Cruising Life

Yacht Burns, Sinks, Off Costa Smeralda; 17 Safe. See Video

By Peter Janssen on August 26, 2020 Cruising Life

Lady MM, a 155-foot Italian superyacht, caught fire and sank Tuesday morning about 50 miles off Costa Smeralda in Sardinia. All 17 people on board, nine crew and eight passengers, escaped uninjured on a tender. You can see a video of the fire and sinking below. The Italian Coast Guard in Olbia, on the north coast of Sardinia, picked up a distress call at 6 a.m. saying the yacht was on fire. It dispatched two patrol boats and a helicopter. A few hours later, someone from the yacht made an additional radio call, saying everyone had abandoned ship. A Coast…

Seven Best Beach Bars in Antigua

By Peter Janssen on August 25, 2020 Cruising Life

Antigua is one of the most beautiful, and cruiser-friendly, islands in the world. Indeed, serious cruising people have been heading there since Lord Nelson arrived in 1784, at a spot that is now known as Nelson’s Dockyard. Antigua also is home to some 365 beaches, one for every day o the year, as the tourist people point out, and most of them are gorgeous. Just in case you need another reason to go to Antigua, here’s a list of the seven best beach bars you’ll find there, from the people at The Moorings. (The picture above obviously is not on…

New Wealth Report: Who Owns Yachts, Private Jets, Art

By Peter Janssen on August 24, 2020 Cruising Life

It’s not news that the pandemic has changed the way we live, but a new report on how the wealthy spend their money around the world gives us some new, and perhaps surprising, details about where they’re spending now. It also spells out about the differences among people who buy private jets, yachts, and art. All this is in a new report, the Wealth-X Global Luxury Outlook 2020. Wealth-X has been publishing data on the wealthy since 2010. It defines wealthy as people with at least $5 million, and it has a separate category, called ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) for people with…

Want To Dry Stack Your Bertram 46? No Problem

By Peter Janssen on August 23, 2020 Cruising Life

A new high-tech, fully automated dry-stack marina is coming to Fort Lauderdale, and it is large enough to accommodate a 46-foot boat that has 17 feet above the waterline. And it’s sophisticated enough to deliver your boat to you in five minutes. The new F3 Marina will be at 1335 SE 16th Street, near the 17th Street Causeway (see the map, above), and it’s being built by Miller Construction of Fort Lauderdale. It will have 240 racks in a 59,000-square-foot building that’s 130-feet high. It’s due to be completed in September, 2021. The building will have a 1,750-ton steel frame,…

Coast Guard Releases 2020 Reading List; Pull Up a Chair

By Peter Janssen on August 20, 2020 Cruising Life

The Coast Guard just released its 2020 reading list, and it couldn’t come at a better time when a lot of us are not leading our normal social and work lives. Time for a good book. The new 2020 Coast Guard Professional Development List is based on recommendations from more junior members, officers and enlisted personnel, and the books cover a variety of topics that are relevant to the Coast Guard today. The books include I Don’t Want to Talk About It, by Terrance Real, a psychotherapist; Leadership in Turbulent Times, by Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and The…

How To Read Your Charts To Stay Off the Rocks

By Peter Janssen on August 18, 2020 Cruising Life

Here’s some great advice from Skipper Tips about how to stay off the rocks, or reefs, or even mud flats, that can be hidden at high tides. Take a look, and remember how to read your charts to stay safe: Look at your chart or plotter software and note any areas tinted in shades of green. These are “inter-tidal” areas that cover and uncover based on the state of the tide. These sand bars, marshes, mud flats, oyster beds, coral reefs, shell or rocky bottoms will often be hidden at higher stages of the tide. They may be visible at lower…

Living the Dream in Mexico on a Maritimo 51

By Peter Janssen on August 18, 2020 Cruising Life

Tom Campbell and Beth Davidow know they lead an unconventional life; they also know they’re living the dream. He’s an award-winning wildlife and underwater cinematographer, and she’s a scientist and his filmmaker partner. Together they produce documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel, among other outlets. A few months ago they took delivery of their new, Australian-made Maritimo 51 motor yacht in Newport Beach, California. “We’ve thrown the lines of a conventional life (not that ours was all that conventional) for a life at sea aboard our Maritimo custom 51-foot motor yacht,” she wrote at the time.…

Former Gunboat Sailboat Salvaged, Rebuilt as 64-foot Power Cat

By Peter Janssen on August 17, 2020 Cruising Life

Here’s a story of restoration, renewal and rebirth, of a state-of-the-art sailing catamaran that ran into a storm 200 miles off the coast of North Carolina, lost its mast, and then floated in the Atlantic for 14 months until it was salvaged, taken to the U.K. and redesigned into a 64-foot power cat. (See the video below.) The boat started out as hull number one of the Gunboat 55 series, named Rainmaker. On Jan. 30, 2015, its owner, Brian Cohen, an investor in Pinterest, his son, and three professional crewmembers were sailing it from the Gunboat yard in North Carolina…

Revitalized Northern Marine Building New 57-Foot Pilothouse Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on August 16, 2020 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Northern Marine, the storied builder of high-end expedition yachts, is back, with a new owner, and it’s now finishing a 57 Raised Pilothouse cruiser in its yard in Anacortes, Washington. Northern Marine was started in 1995, at first building strong commercial vessels and then earning a reputation for its robust, world-circling cruising boats. It had a lineup of models from 57 to 100 feet. But then the 2008 recession hit, and a few years later the yard suffered a major blow when a new boat capsized in an accident during its launching, resulting in a video that went viral around…

Prestige Launches New 690S, 31-Knot Sports Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on August 16, 2020 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Prestige Yachts, the French luxury yacht builder, just launched its new 690S cruiser, with sporty looks, a swept-back bridge, and 31-knot Volvo IPS performance. The new 690S is a three-cabin, three-head yacht, with the appealing feature of a private staircase leading to the owner’s stateroom below. The 690S has a low, modern profile, with a raked front windshield; the bridge is situated fairly far aft. The electric sunroof and large windows all around the salon let in a lot of natural light, and long hull side windows on the accommodations deck let in even more light to the staterooms below.…

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