Cruising Life

Great Holiday Boat Parades, from Coast to Coast

By Peter Janssen on December 1, 2019 Cruising Life

Now that we’re into December, the holiday boat parade season is well underway. It’s the time of year when boat owners decorate their vessels with everything from simple strands of lights to Hollywood-worthy productions of Santas, reindeer, elves and almost anything else you can think of with a seasonal theme. Most of the parades, of course, are in the warmer parts of the country, with enormous ones in Fort Lauderdale on the east coast and Newport Beach on the west coast. It’s no surprise that Florida has the most of all; you can see a list of all the parades there…

NOAA Will Stop Making Paper Charts

By Peter Janssen on November 24, 2019 Cruising Life

I don’t know about you, but in a room upstairs at home I have rolled up charts that I’ve used for cruising in the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Great Lakes over the years. You may have a similar space in your home, or on your boat. They remind me of many great (and some not-so-great) places I’ve been, miles under the belt. They’re a part of my history. Soon they may be relics. NOAA just announced that it will phase out all production of paper charts over the next five years. It will make electronic vector charts instead. NOAA…

U SAFE Big Winner in METS Awards. See Video

By Peter Janssen on November 23, 2019 Cruising Life

The innovative remote-controlled U SAFE life buoy was the big winner in the recent DAME design awards handed out at big METS marine equipment show in Amsterdam. Indeed, U SAFE won the top prize in the prestigious annual design competition, and it also won the award in the Lifesaving and Safety Equipment Category. Garmin also won two awards, one for its Garmin GPSMAP 86i in the marine electronics category, and one, as a co-winner, for its Garmin Force Trolling Motor in the Machinery and Propulsion Category. The other co-winner there was the Navico GHOST Trolling Motor. The DAME design awards…

Totally Over-the-Top Holiday Gifts for Superyacht Owners

By Peter Janssen on November 20, 2019 Cruising Life

Many, many years ago, when my children were young and we had a sailboat, they gave me a sailbag for Christmas. The next year, it was a hand-held compass. I was very happy with both of these presents; my children knew how to connect with my passion. Later on, when they flew down to Fort Lauderdale to join me on our Grand Banks for a holiday cruise to Ocean Reef in the Keys, they brought a set of drinking glasses that I still have to this day. Those are normal kinds of holiday gifts for boat owners. Last week we…

Colin O’Brady Wants To Row to Antarctica

By Peter Janssen on November 18, 2019 Cruising Life

Colin O’Brady is a professional adventurer, an endurance athlete whose last major feat was to set a record for the world’s first solo crossing of Antarctica. He’s also climbed up Mt. Everest and holds three mountaineering world records. All these adventures were on land. Now O’Brady, part of a team of six, wants to row 600 to 800 miles across the Drake Passage from Cape Horn at the tip of South America to Antarctica, some of the most dangerous waters in the world. It doesn’t bother him that until three months ago he had never rowed anything at all. O’Brady,…

Manatees Return to Florida for the Winter

By Peter Janssen on November 18, 2019 Cruising Life

Manatees are returning to Florida for the winter, so boaters need to be extra careful to avoid the huge, slow-moving creatures. Adult manatees are about ten feet long and weigh 1,000 pounds, and they like to swim just below the surface, so they are very susceptible to injury from passing boats. They also are slow, usually swimming at just 3 to 5 mph, although they can go as fast as 20 mph in short bursts. The gentle sea cows are creatures of habit, often returning to the same place year after year. They gather in Florida from November through March…

Coast Guard Busts Sub with 5,000 Pounds of Cocaine

By Peter Janssen on November 18, 2019 Cruising Life

The Coast Guard has boarded and seized a submarine carrying more than 5,000 pounds of cocaine – worth more than $69 million – somewhere in the Eastern Pacific. There was so much coke on the narco sub that the Coast Guard cutter that made the bust had to call in a larger cutter with a crane to offload the drugs. The semi-submersible boat was seized by law enforcement officers from the Harriet Lane, a 270-foot Coast Guard cutter, after a patrol plane had spotted it. Boarding teams from the cutter climbed on the sub just before midnight and took control…

Maine Maritime Academy Degree Pays Off More Than Harvard

By Peter Janssen on November 17, 2019 Cruising Life

Want to make money after you graduate from college? Forget Harvard. Go to Maine Maritime Academy instead. If that doesn’t work, think about the United States Merchant Marine Academy. A new study from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce shows that in terms of return on investment 40 years after graduation, Maine Maritime Academy is number six in the top ten among 4,500 colleges studied, Harvard is number eight, and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy is number ten. For some perspective here, Harvard was founded in 1636 and has an endowment of $40.9 billion. Maine Maritime Academy, a…

Two Superyachts Destroyed in Fort Lauderdale Fire. See Video

By Peter Janssen on November 17, 2019 Cruising Life

A dramatic pre-dawn fire destroyed two superyachts at the Universal Marine Center in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday morning. More than 100 firefighters fought the fire, which sent flames and smoke soaring into the air, for four hours. No one was injured in the fire, but Reflections, a 107-foot, 1997 Christiansen (left, in the picture above), and Lohengrin, a 160-foot, 2006 Trinity, were destroyed. Fort Lauderdale Battalion Chief Stephen Gollan said the fire appeared to have started on Lohengrin and spread to Reflections, which was next to it. Witnesses said they heard explosions as the fire spread. Lohengrin was valued at…

NTSB Criticizes Coast Guard in Fatal Duck Boat Sinking

By Peter Janssen on November 15, 2019 Cruising Life

The National Transportation Safety Board has just criticized the Coast Guard for ignoring suggestions about improving the safety of duck boats for almost 20 years. The proposals possibly could have prevented the sinking of a duck boat, known as Stretch Duck 7, in a storm on July 23, 2018, on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri, killing 17 people on board. The criticism came in a NTSB Safety Recommendation Report even while the federal agency is still investigating the sinking. The NTSB is urging the Coast Guard to require sufficient reserve buoyancy on duck boats (amphibious passenger vessels similar to…

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