Cruising Life

Ranger, Cutwater Start Webinars To Help Owners During Crisis

By Peter Janssen on May 4, 2020 Cruising Life

Ranger Tugs and Cutwater Boats have started a series of live weekly webinars aimed at helping their owners learn more about their boats during the coronavirus crisis. So far, the webinars, called As the Prop Turns, cover everything from spring maintenance to how to use the boats’ Garmin multifunction display. Hosted by the Ranger and Cutwater customer service teams, the webinars are hosted on Zoom and are free to everyone. You can sign up for them on the link below; you don’t have to purchase anything from Zoom or open an account. You will not be on camera or on…

British Carpenter, 72, Rows Solo Across Atlantic. Sets Records

By Peter Janssen on May 4, 2020 Cruising Life

Graham Walters, a 72-year-old retired British carpenter, just became the oldest person to row across the Atlantic. It took Walters 96 days to row a boat he built in his front garden about 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands to Antigua. And he did it solo. Walters has now rowed across the Atlantic five times, the last in 2007; two times with another person, three by himself. The editor of the Guinness World Records said that Walters now holds three world records: The oldest person to row across the Atlantic solo; the oldest person to row across any ocean solo,…

Palm Beach Boat Show Opens May 14 – On Line

By Peter Janssen on April 29, 2020 Cruising Life, Palm Beach Boat Show

The Palm Beach International Boat Show, rescheduled twice because of the coronavirus pandemic, now will open on Thursday, May 14. And you can watch it from the comfort of your home; it’s all on line. The 35th edition of the increasingly popular show originally was scheduled to run from March 26 through 29 on the West Palm Beach waterfront along Flagler Drive. Then, as virus spread, it was rescheduled from May 14 through 17. Now, Informa Markets, the organizers of the show, have decided to cancel the live event because of safety concerns and move it on line instead. The…

NTSB Faults Duck Boat Company, Coast Guard, in Tragic Sinking

By Peter Janssen on April 29, 2020 Cruising Life

The National Transportation Safety Board just issued a report that spread the blame for the tragic sinking of a duck boat two years ago on a Missouri lake, killing 17 people, among the company that ran the tourist duck boat fleet there, the Coast Guard, and the design of the boat itself. The basic problem, the NTSB said, was that Ripley Entertainment Inc, which ran the Ride the Ducks operation in Branson, Missouri, should have shut down operations after receiving a severe thunderstorm warning before Stretch Duck 7 entered Table Rock Lake with 29 passengers and a crew of two…

New Seafloatech Eco-Friendly Group Mooring Pods

By Peter Janssen on April 27, 2020 Cruising Life

Here’s a new communal mooring system from Seafloatech, a British company, that holds a group of boats in a pod connected to the seabed with a single permanent anchor. It’s designed to be eco-friendly and reduce damage to the seabed in areas with sensitive ecosystems. The way it works is that a central Seafloatech pod is built around the permanent anchor as the base. It’s held in place by an anchor screw to the seafloor. An articulated mast is hooked to the base with a hydraulic piston. It swings from side to side and rises and falls with the tide.…

Trouble in Paradise: Cruisers Overwhelm USVI

By Peter Janssen on April 26, 2020 Cruising Life, Destinations

So many cruising boats have headed to the U.S. Virgin Islands recently because of the COVID-19 pandemic that they have caused worries about overloading the finite resources on the islands there. At this time of year, there usually about 270 boats moored or anchored in the USVI – St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, and Water Island. Now there are about 600. The problem is that many ports have closed across the Caribbean to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The USVI, subject to U.S. laws, at first welcomed cruisers. On March 27, Gov. Albert Bryan, Jr., said the islands…

Michigan Opens Again to Motor Boats

By Peter Janssen on April 26, 2020 Cruising Life

Here’s some very good news for motor boat owners in Michigan: You can go boating again. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has removed her ban on the use of motorized boats in Michigan waters. Her new announcement came just days before a hearing was scheduled in a lawsuit brought by the Michigan United Conservation Club, challenging the ban as unconstitutional. The original ban, part of the Governor’s stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19, made the use of any boat powered by a gas or electric motor illegal, but it permitted the use of canoes, kayaks and sailboats. It was very…

Maine Marinas: Operating in Uncharted Waters

By Peter Janssen on April 25, 2020 Cruising Life

Here’s a timely story from the Press Herald in Portland, Maine: YARMOUTH — Motorists whizzing across the Interstate 295 bridge over the Royal River at this time of year are accustomed to glancing at a harbinger of summer on the Maine coast – the daily progression of recreational boats being moored in the anchorage and docked at the three marinas lining the tidal shores. But in this pandemic spring, the scene is strikingly different. Few more than a handful of vessels were dockside early this week, an indicator of how the state’s 40 or so major marinas have been forced…

Warmest Oceans on Record Add to Hurricane Risk

By Peter Janssen on April 22, 2020 Cruising Life

Warmest Oceans on Record Adds to Hurricanes, Wildfires Risks By Brian K. Sullivan (Bloomberg) — The world’s seas are simmering, with record high temperatures spurring worry among forecasters that the global warming effect may generate a chaotic year of extreme weather ahead. Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans all hit the record books for warmth last month, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. The high temperatures could offer clues on the ferocity of the Atlantic hurricane season, the eruption of wildfires from the Amazon region to Australia, and whether the record heat and severe thunderstorms raking…

Ship Captain Murdered Off Colombia. What Happened?

By Peter Janssen on April 21, 2020 Cruising Life

Only one fact is clear: Myo Tun Zaw, 50, the captain of the container ship Spirit of Hamburg, was murdered while it was anchored off Cartagena, Colombia. His body was found on deck about 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 16. After that, stories differ. In one version, he was killed by members of his crew. In another, he was killed by an intruder. Captain Zaw’s body was examined by a forensics team in Cartagena, and the local media reported he was killed by members of his crew. Colombian authorities were investigating. The Spirit of Hamburg, a 833-feet-long ship built in…

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