Author Peter Janssen

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Prize-Winning Bronson 50 Comes to U.S.

The prize-winning and tough Bronson 50 from the Dutch builder Steeler Yachts just made its U.S. debut at the Fort Lauderdale show. The high-performance cruiser was already named the Dutch Powerboat of the Year when it was launched two years ago, and it was a finalist for the European Powerboat of the Year last year. The Bronson comes with a back story. The CEO of Steeler is a big fan of Charles Bronson, the American tough-guy actor. In 2008, he wanted to spin off a new company, making tough, aluminum-hulled luxury cruisers, and Bronson Marine was the result. The Bronson…

Cruising Life
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Orcas Sink Boat Off Portugal

A pod of seven orcas sank a 40-foot French sailboat off Portugal as few days ago by ripping a hole in the hull and swimming off with the rudder. The crew of four had to abandon ship in their life raft. They were rescued by a nearby boat and a Portuguese life-saving vessel. The men said the orcas attacked their boat for about 45 minutes before it sank. They said the orcas circled the boat, named Smousse, and at first just bumped it. They said the orcas then attacked so fiercely that they shook the boat until they heard a…

Cruising Life
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Top Ten Boat Names from BoatUS

SPRINGFIELD, Va., Nov. 8, 2022 — Now that recreational boating is coming to a close in much of the country, BoatUS takes a look back at the Top 10 boat names ordered this season through its online boat graphics service and provides some commentary. Andiamo: Meaning “let’s go / we go / come on” in Italian, Andiamo remains in the No. 1 spot from last year’s list. It’s also a happy refrain heard from the person behind the helm as they put the throttle down and head to open waters. Osprey: This year marked the premiere of Osprey, having never…

Destinations
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Doggersbank Cruises to Robinson Crusoe Island

The captain of a Doggersbank 97 explorer yacht just wrote about his trip to Robinson Crusoe Island, yes, that Robinson Crusoe Island, the one that the fictional Robinson Crusoe was stranded on in Daniel Defoe’s 1719 book that became a classic. And, it turns out, Robinson Crusoe Island is a terrific place. The island is a bit remote, about 416 miles off the coast of Chile in the South Pacific. That’s why the 18th century mariner Alexander Selkirk was stranded there for four years before he was rescued (the real back story to Defoe’s book). It is the largest in…

Cruising Life
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New SiOnyx Nightwave Night-Vision Camera

SiOnyx just introduced its innovative Nightwave night vision camera at the recent Lauderdale show. The new Nightwave is an ultra-low-light camera that adds an extra level of safety and situational awareness if you’re navigating at night or in reduced visibility. The new Nightwave uses SiOnyx’s most advanced sensor, the Black Silicon CMOS. It sees well beyond the possibilities of human eyesight  and can detect man-sized objects almost 500 feet away in low-light situations. It also has a 44-degree field of view, offering a fairly wide look at any obstacles ahead – another boat, for example, or a channel marker or…

Boat Reviews
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HMY and Two Oceans Launch Outboard Cruisers

HMY Yacht Sales and Two Oceans Marine just announced that they’re developing a new line of luxurious outboard-powered, express cruising boats, starting with a 50- and a 60-footer. HMY is one of the largest yacht brokers and dealers in the U.S., with offices in Florida and South Carolina. Two Oceans is a long-time builder of blue-water catamarans in Cape Town, South Africa. The two companies joined forces last year to introduce a line of power cats to the U.S. The new express cruisers are the ECLIPSE 505 (pictured at top and below) and ECLIPSE 605. They are designed by Michael…

Boat Reviews
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New Pearl 72: Lots of Superyacht Touches

Pearl just unveiled its new 72 at the Fort Lauderdale show, with some creative touches inside and out. For the interior, the new Pearl has the equivalent of two master staterooms (so nobody feels like a second-class citizen), while the exterior, by Dixon Yacht Design, has Pearl’s supersized raked windshield, deep cut-outs in the bulwarks to open up the views from the salon, and one long piece of glass that replaces windows in the hull sides. It also has a large garage that is revealed when the transom lifts up. The garage is large enough to  hold an 11’ 3”…

Charter
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MarineMax Vacations Celebrates 10 Years in BVI

MarineMax Vacations is celebrating its tenth anniversary in the British Virgin Islands, and it has created a sweepstakes offering a free charter vacation there. You can enter the sweepstakes through the rest of this year. If you win, you’ll get a six-day/five-night charter on a MarineMax 443 power cat next year in the BVI. The MarineMax base is on Nanny Cay on Tortola, a central location to start a charter in the BVI, with some of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. The BVI also are a relatively easy place to cruise; most navigation is line-of-sight. The base…

Ft Lauderdale Boat Show
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Report from FLIBS: An “Incredible” Success

The five-day Fort Lauderdale boat show, billed as the largest in-water boat show in the world, is now in the rear-view mirror, and it was a resounding success. Despite its massive numbers, about 1,000 boats from megayachts to 9-foot RIBs and some 100,000 visitors, I always think of the Lauderdale show as fun. It usually has more superyachts than most other shows, and it has more over-the-top toys and yachting accoutrements than other shows, and this year was no exception. When the show opened, for example, I visited with Roy Heijdra, the marketing manager for U-Boat Worx, the Dutch company…

Cruising Life
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Fishing Boat, Container Ship, Collide. 13 Saved

It’s hard to imagine how this happened, but a 115-foot commercial fishing boat collided with a 1,000-foot container ship 63 miles southwest of Chincoteague, Virginia, last Friday and sank. The Coast Guard and two good Samaritan vessels nearby rescued all 13 people (including a child) who had been on the fishing boat. No one was injured on the containership. The Coast Guard reported that its base in Virginia got a Mayday call at 2 a.m. from the fishing trawler Tremont, from Massachusetts, reporting that they were in a collision with the Rita, a container ship flagged in Panama. The captain…

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