Cruising Life

Fast-Car Designer Builds a Wooden All-Electric Classic

By Peter Janssen on March 9, 2020 Cruising Life

Here’s a boat that will turn heads: The 31-foot, all-wood, all-electric custom Riverbreeze, developed and owned by Frank Stephenson for cruising on The Thames, behind his house about 35 miles west of London. What’s unusual about this boat, other than its beautiful lines and gleaming brightwork, is its owner. Stephenson is the head of Frank Stephenson Design in London, and he designs cars, usually fast cars, always iconic cars. Over the years, he’s been the design director of McLaren Automotive, and he’s drawn the lines of custom and production cars including the McLaren P1 (above), the Ferrari F430, the BMW…

Large New Steelpointe Marina Opens in Bridgeport, CT

By Peter Janssen on March 9, 2020 Cruising Life, Destinations

Here’s some good news for anyone cruising up or down Long Island Sound this year. The new Steelpointe Harbor Marina, with 200 slips on floating concrete docks, is open in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Steelpointe offers a new overnight (or longer) destination for anyone heading to or from New York, Mystic, Newport, the islands or farther Down East, and it has all the amenities to make a visit comfortable. The driving force behind Steelpointe is its location. It’s part of a $1 billion, 55-acre waterfront development in Bridgeport. A super-sized Bass Pro Shop opened there in 2016, and now there’s a Starbucks,…

The Cruising Life: Bumfuzzle in the DR

By Peter Janssen on March 5, 2020 Cruising Life

Patrick Schulte and his family just reached Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic on Bumfuzzle, their 1986 Grand Banks 42, continuing their cruising life in the Caribbean. When we last checked with them, they were in the Caymans at the start of the year. Since then they’ve gone down to Jamaica, and then over to the DR. It took the Schultes, Pat, his wife Ali, their daughter Quest, 10, and son, Lowe, 8, about 48 hours to go from Port Antonio, Jamaica, to Santo Domingo. They waited for a three-day weather window, and then left early in the morning, helped…

New Music Hull: Listen To Your Favorite Tunes Underwater

By Peter Janssen on March 3, 2020 Cruising Life

Here’s something you probably haven’t thought about before: Music Hull from Videoworks, a revolutionary new acoustic system that lets you listen to your favorite tunes underwater. And no, it’s not a group of underwater speakers. It is instead a system of six “shakers” that are built into the inner hull that produces high-fidelity music you can hear underwater for up to 65 feet away from the boat. Music Hull uses the hull as if it were a high-definition speaker. The shakers are placed on the inner surface of the Pershing’s carbon-fiber hull and they make the hull vibrate in the…

How To Get Ready: Spring Commissioning Checklist from BoatUS

By Peter Janssen on March 3, 2020 Cruising Life, Maintenance

It’s that time of year again. With spring approaching, it’s time to get the boat ready for the new season. Here’s a great checklist from BoatUS about what to do now: SPRINGFIELD, Va., March 3, 2020 – Getting the boat ready for the summer boating season is an exciting time for America’s nearly 12 million recreational boaters. Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS) has a Spring Commissioning Checklist to help boaters start the season right, along with a new YouTube Spring Fitting Out video library that shows you how to do some basic tasks, from changing the outdrive…

Brooklyn Marina Closes: Fuhgeddaboudit

By Peter Janssen on March 3, 2020 Cruising Life

The well-established Marine Basin Marina on Brooklyn’s Gravesend Bay will close on April 1, forcing some 200 boat owners to find a new spot for their vessels. The marina, on Brooklyn’s western shore opposite Staten Island, offered deep-water access to fishing and cruising on the Lower Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The Brooklyn Paper reports that the Gagliano family owned the marina for half a century and is selling it, and adjacent properties, to a real estate investment firm for $57.5 million. The marina’s website said it offered “endless opportunities for shopping, eating, drinking. You can also just roam around…

New Deal Island 50: A Modern Classic from Australia

By Peter Janssen on March 2, 2020 Cruising Life

You probably won’t be seeing the new Deal Island 50 in person, unless you’re heading for Melbourne, Australia, but you might want to take a look at it anyway, since it strikes me as one of the best-looking boats to come along in quite a while. And it does take advantage of two international boating trends: the emergence of more and more classic Down East type boats, and the growing popularity of day boats or weekend cruisers. The boat pictured above is the first of a line of 50-feet fast ocean cruisers built by the Wooden Boat Shop south of…

New Bitter End Inflatable SUP; Fits in a Backpack

By Peter Janssen on March 2, 2020 Cruising Life, Gear

Before it was devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September, 2017, the Bitter End Yacht Club was one of the most sought-after, and highly recognized, destinations in the British Virgin Islands. The Bitter End has been rebuilding its 64 acres since then, but in the interim it has launched Bitter End Provisions, “to help you prepare for your next nautical adventure.” The company says the criteria for something to qualify as a Bitter End Provision are that “It works hard and works often. That it has been tested at sea. And that it pairs really well with a bottle…

Coast Guard Chopper Rescues Couple, Dog, Off Oregon Coast

By Peter Janssen on March 1, 2020 Cruising Life

A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a couple and their dog after they were stuck in rough seas off the Columbia River bar in Oregon. You can see the Coast Guard’s video of the 4 a.m. rescue below. The couple, a 55-year-old man and 56-year-old woman, first called the Coast Guard at 2:30 p.m. They were on a 44-foot powerboat with their dog, off the coast of Seaside, and they were worried about crossing the bar to return home. The Coast Guard sent a rescue boat to find them. In a statement, the Coast Guard said, “The rescue crew determined…

Woman Awarded $3.7 Million in Fall From Yacht in Travelift

By Peter Janssen on February 24, 2020 Cruising Life

A New Jersey woman will receive $3.7 million in a settlement for traumatic brain injuries she suffered when she fell off a ladder from a boat suspended in a marina Travelift. The woman, Jennifer Brashears, 48, fell 10 feet from the top step of a ladder and hit her head on the paved parking lot at the Edgewater Marina in Edgewater, New Jersey. Surgeons had to remove a third of her skull to prevent fatal swelling, but she was left with a disabling brain injury and has not been able to work since the accident on July 22, 2014. On…

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