Author Peter Janssen

Cruising Life
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Cruising Norway’s Fjords on Electric Jetboards: See Fantastic Video

Here’s something you probably haven’t seen before: A pair of adventurers cruising through the icy fjords of Norway on electric jetboards. Boards on the fjords. Take a look at the video below, it’s terrific. The electric-powered jetboards are made by Radinn, a Swedish company that was started in 2013. The name says it all: Radical Innovation. To promote its boards, the company has tested them on the canals in Amsterdam and off the beaches of the Dominican Republic. It went to Norway, in March, because that’s where they could find the highest-latitude body of water that wasn’t iced in. The…

Cruising Life
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New Wooden Boats 40: A Custom, 40-knot Day Cruiser

The new WB40’ is an example of what a world-class designer and builder can do for a client who knows just what he wants. The new lightweight day cruiser uses cutting-edge technology, with a combination of wood and advanced carbon composites, to deliver a fuel-efficient, 40-knot performance. The WB40’ was built by Wooden Boats, which was founded eight years ago in Viareggio, Italy, by Marco Arnaboldi. Earlier, he had founded AB Yachts with his father to build high-end, custom tenders for such builders at Benetti, Pershing and Baglietto, among others. Studio Arnaboldi is known for designing elegant, fast superyachts. The…

Cruising Life
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Garmin Launches New Smartwatch for Cruising, Fishing

Garmin just launched the newest model in its quatix marine smartwatch series, and it’s designed specifically for cruising, fishing and watersports activities. You can use it control your autopilot, and you can load it with coastal charts so it serves as a navigation tool on your wrist. The new Garmin quatix 6 represents the next generation of smartwatches, according to Garmin. It connects to Garmin chartplotters and other marine electronics to control the autopilot, as well as onboard Fusion-Link entertainment offerings. It also displays boat speed, depth, temperature and wind. And it has preloaded activity for other sports, including paddle…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Cruising Update: New Orders in Florida, Delaware, Washington and More

The stark, red-letter quarantine warning pictured above is a sign of the times. And the times are getting scary. In Newport, Rhode Island, the harbormaster is ordering all vessels arriving from out of state to self-quarantine for 14 days. The governor of Florida just issued stay-at-home orders for 30 days. The governor of Maryland basically prohibited recreational boating there. Washington state closed all recreational fishing and closed the parks. Many marinas in Washington are closed to transients; most fuel docks are still open because they’re considered essential to commercial activity. The U.S.-Canada border is closed for recreational boats. Across the…

Cruising Life
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Sudden Fire Sinks 8 Boats at Seattle Marina

A nighttime fire sank eight boats and severely damaged one more at a Seattle marina recently. The fire raged for more than two hours before 75 firefighters were able to put it out. The fire was at the Jim Clark Marina on Harbor Island under the West Seattle Bridge. The first alarm came from the marina manager, who called 911 about 9:30 last Friday night. It spread quickly, from boat to boat, and caused some explosions. The lower portion of the bridge was closed temporarily because of smoke. The firefighters faced some unusual problems; the one floating dock that provided…

Cruising Life
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Who Needs Bow Thrusters? A Review from Lyman-Morse

In recent years, bow thrusters have become ubiquitous; most new cruising powerboats have them either already installed or as options. There is no question that they make docking easier (and I say that as the former owner of a Grand Banks 36 that did not have one), but they also can introduce problems of their own, particularly in an era of pod drives and joystick controls. They introduce new electrical or hydraulic systems on the boat; they require some degree of care and maintenance, and they can (in my experience, at least) occasionally not provide enough power to move the…

Cruising Life
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Colorful Sausalito Houseboat for Sale: $1.33 Million

Many, many years ago, I lived in Mill Valley, California, and commuted to work as an editor of Saturday Review in San Francisco. It was the best commute I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a lot – in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York). I rode my bike on a bike path from downtown Mill Valley past the Sausalito waterfront and then took the ferry to the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco, where it was just a short walk to the office. The views from the ferry, of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Angel Island, The City (as San…

Cruising Life
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AccuWeather: “An Above-Normal” Atlantic Hurricane Season

AccuWeather just issued its forecast for this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, and it’s not particularly reassuring. The company’s meteorologists say they expect another busy year in the Atlantic Basic, following what they called a busy season last year. “It’s going to be an above-normal season,” said Dan Kottlowski, AccuWeather’s hurricane expert. “On a normal year, we have around 12 storms, six hurricanes and roughly three major hurricanes.” For this hurricane season, starting June 1 and ending Nov. 30, AccuWeather is predicting 14 to 18 named storms, seven to nine hurricanes, and two to four major hurricanes. From two to four…

Boat Reviews
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New Azimut Verve 47: Italian Style, Outboard Performance

Azimut just held the worldwide premiere of its new sleek, Italian-styled Verve 47 at the Miami Yacht Show in February. The new weekend cruiser turned heads throughout the show, but it really drew praise for its performance on the water, where its four 450-hp Mercury Racing outboards pushed it to a 50-knot top speed. The Verve 47, with a stepped hull by Michael Peters, the Sarasota designer who specializes in fast boats, represents a doubling-down on outboards by Azimut. It introduced its first outboard boat, a Verve 40, almost four years ago. The new 47, with an interior by Francesco…

Cruising Life
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NOAA: 54 Per Cent of U.S. Waters Still Not Mapped

NOAA just released its first report on its progress in mapping U.S. waters, and the results are startling: About 54 per cent of the U.S. coastal, ocean and Great Lakes water are still not mapped. The report is called Unmapped U.S. Waters and it includes the colorful graphics above, showing areas that have been mapped – and those that haven’t. It created the report from an analysis of publicly available bathymetry. The percentage of unmapped U.S. waters as of 2019: U.S. total: 54 per cent. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico: 43 per cent. Great Lakes: 95 per cent. Caribbean: 42…

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