Cruising Life

Wave Piercing 75-Foot Explorer Yacht For Sale

By Peter Janssen on January 24, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

If you think you might run into some heavy seas on your next cruise (or even on the cruise after that), you might want to take a look at Enmer, a 75-foot explorer yacht that’s built to handle them all. Enmer in a 2019 version of a 75-foot, 44-knot Safehaven Marine XSV20 that’s built to go anywhere in the world. The front windshield is supposed to be bulletproof: It’s made of inch-thick ballistic glass. The hull is designed to blast through waves offshore, not riding over the top. The hull is reinforced with carbon fiber and Kevlar, and it has…

Great White Shark Bites Boat’s Motors off Tampa

By Peter Janssen on January 23, 2021 Cruising Life

A great white shark took a bite out of the outboards on a SeaVee 34 in the Gulf of Mexico about 65 miles southwest of Tampa last week. The shark also tried to bite the boat itself. “It was breathtaking,” Erika Almond told FOX 13 in Tampa. “It came right up and took a chunk out of one of our motors.” She said the shark, about 14- to 16-feet long, approached the boat cautiously, looking for something to eat, before it started biting into the motors and the hull. “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing,” she said. Almond has…

Winners of the Annual MBY Motor Boat Awards

By Peter Janssen on January 20, 2021 Cruising Life

The editors of Motor Boat & Yachting, the British magazine, just announced the winners of their prestigious annual Motor Boat Awards. The awards were for boats in six categories, and they were announced in a virtual ceremony, because of the pandemic. The editors tested all the finalists for the awards, some 29 boats, in the past year. Hugo Andreae, the magazine’s editor, said that all the finalists were “boats that I’d happily recommend to a friend.” (The Prestige 420 Fly is pictured above.) Here are the winners: Sportsboats and RIBs: Nimbus T8 Sportscruisers Up To 40 Feet: Grandezza 37CA Sportscruisers…

New Electric 3400 Herley Power Cat with 2,500 nm Range

By Peter Janssen on January 20, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Herley Boats, the New Zealand builder, just launched a new electric, aluminum Herley 3400 power cat with a range of 2,500 nm at 8 knots. The new Herley is silent, and has minimal impact on the environment. It runs on solar/electric or diesel power. Its top performance comes from running on electric and diesel simultaneously. Running on its battery alone, the boat travels at 6 knots for six hours. But it has a “range extender” that includes a 120kW permanent-magnet diesel generator that provides the 2,500 nm maximum range. The electric drive comes from twin 100kW motors that can propel…

Brunswick Starts On-Water Classes for New Boaters

By Peter Janssen on January 19, 2021 Cruising Life

The good news is that more and more Americans, often seeking an escape from the pandemic, bought powerboats last year than ever before. The bad news is that at least some (many?) of them were new to boating, and were not familiar with the Rules of the Road or even basic boat-handling. Now the Brunswick Corp. is doing something about that. Brunswick, the corporate parent of Mercury Marine, Bayliner, Boston Whaler, Crestliner, Cypress Cay, Harris, Heyday, Lowe, Lund, Princecraft, Quicksilver, Rayglass, Sea Ray, Thunder Jet and Uttern boats, plus the Boating Services Network and the Freedom Boat Club, just announced…

First Swan Powerboat: 55-Knot, 40-foot, Swan Shadow

By Peter Janssen on January 19, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Nautor Swan just announced the debut of its first powerboat, the 40-foot Swan Shadow, with the same elegant, minimalist design that the famed Finnish builder has been using in its sailboats for generations. The new Swan Shadow is a bit faster than previous Swans. Indeed, with optional triple 350-hp Mercury Verados outboards, it tops out at 55 knots. Leonard Ferragamo, the Nautor Swan president, says the company had been thinking about making a powerboat for years, “but we always resisted this temptation until we really felt we had something really special and unique to present.” “We wanted to create something…

Nordhavn Building All-New 51 Long-Range Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on January 18, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Pacific Asian Enterprises, the parent company for Nordhavn, just announced that it’s building an all-new Nordhavn 51 long-range cruiser, a larger version of the 41 that it launched last summer. The new 51 will have two staterooms and two heads, a flybridge and an elevated pilothouse, all offering upgrades from the 41. The 51 will be built on a production line in Turkey, next to the 41. The two boats will offer a streamlined building process that does not allow for the individual customization that’s possible on other Nordhavn models. The 51 will be powered by twin 160-hp John Deere…

Beneteau Making New Gran Turismo 41 Express

By Peter Janssen on January 17, 2021 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Beneteau just announced that it’s making a new Gran Turismo 41 express cruiser with a focus on performance, comfort and entertaining on board. A successor to the Gran Turismo 40, the new 41 has two cabins and one head below, and optional twin 380-hp Volvo sterndrives will give it a top speed of 38 knots. With its sporty lines, the 41 has a raked front windshield, a hardtop that opens almost all the way aft, and a galley both up and below. It fits in the middle of Beneteau’s Gran Turismo express cruiser line, which has six models from 32…

Stolen Floating Tiki Bar Recovered in Key West

By Peter Janssen on January 15, 2021 Cruising Life

You couldn’t make this up. Somebody stole the Squeaky Tiki, a floating Key West tiki bar, and then was arrested after the Coast Guard found him slumped over the wheel the next morning, apparently intoxicated. The Coast Guard Station Key West reports that it recovered the Squeaky Tiki after it got an 8 a.m. call from FishMonster, a Key West charter boat, saying that it had found the floating tiki hut and that things seemed amiss. The boat is owned by Cruisin Tikis Key West, which asks on its website: “Why go bar hopping…when you can hop on a bar.”…

Big Changes for Miami Shows in 2022

By Peter Janssen on January 14, 2021 Cruising Life, Miami Boat Show

The Miami boat shows over Presidents’ Day weekend will get a lot bigger, and better, starting in 2022. Say goodbye to Virginia Key; say hello (again) to the Miami Beach Convention Center. In 2022, the land part of the show will go back to the newly renovated Miami Beach Convention Center, while the water portions will be focused at the Sea Isle Marina and One Herald Plaza, flanking the western portion of the Venetian Causeway in downtown Miami. A superyacht part of the show will be at Island Gardens Deep Harbour on Watson Island. The show dates are Wednesday, Feb.…

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