Author Peter Janssen

Cruising Life
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Meet Laura Comela and Kevin Morris as They Cruise the Pacific Northwest

Laura Comela and Kevin Morris are hardly a stay at home couple. Indeed, it seems that they’re always on the road, or on the water, or in the air. That’s because they have a 27-foot Airstream for the road, a 34-foot Nordic Tug for the water, and a Cirrus turbojet for the air. They actually live in Portland, Oregon, where she’s a studio photographer, and he runs an electronic publishing business (Electronic Engineering Journal). But when they’re traveling, he runs his business from anywhere in the world, and she takes pictures, anywhere in the world. Right now Comela and Morris…

Cruising Life
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New Photos from the Titanic: It Wasn’t the Iceberg??

Just when we thought we knew everything about the Titanic, an Irish journalist found old photos, taken by the chief engineer of the Belfast shipyard that built the unsinkable ship, showing the extensive damage caused by a coal fire that started three weeks before the Titanic left the dock in Southampton in 1912. The photos had been stored in an attic in Southwest England. The journalist uncovered them while doing research on a documentary. They clearly show the extent of the fire in a three-story coal bunker, next to one of the ship’s boiler rooms, that damaged the hull and…

Cruising Life
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New 32-Knot Grand Banks 60 Flagship Coming This Summer

The new, more contemporary Grand Banks 60 is under construction in the factory in Malaysia, and is due to be launched this summer. The three-stateroom, two-head cruiser will be the flagship of the Grand Banks Heritage fleet, which now tops out at 54 feet. Built under the leadership of Grand Banks (and Palm Beach) CEO Mark Richards, the new 60 also will be stronger and lighter and made with more sophisticated materials than previous models, reflecting Richards’ decades of experience as one of the leading sailboat racers in the world. We don’t have may details yet, but we know the…

Cruising Life
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Granny, World’s Oldest Killer Whale, Dies at 100

The last time anyone saw Granny, the world’s oldest killer whale, was more than two years ago in the Salish Sea between  Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle. Researchers, who had been studying orcas there for many years, thought she was about 100 years old then, qualifying her as the oldest killer whale on the planet, and she was still using her accumulated wisdom to find food for her whale family. They now assume that she has died. Read about Granny here: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38496164 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38496164

Cruising Life
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Yikes! Watch an SUV Slide Off Ferry and Just Float Away

This is so weird: A video showing an SUV (without passengers, fortunately) sliding off the back of a ferry heading for Fraser Island in Queensland, Australia, on New Year’s Eve.  It floats for a while, and then, after the video ends, finally sinks. Not a happy way to start the New Year. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg1x0WYq-cI

Cruising Life
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It May Look Like an Egg, But This Jet Capsule is Really a 20-Knot Cruiser. See the Video

You probably don’t want to take the Jet Capsule on the Great Loop (the locks would be a problem), or on the Inside Passage to Alaska, but I’d love to have one for tooling around Fort Lauderdale, say, or Lake Union in Seattle or even Narragansett Bay off Newport. It may look like an egg, but the new jet-powered craft is 24 feet long, 12 feet wide and with a 370-hp Rotax 4TEC engine it’s supposed to cruise at 20 knots. And it’s fun. Be the first kid on your block…Take at look at this video of the Jet Capsule,…

Destinations
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St. Barts: The Ultimate Destination for New Year’s Eve – or Any Other Time

You don’t have your invitation yet for New Year’s Eve in St Barts? Not to worry. Take your own boat, or join a friend’s charter, there any time of the year. But here’s a good update about what’s new on that beautiful, decidedly upscale international yachting destination – restaurants, hotels, bars, and villas that have opened or closed recently. At St. Barts, it’s best to keep up with these things. Take a look: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2016/12/26/billionaire-superyacht-showdown-whos-who-in-st-barts-for-new-years/#35c2a2845929

Cruising Life
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Coast Guard Icebreakers Start Clearing the Great Lakes

So you think it’s cold where you are? Take a look at the ice beard on the crane on the Coast Guard Cutter Alder, above. And that’s before the 225-foot Alder and other Coast Guard vessels start their annual ice-breaking duties on the Great Lakes. They’re starting on northern Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, and then will move south (relatively speaking) as winter sets in. The Coast Guard urges recreational boaters to use caution in the area. See the story, and more  pictures, here: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/12/coast_guard_begins_ice_breakin.html

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