Author Peter Janssen

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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On Watch

At Sea Once More, the Hamiltons Are Halfway to Ireland on their Nordhavn 52 James and Jennifer Hamilton are at it again (or more accurately, are at it still). The Hamiltons, a high-tech couple from Seattle, have already cruised around the world on MV Dirona, their 52-foot Nordhavn. Last year they cruised 3,650 nm from St. Helena in the South Atlantic to Barbados, the longest nonstop voyage ever taken by a Nordhavn under 100 feet. Now, they’re in the middle of a 3,000-nm cruise from Newport, Rhode Island, to Ireland. After that, they plan to head for the Scottish Isles…

Cruising Life
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Will a Floating Container Sink Your Boat? Here are the Odds…

They’re everywhere on oceans around the world. Big and small container ships, going in every direction, some new and looking seaworthy, many less than new and looking less than seaworthy. Officials estimate that there are 5 to 6 million containers on ships at any given time; 10,000 of them wash overboard every year. If you’re cruising at night or in fog, you probably won’t even see one in your path; if the container is floating just under the surface, or covered by a wave, you probably won’t see it in any time of day. Here’s a great story, including some…

Cruising Life
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Restoring Gelcoat: Tips from Pros (And Watch Those Corners)

Nothing is more disheartening than that faded-gelcoat look on a boat, particularly when it’s your boat. Time for a work order and a check at the yard (yikes, not another one!), or some elbow grease of your own. Because while a dull, faded hull is embarrassing, a bright, shiny, new-looking hull is a matter of great pride, something to aim for. Here are some tips from pros on how to get there, how to breathe new life into your old topsides, with great advice on everything from rubbing compounds to wet sandings to avoiding going too deep on thin-gelcoat areas…

Cruising Life
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Top Ten Boat Names, and What They Say About You

BoatU.S. just released its annual top ten list of boat names, carrying on a 25-year tradition. It has some old favorites, Andiamo, Freedom (hard to beat that one for overall patriotism) and Seas the Day. The new number one, Serenity, certainly relates to feelings of calm and quiet (probably not an apt name on a boat someone is docking for the first time), while ending the list at number ten is Firefly (hmmm). BoatU.S. got the names by adding up requests for new names from BoatU.S. Graphics. They also had some fun by defining what each name means, at least…

Cruising Life
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Barge Crushes Loop Boat at Dock on ICW in Virginia, but Boat Owner Says She’ll Start Again

This is a story about having a dream, suffering some incredibly bad luck, and planning a comeback in the face of adversity. In April, after three years of saving and planning, Susan Pellett left her home in Riverview, Florida, just south of Tampa, to start the Great Loop on SuzieQ, her 1985, 21-foot Sport Craft.  Now, on a rainy Friday morning in May, she was walking up the long face dock at the Atlantic Yacht Basin, a large, full-service marina at mile 12 of the Intracoastal Waterway in Chesapeake City, Virginia. “I was 42 days into my Loop trip single-handed,”…

Cruising Life
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6 Gems of Anegada: Reefs, Beaches, Lobsters and, oh, Shipwrecks

When Columbus first saw this low-lying coral atoll in the Caribbean Sea on his second voyage in 1493, he named it Anegada, meaning drowned island. The highest point then, and now, is only 28 feet above sea level. Anegada, about 14 miles northeast of Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, now has some waterfront restaurants and beach bars, but the 15-square-mile island really hasn’t change all that much. It is still virtually surrounded by Horseshoe Reef (accounting for 300 shipwrecks), which protects miles and miles of secluded white sand beaches. One of the best, Cow Wreck Beach, is home…

Cruising Life
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Surveyor’s Tips: How To Buy a Better Used Boat

It’s not hard to find a used boat nowadays; indeed, ten used boats are sold each year for every new one. The trick, of course, is to find one in good condition. What looks like a bargain could either be the deal of the century or a dog that develops a serious drain on your checkbook. We all know about the merits of getting a good survey before you write that first check on your new (used) dreamboat. But there are also signs you can look for yourself. Here are some tips from a surveyor with more than 35 years…

Cruising Life
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Summer – and Salmon – Along the Inside Passage to Alaska

Summer is cruising time along the Inside Passage, the roughly 1,000-mile journey from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska. It’s also salmon season, when tens of thousands of Alaska salmon return to the more than 2,000 freshwater streams, rivers and bays where they were hatched, often jumping (as high as 12 feet) up rapids and other obstacles. And salmon fishing is a huge business; sales of Alaska salmon, halibut, cod and crab reach $6 billion a year. Here’s a beautifully written story by Karen Evenden about cruising the Inside Passage with her husband Bill, with gorgeous illustrations by Jean MacKay. But it’s…

Cruising Life
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Texting While Boating? A Very Bad Idea

We all know about the dangers of texting while driving a car, but what about texting while driving your boat? It’s just the same really, leading to distractions, not looking where you’re going, losing situational awareness, and potentially leading to an accident of one shape or another. (I actually have a thing about paying attention when I’m driving a boat, whether it’s my old 8-knot Grand Banks or a 162-mph Fountain raceboat. I do want to concentrate on what’s going on, and I hate it when a passenger, however, well-meaning, leans in front of me to adjust the chartplotter or…

Boat Reviews
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New 50-mph Cutwater 302 Pocket Cruiser: Innovations and Speed. See Video

We first wrote about the new Cutwater 302 when it was launched (last Dec. 14), but now the boat’s in the water, with a video, and it’s even more impressive than we had thought. Indeed, its 50-mph speed, driven by twin 300-hp Yamaha outboards and Cutwater’s double-stepped hull, is eye-opening, and its overall creative engineering and out-of-the-box thinking offer more living and entertaining space on board than you can find on much larger boats. The largest in the Cutwater fleet, the new 302 is a two-cabin, one-head pocket cruiser that actually can sleep six (with two on the convertible dinette).…

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