Thursday, March 28

Browsing: Cruising Life

Last week we ran a video about the $40 million superyacht Yogi. It was less than a year old when it sank in the Aegean, and at more than 195 feet, it was the largest yacht ever to sink. The video asked the obvious question, why did this yacht sink? Now we have part two of the video, which is an attempt to answer that question, based on the report by French authorities and other reporting. And it’s complicated. You can see the video below. Yogi was launched at the Proteskan Turquoise yard in Turkey in April, 2011, and it…

Cox Marine, based in Shoreham-by-Sea in the U.K.,  just won approval from the Environmental Protection Agency to sell its new 300-hp diesel outboard, the most powerful diesel outboard in the world, in the U.S. The new outboard had to meet the EPA’s full Tier 3 emissions standards to be approved for both commercial and recreational applications in the U.S. Cox says it will start shipping the new diesels to the U.S. by the end of the month. The company says the diesel outboard burns 25 percent less fuel and has three times the lifespan when compared to a gas outboard with…

Two friends were fishing a few hundred yards off the New Jersey Shore about noon this past Monday, on a 23-foot center console in about 25 feet of water. Then a humpback whale suddenly breached, hit their boat, and threw them into the water. They had seen whales earlier in the day, but they didn’t see this one. “It came out of nowhere,” Jay DeBenedict, 62, told the Toms River Shorebeat. “This whale breached and I thought he was going to land in the middle of the boat. He hit right against the T-top.” DeBenedict and his friend, Robert Riley,…

Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest tennis players in recent history, just took possession of his new 80 Sunreef Power catamaran in his home on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Western Med. The luxurious $5.7 million yacht was launched last month at the Sunreef yard in Gdansk, Poland, and cruised down to Mallorca. Nadal, who has won 19 Grand Slam men’s singles titles and is currently rated at the number two player in the world, says he has loved yachting since his childhood. He grew up in the town of Manacor, on Mallorca, where he still has a…

The 556-feet-long Super Servant 4, a transport ship that carries yachts around the world, ran into some problems when it started to offload its cargo in Palma, Mallorca. The semi-submersible ship was carrying six superyachts and other cargo from Fort Lauderdale. It weighs 12,600 tons and has a 105-foot beam. The problem was that it lost power as it started to submerge in Palma, and then developed a severe list to starboard. The captain was not able to right the ship, and several yachts came to rest next to each other. Emergency personnel used heavy dock lines and a tug…

Aquila just built the 100th hull of its 44 power cat, attesting to the popularity of the spacious cruiser in both the private market and charter fleets around the world. Aquila 44s are now in more than 20 countries, and are used in Dream Yacht Charter fleets in France, Belgium and Greece, and by MarineMax Vacations in the British Virgin Islands. The 100th hull is going to a private buyer in Hong Kong. You can buy the Aquila 44 with either three or four cabins; the three-cabin version is more popular with private buyers; the four-cabin in charter fleets. The…

Just as James and Jennifer Hamilton were ready to move even farther up the west coast of Scotland, riding out the coronavirus pandemic in some of the more remote harbors there, they passed a milestone. “We just crossed 11,000 trouble-free hours on our John Deere main engine,” James wrote on their blog, mvdirona.com. The Hamiltons, a high-tech couple from Seattle, now have put about 75,000 miles under the hull of Dirona, a Nordhavn 52 they bought new in 2009. They’ve been living and working aboard since 2012, and have completed one circumnavigation and two Atlantic crossings. After spending the winter…

If the COVID-19 crisis has put a crimp in your cruising plans this summer, take heart. Now you can take a cruise around Lake Buena Vista just south of Orlando in one of The Boathouse’s vintage amphibious cars. It’s not exactly an offshore voyage, or even a daytrip on the ICW, but it does look like fun. The Boathouse just announced that it is reopening its amphicar business in Disney Springs, and it’s offering a significant discount to get people back on the water. Usually a ticket for a 20-minute ride costs $125; now it’s down to $75. Each ride…

Yanmar is moving ahead quickly in the field of creating a totally autonomous blue-water boat, one that navigates and docks all on its own. The company already has developed a docking system that works much faster than a previous version, and an offshore nav system that seems much safer. Yanmar is concentrating on its autonomous marine technology largely because of labor shortages in Japan’s fisheries industries – at a time when the marine aquaculture industry is booming in Asia. The engine builder wants to create a vessel that can serve the fishing fleet without the need to put a crew…

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