Author Peter Janssen

Cruising Life
By

Really Big, and Really Old, Grouper Caught off Southwest Florida

If you think you’ve ever caught a big grouper, take a look at this one. It weighs in at 350 pounds. It’s also the oldest Warsaw Grouper ever recorded; biologists from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission estimate it’s about 50 years old. The huge, old grouper was caught in 600 feet of water off Southwest Florida with a hook and line. The largest Warsaw grouper ever caught in Florida was about 440 pounds. Warsaw groupers have an elongated second dorsal spine. They are the only grouper with 10 dorsal spines; the others have 11. Biologists with the commission’s Wildlife…

Cruising Life
By

New Sea Ray Features Lithium-Ion Battery Pack To Run Accessories

Sea Ray just introduced its new top-end, outboard-powered SLX-R 400e model at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, featuring a new electrical system that takes the place of a genset on the boat. The 40-footer is powered by three 450-hp, V8 Mercury Racing outboards. It also has Brunswick’s new Fathom e-Power with a high-capacity, lithium-ion battery pack with enough storage to run all the accessory systems on board, including air conditioning and gyro stabilizers. (Brunswick owns Sea Ray.)  The Fathom e-power system is eco-friendly, in that you don’t have to run the outboards, using fossil fuel, if you just…

Destinations
By

NY Times: 52 Places To Go in 2020

The New York Times just published its annual “52 Places To Go” in the coming year story, and it contains some old favorites, as well as some entirely new ones. Here are some in both categories: The Times’ Number 2: The British Virgin Islands. Still recovering from the hurricanes of 2017, the BVI are coming back. Rosewood Little Dix Bay, for example, reopened this month. Richard Branson’s private Necker Island (its Red Dock is pictured above) is on schedule to reopen by April. The Bitter End Yacht Club will open its new marina this summer, with accommodations to follow in…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
By

New Quiet and Fuel-Efficient Sabre 58 Cruising to Miami

Hull number one of the new Sabre 58 Salon Express is scheduled to leave Portland, Maine, on Monday and cruise south. The latest Down East cruiser from Sabre, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, will make its public debut at the Miami yacht show, starting Feb. 13, and then appear again at the Palm Beach show, starting March 26. The new 58, with a low profile and clean, classic lines, arrived at DiMillo’s in Portland just before Christmas and has been undergoing sea trials with Sabre’s design and engineering staff. The trials, on Casco Bay, showed that the…

Cruising Life
By

Georgia Spells Out New, Restrictive, Rules for Anchoring Overnight

Georgia’s new anchoring rules went into effect on January 1, and they spell out where you can – and where you cannot – anchor overnight there. These rules, spelled out by the state’s Department of Natural Resources, will affect many cruisers traveling through Georgia on the Intracoastal Waterway or as part of the Great Loop. (You can see the DNR’s entire administrative order, as well as an interactive map showing anchoring areas, below.) The new rules basically prohibit anchoring within 1,000 feet of any structure, although they create new “marina zones” between 300 feet and 1,000 feet of a marina…

Charter
By

5 Best Charter Destinations for 2020 from The Moorings

Looking for the best charter destinations for the year ahead? Here’s a list of five of them, from The Moorings, which knows a thing a two about the subject: When thinking about the top charter-worthy destinations for 2020 there are many amazing cruising grounds around the world to choose from, but we think we found our 5 favorites… St. Martin and the British Virgin Islands are experiencing a renaissance following the storms two years ago. Greece and Croatia, the most popular boating destinations in the Mediterranean, are experiencing increasing interest from the American market. And Tahiti remains the crown jewel…

Boat Reviews
By

New DutchCraft DC25 All-Electric Boat Hits 32 Knots

DutchCraft, the innovative builder from The Netherlands, will launch its new all-electric, carbon-fiber, multi-purpose DC25 at the Düsseldorf boat show, starting Jan. 18. The 26-foot, 3-inch boat has a top speed of 32 knots. At that speed, it has a range of one hour. Dialed back to 6 knots, the DutchCraft has a range of six hours. Designed in-house by DutchCraft, a sister company to Zeelander, the DC25 can be just about whatever you want it to be. It has a modular design, where parts can be swapped out for other parts, so it can serve as a dive boat,…

Boat Reviews
By

Aspen Launching New 35-Foot Power Cat with 3 Cabins

Aspen Power Catamarans is starting work on a new 35-foot C108 cruiser, with three private staterooms and Aspen’s trademark asymmetrical proa hulls, powered by one 200-hp Yamaha outboard and one 70-hp Yamaha outboard. Larry Graf, the founder, president and “lead adventurer” of Aspen Power Cats, says he will have a mockup of the new 35 at the Seattle boat show, from Jan. 24 to Feb. 1, with finished production models ready shortly after that. The new 35 has a beam of 10’ 8”, which adds 8 inches to Aspen’s earlier C107 model. The wider beam also adds interior volume and…

Cruising Life
By

How Strong is Your Favorite Knot? See MIT Video

We all know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But what about your knots? How strong are they? Now we have answers, and videos, from researchers at MIT who used color-changing fibers and a new mathematical model to predict a knot’s stability. The math model is based on several things, including the number of crossings involved and the direction the rope segments twist when you pull the knot tight. “These subtle differences between knots critically determine whether a knot is strong or not,” says Jörn Dunkel, associate professor of mathematics at MIT. “With this model,…

Cruising Life
By

Sandy Hook Pilot Dies After Fall from Container Ship

Captain Dennis R. Sherwood, who had been piloting ships in and out of New York Harbor for more than 35 years, died after trying to board an inbound container ship near the Ambrose Light. Sherwood, a member of the Sandy Hook Pilots Association, fell from the accommodation ladder on the Maersk Kensington (pictured above) at 0430 hours. He fell back into his pilot boat, which rushed him to Staten Island. He passed away in a hospital there. The Coast Guard responded to the accident, as did vessels from the New York Fire Department, and the New York Police Department Harbor…

1 … 209 210 211 212 213 … 398