Author Peter Janssen

Cruising Life
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Greenland Shark Found Off Belize

What’s a Greenland shark doing in Belize? Marine scientists aren’t exactly sure how to answer that question. What they do know is that one was found there recently, swimming thousands of miles away from its natural habitat. After studying  pictures, they determined that the shark they found in the Caribbean was indeed a Greenland shark, the longest-living vertebrate in the world. Adult Greenland sharks are usually about 24 feet long and weigh 2,200 pounds. They are predatory. Greenland sharks aren’t exactly a garden-variety shark. They usually live thousands of feet underwater in the pitch dark near the Arctic, and are…

Cruising Life
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Jimmy Buffett: A Full Life

For more than half a century, Jimmy Buffett made people happy. It’s almost impossible to listen to one of Buffett’s songs and not end up with a smile on your face; you want to sing along, to join the fun. At his concerts (as many as 250 a year), people did just that, shouting out the refrains (“salt, salt, salt”) and reciting the well-memorized lyrics. They not only liked Jimmy Buffett’s music, they wanted to join Jimmy Buffett’s life. He was authentic, the real thing. He led the life his Parrotheads dreamed about. And why not? Jimmy Buffett seemed to…

Boat Reviews
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Tyde Launches New 43-foot Icon

The eye-catching Tyde Icon, with looks like nothing else on the water, will make first show appearance at the Cannes Yachting Festival starting on Sept. 12. The all-electric Icon is a foiling luxury vessel, using leading-edge technology to provide a smooth, and quiet, ride for a group of passengers. The 43-foot boat is powered by two 100 kW electric motors giving it a top speed of 33 knots and a range of more than 50 nm at its cruising speed of 24 knots. It comes with a battery capacity of 240 kWh. The Icon has a beam of 14’ 7”…

Cruising Life
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NTSB Urges Coast Guard To Act on Safety

The National Transportation Safety Board is urging the Coast Guard to adopt safety management regulations for small passenger vessels, one of the recommendations that the NTSB made as a result of the fire on the commercial dive boat Conception that killed 34 people off Southern California in September, 2019. Safety management systems (SMS) regulations now are now looser for smaller passenger vessels than they are for cargo ships and workboats. But the NTSB has asked the Coast Guard to tighten them since 2005. Congress approved a tightening in 2010. For its part, the Coast Guard says it has made some…

Cruising Life
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Man Overboard from World’s Largest Cruise Ship

A 19-year-old college student, on vacation with a group of friends, somehow fell off the world’s largest cruise ship off the Coast of Cuba last week and has not been found. Sigmund Ropich is from Texas but he was attending college in Washington State. He fell off the Wonder of the Seas about 9 at night on the second day of a seven-day cruise from Port Canaveral in Florida. The ship measures 1,188 feet long and was carrying 5,606 passengers and 2,300 crew on its 18 decks. Royal Caribbean International, which owns the ship, said, “The ship’s crew immediately launched…

Cruising Life
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Idalia’s Storm Surge Slams into Florida’s Big Bend

The most terrifying part of Hurricane Idalia, which hit Florida on Wednesday morning, even more than the 129-mph winds and the blinding rain, was the storm surge. When Idalia slammed into the Big Bend area, north of Tampa and south of Tallahassee, it rose as high as 12 feet, about the level of the second floor in most houses. “I was swimming inside my house,” one Big Bend survivor told NBC News. The good news is that the bulk of the storm passed north of the heavily populated Tampa area, although there was a lot of local flooding. Indeed, 9.4…

Destinations
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Newport: A Cruiser’s Mecca

The 52nd annual Newport, Rhode Island, boat show starts Sept. 14, and if you love looking at new boats, then that’s the place to be. But you don’t need the excuse of a boat show to head for Newport. One of the best and most welcoming cruising destinations on the East Coast, Newport has a lot to offer all year long. At the end of Aquidneck Island, bounded on one side by the Atlantic and the other by Narragansett Bay, Newport (pop. 25,000) is built along a picturesque, largely protected harbor about 10 nm in from Point Judith. That means…

Boat Reviews
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Pearl to Display New 62 with Volvo Assisted Docking

Pearl will demonstrate Volvo’s new Assisted Docking system at the Southampton boat show starting Sept. 15. on its award-winning 62, the British builder’s best-selling model. Volvo’s Assisted Docking is a stem-to-stern system designed to take the stress out of docking a boat, even one as large as the Pearl 62. It represents the next generation of marine automation (although it does not replace a captain at the helm) and makes docking even in tight spaces safe and easy, compensating for the dynamics of wind and current. You control the boat’s direction and speed, while the system automatically adjusts for everything…

Cruising Life
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Mercury Unveils New 20e and 35e Electric Outboards

Mercury Marine just launched its new Avator 20e and 35e electric outboards that you can order now. Mercury launched its first electric outboard, the Avator 7.5e, at the Consumer Electronics Show last January. John Buelow, the president of Mercury Marine, said the two new outboards “set new benchmarks for innovation, performance, and connectivity.” The 20e and 35e have many of the same features as the earlier 7.5e, including transverse flux motor technology, color display, and ambidextrous tiller handles. They also can be connected to multiple Avator batteries to extend their range and run time, and they have access to the…

Cruising Life
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Coast Guard Rescues 4 Men, Dog

The Coast Guard rescued four men and a dog just minutes before their 30-foot powerboat capsized off the coast of New Jersey on Sunday. Someone from the boat put out a Mayday call saying it was sinking near the Forked River in Barnegat Bay. A 29-foot fast response boat from the Coast Guard station at Barnegat Light was already in the water and headed to the scene. The recreational boat capsized and sank just moments after the Coast Guard had rescued the four men and the dog. The Coast Guard took the men and the dog to a marina in…

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