boat from Monterey and a Dolphin helicopter from San Francisco to help in the rescue. The Going Coastal crew…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Restored Nantucket Lightship for Sale: Asking $4,950,000

Looking for a new liveaboard? Or perhaps a sturdy, long-range cruiser with a storied past? Then consider the Nantucket Lightship, a floating lighthouse now docked on Boston’s Commercial Wharf. It has a steel hull, six elegant staterooms, a 3,500-nm range, a crow’s nest, and a double Fresnel lens on its foremast. And it’s for sale for $4,950,000. The 128-foot lightship, WLV-612, was built for the Coast Guard by Curtis Bay in Maryland and launched in 1950. It cost about $500,000 then. The vessel served outside the Golden Gate as the San Francisco lightship and then as the lightship for Portland,…

Cruising Life
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Palm Beach Boat Show Opens May 14 – On Line

The Palm Beach International Boat Show, rescheduled twice because of the coronavirus pandemic, now will open on Thursday, May 14. And you can watch it from the comfort of your home; it’s all on line. The 35th edition of the increasingly popular show originally was scheduled to run from March 26 through 29 on the West Palm Beach waterfront along Flagler Drive. Then, as virus spread, it was rescheduled from May 14 through 17. Now, Informa Markets, the organizers of the show, have decided to cancel the live event because of safety concerns and move it on line instead. The…

Cruising Life
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NTSB Faults Duck Boat Company, Coast Guard, in Tragic Sinking

The National Transportation Safety Board just issued a report that spread the blame for the tragic sinking of a duck boat two years ago on a Missouri lake, killing 17 people, among the company that ran the tourist duck boat fleet there, the Coast Guard, and the design of the boat itself. The basic problem, the NTSB said, was that Ripley Entertainment Inc, which ran the Ride the Ducks operation in Branson, Missouri, should have shut down operations after receiving a severe thunderstorm warning before Stretch Duck 7 entered Table Rock Lake with 29 passengers and a crew of two…

Boat Reviews
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New Candela Electric Foiling Boat: 30-Knot Speed, 50-nm Range

The new Candela 7 all-electric foiling boat from a Swedish builder seems like a breakthrough on several fronts. First, it has a 30-knot top speed, unusual for an all-electric boat. Second, it has a range of more than 50-nm at 22 knots, also unusual for an electric boat. And the foils, controlled by a custom-designed flight controller with more than 90,000 lines of code, provide a smooth and stable ride, even in less than ideal sea conditions. (See the Candela in action in the video below.) Candela has been in business in Stockholm since 2014, and it’s been working on…

Boat Reviews
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New Cruisers Cantius 60: Big, Fast and Comfortable

The new Cruisers Cantius 60, with its low, Euro-style profile and its raked windshield, is a large, three-stateroom cruiser that’s filled with light and cruising amenities. It also delivers a 33-knot top speed with Volvo’s IPS pod drives and joystick controls. The Cantius 60, along with a 60 flybridge, are the flagships of the Cruisers line. Built at the Cruisers’ factory in Oconto, Wisconsin, the Cantius takes advantage of some current trends, including its coupe-style design, the same-level walkway all the way from the transom to the helm, and a large (7 feet long) opening sunroof to let in even…

Cruising Life
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New Seafloatech Eco-Friendly Group Mooring Pods

Here’s a new communal mooring system from Seafloatech, a British company, that holds a group of boats in a pod connected to the seabed with a single permanent anchor. It’s designed to be eco-friendly and reduce damage to the seabed in areas with sensitive ecosystems. The way it works is that a central Seafloatech pod is built around the permanent anchor as the base. It’s held in place by an anchor screw to the seafloor. An articulated mast is hooked to the base with a hydraulic piston. It swings from side to side and rises and falls with the tide.…

Boat Reviews
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O Yachts Launches New “Smart Hybrid” Power Cat

O Yachts just launched its first powerboat, Power Class 6, a “smart hybrid” that can run on all-electric power or on a combination of diesel and electric power. The 63-foot cat, made in Latvia, is innovative, spacious and extremely fuel efficient. In fact, it burns less than one liter (0.264 gallons) of fuel per mile at 10 knots. O Yachts says the boat underwent two years of testing in the Med to get the right combination of power. It has two versions. In the hybrid version, the company says the boat has a range of 3,000 miles. With a combination…

Cruising Life
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Trouble in Paradise: Cruisers Overwhelm USVI

So many cruising boats have headed to the U.S. Virgin Islands recently because of the COVID-19 pandemic that they have caused worries about overloading the finite resources on the islands there. At this time of year, there usually about 270 boats moored or anchored in the USVI – St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, and Water Island. Now there are about 600. The problem is that many ports have closed across the Caribbean to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The USVI, subject to U.S. laws, at first welcomed cruisers. On March 27, Gov. Albert Bryan, Jr., said the islands…

Cruising Life
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Michigan Opens Again to Motor Boats

Here’s some very good news for motor boat owners in Michigan: You can go boating again. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has removed her ban on the use of motorized boats in Michigan waters. Her new announcement came just days before a hearing was scheduled in a lawsuit brought by the Michigan United Conservation Club, challenging the ban as unconstitutional. The original ban, part of the Governor’s stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19, made the use of any boat powered by a gas or electric motor illegal, but it permitted the use of canoes, kayaks and sailboats. It was very…

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