Cruising Life

Legacy Building New Outboard Pocket Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on March 15, 2022 Cruising Life

Legacy Yachts in Ohio is working on a new Legacy 12, the first model in its new Legacy Mark 11 Series, a 45-knot, twin-outboard pocket cruiser with a Down East heritage. Legacy hopes to introduce the new 12 at the Miami show next February. It has an LOA of 39′ 4″ and a beam of 12′ 3.” About two years ago, Seattle Yachts bought Tartan, the sailboat company that had acquired Legacy earlier. Seattle formed a new company, Marine Manufacturing Group, LLC, to make both brands under Phil Friedman, the former president of Palmer Johnson, and moved the plant to…

Favors Trailer New Ranger 25 from Seattle to Florida

By Peter Janssen on March 15, 2022 Cruising Life

Jim and Lisa Favors are certainly veteran travelers, but even for them this was a major undertaking, a 3,400-mile expedition from Seattle, where they picked up their new Ranger Tugs 25, to Fort Myers, Florida, where they started cruising on it. This trip actually started just before Thanksgiving when the Favors left their home in Traverse City, Michigan, to head for Des Moines, just below Seattle, to pick up their new boat. This is the third Ranger Tugs they have owned (after a 27 and a 29). They wrote on their blog, trailertrawlerlife.com, that they downsized because they want to…

Ships Run Aground in Chesapeake, Caribbean

By Peter Janssen on March 15, 2022 Cruising Life

In the past few days, a 1,050-foot container ship ran aground in the Chesapeake after leaving the Port of Baltimore, and a 1,070-foot cruise liner with 3,000 passengers ran aground after leaving Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. There were no reports of injuries in either grounding. In the Chesapeake, the container ship Ever Forward ran aground near Craighill Channel outside the Patapsco River. The ship, holding 11,850 20-foot containers, draws 42.6 feet; it was sitting in 24 feet of water. The Coast Guard and the state’s Department of the Environment were trying to coordinate efforts to refloat it. Local…

New Switlik Head-High Life Vest Design

By Peter Janssen on March 14, 2022 Cruising Life, Gear

Here’s a new look in life vests from Switlik Survival products – the eVolution UA-80 that provides under-arm floatation to keep the wearer’s head and arms higher out of the water than traditional vests do. So far, most vests are the yoke type that you wear around your neck. Switlik takes a different approach, going under the arms. Switlik, with headquarters in Trenton, New Jersey, says the eVolution UA-80 is the first of its kind to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for professional aviators and flight crews. The new Switlik uses a two-chamber inflatable air bladder, an approach…

New Protector 410 RIB with 600-hp Outboards

By Peter Janssen on March 12, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life, Engine Room

Rayglass Boats just announced they’ve built a Protector 410 Targa with twin 600-hp Mercury Verado outboards, the largest outboards ever mounted on a RIB (and Mercury’s most powerful production engine). Rayglass, a New Zealand builder, said they had to customize and strengthen the transom to handle the weight and torque of the massive V12, 7.6 liter displacement outboards. A new 600-hp Verado weighs 1,260 pounds. In an announcement, the company said, “The result is one of the world’s most capable all-water vessels, combining the unmatched power of the Verado V12 engines with the Protector’s world-leading capability for safety and handling.”…

User-Friendly Spring Commissioning Checklist: BoatUS

By co_admin on March 12, 2022 Cruising Life

Here’s an easy-to-follow, quite thorough spring-commissioning checklist from BoatUS: SPRINGFIELD, Va., March 10, 2022 – Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS) offers its Spring Commissioning Checklist to help boaters start the season right. The nation’s largest advocacy, service and savings group also offers BoatUS.com/Spring, a one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about the yearly ritual of recreational boat commissioning. A PDF copy of the checklist is available to download, print, and take to the boat with you. Be sure to follow all manufacturer recommendations for your specific boat, engine and accessories. Before You Launch Inspect all around…

Highfield Launches New 360 GT Console RIB

By Peter Janssen on March 9, 2022 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The new sturdy and lightweight Highfield Classic 360 RIB with a GT Console would make a great companion on the Great Loop, your next cruising vacation, or just for running around your favorite harbor or anchorage. The new Highfield has an aluminum hull, with a 15-degree deadrise and a full-length keelguard for protection if you’re running up on a beach or sandbar. The boat itself is just 11’ 10” long, and weighs 285 pounds. Highfield recommends that you use a 25-hp outboard on the 360GT (although you can go up to a 30-hp model). A 25-hp Yamaha weighs 126 pounds,…

Shackleton’s Endurance Found in Antarctic

By Peter Janssen on March 9, 2022 Cruising Life

Here’s a terrific and extremely thorough story from the BBC about how a team of British researchers found the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, a 144-foot, three-masted wooden ship that was trapped in the ice in Antarctica and sank in 1915, stranding Shackleton and his 27-man crew. Here’s the complete story, with pictures, video and a map: Scientists have found and filmed one of the greatest ever undiscovered shipwrecks 107 years after it sank. The Endurance, the lost vessel of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, was found at the weekend at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. The ship was…

Winners of Underwater Photographer of Year Awards

By Peter Janssen on March 8, 2022 Cruising Life

The Underwater Photographer of the Year organization just announced the winners of its annual worldwide competition. The British organization started the awards seven years ago. In 2020, before the pandemic, the competition drew 5,500 pictures from 500 photographers around the world. This year, because of travel restrictions, the entries were down a bit, with 4,200 images from photographers in 71 countries. Here’s a look at some of the winners: The picture at top, Sunset Ray, was taken by Andy Schmid, a Swiss photographer. It won second place in the wide-angle category. The overall winner was Rafael Fernandez Caballero’s shot, Dancing…

Lazzarini’s Latest: 65-Foot Royal Alpha One

By Peter Janssen on March 8, 2022 Cruising Life

You can’t say that Pierpaolo Lazzarini, 40, the head of the Lazzarini Design Studio in Rome, doesn’t have an active imagination. Indeed, in the past few years he’s designed yachts that like Ferraris, like airplanes, and one unlike anything else because it had a hole in the middle. The one thing these projects had in common is that none of them ever got off the ground. The only Lazzarini yacht design that has been built is the egg-shaped Jet Capsule. Now, Lazzarini has taken that basic concept to its logical conclusion (for him): A futuristic 65-foot, $4 million Royal Alpha…

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