Cruising Life

New Evo R4 WA: Just Keeps Growing

By Peter Janssen on May 7, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

If you missed the Italian-made 43-foot Evo R4 WA at the recent Palm Beach show, you can still catch it as the Venice show that starts at the city’s historic Arsenal on May 29. But wherever you find it, the uber-modern Evo, devoid of things like stand-up cleats and railings that might interrupt its clean lines, is bound to turn a lot of heads. And that’s before you push a button and deploy the bulwarks from both sides aft, or push another one and the transformer-type stern opens up and unfolds a terrace down to water level. The concept of…

Selene 72: Big Blue-Water Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on May 7, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The Selene 72 Ocean Explorer ticks a lot of the boxes for safe and comfortable blue-water cruising. Designed by Guido de Groot in the Netherlands and Howard Chen and his Selene Design Studio in Taiwan, the big Selene has a modern-styled raised pilothouse, Portuguese bridge and high bulwarks for safety, wide side decks, large side windows to provide lots of interior light, and an upper flybridge. The aft deck and side decks are covered for weather protection. Doors on both sides of the pilothouse open to the side decks and the Portuguese bridge, which has a large settee set across…

How To Keep Your Pet Safe On Board

By Peter Janssen on May 7, 2024 Cruising Life

Here are some great tips about how to keep your pets safe on board this summer from MarineMax: You pets can’t regulate their body temperature as wel as we can, so it’s important to make sure pets stay hydrated and don’t overheat. Keep fresh drinking water available and a shady spot for them to get out of the sun if they need to. Keep decks cool. A hot deck can damage your pet’s paw pads, so make sure there is a temperature-regulated surface available. Even just hosing down the deck can save sensitive paws. If it is too hot for…

Coming: New Light-Filled Prestige F5

By Peter Janssen on May 6, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Prestige, the upscale French builder, just announced that it’s making a new 57-foot F5 flybridge motoryacht, a larger version of the 50-foot F4 that it launched at the Cannes Yachting Festival last September. The new F5 has the same styling as the F4, but with even more glazing in the salon and in the hull sides for the lower accommodations deck. Indeed, the salon sides have almost full-height glass side windows, forward and aft; on the starboard side, they’re separated by a sliding glass door in the middle, designed to give the captain immediate access to the side deck. The…

Dive Boat Captain Sentenced to Prison

By Peter Janssen on May 6, 2024 Cruising Life

A federal judge has sentenced the captain of the dive boat Conception that caught fire and sank off Southern California in 2019, killing all 33 passengers who were sleeping on a lower deck and one crewmember, to four years in prison. The captain, Jerry Nehl Boylan, 69, of Santa Barbara, was convicted by a federal court jury in November of “seaman’s manslaughter.” It said he was guilty of “misconduct, gross negligence and inattention to his duties.” The charge carried a sentence of up to ten years in federal prison. The 75-foot dive boat caught fire at 3 a.m. on Labor…

Photo by Will Ricketson

Iconic Shelter Island Runabout: Now with Outboards

By Peter Janssen on May 2, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The iconic Shelter Island 38 Runabout, which got a lot of attention when Billy Joel launched hull number one in 1996, is now being built with outboards. The original boat had twin 415-hp MerCruisers with Bravo 3 drives and counter-rotating props, delivering the “Newport by lunch” speed that Joel wanted. More recent versions have been powered by 370-hp Yanmar diesel sterndrives, topping out at 45 knots. Now, with twin 300-hp Mercury Verados, the top speed is about the same, but the outboards are quiet, and they can be lifted up for running in shallow water. Almost 30 years ago, the…

New Beneteau Antares 42-Foot Flagship

By Peter Janssen on May 1, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The flagship of Beneteau’s Antares fleet, the new 42-foot Antares 12 is a versatile flybridge cruiser that’s easy to like and easy to use. The Antares 12 is a three-cabin, two-head family cruiser, powered by three 300-hp Mercury outboards, with a top speed of 36.8 knots. Two 400-hp Mercury outboards are options. A fingertip joystick control makes slow-speed maneuvering and docking easy. A door next to the helm opens to the starboard side deck, so the captain can move around the boat quickly. All the way aft, a fixed bench seat runs across the transom, and the swim platform is…

“Bank Effect” Causes Crash: NTSB

By Peter Janssen on May 1, 2024 Cruising Life

A pilot’s navigation error and an unexpected “bank effect” caused a 600-foot-long tanker to hit a pier in South Carolina last September, sending a 300-foot section of the pier crashing into the water and cutting deep gashes in the tanker’s bow, according to a new report from the National Transportation Safety Board. The accident occurred on the Cooper River, north of Charleston, just after 4 in the afternoon, when the tanker Bow Triumph was heading outbound on the Joint Base Charleston Channel. The tanker had a beam of 105 feet and a draft of 26 feet. The channel was 600…

Rustler Launches Its First Powerboat

By Peter Janssen on April 30, 2024 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Rustler Yachts, a British semi-custom, blue-water sailboat builder with a well-earned reputation for craftsmanship and seamanship, just launched its first powerboat, the elegant Rustler 41. Adrian Jones, the director of Rustler Yachts, said, “We’ve been asked many times if we would build a motorboat by both existing Rustler customers, and those who simply understand our philosophy towards building boats.” The resulting 41, designed by fellow Brit Tony Castro, delivers “comfort, speed and pride of ownership,” according to the company. The 41 carries classic lines with a retro hint and looks that represent a European version of a lobster boat. For…

Pre-Departure Safety Briefing: Boat US

By Peter Janssen on April 30, 2024 Cruising Life

Here’s some great advice from BoatUS about how to brief your crew before you leave the dock. Taking a few minutes for a briefing can go a long way to keeping everyone safe underway: 1. LIFE JACKETS Don’t simply point and tell where they are. Get them out, and make sure everyone has a life jacket that fits, knows how to don it, and either wears it or knows where it’s located if stowed. Explain how inflatable life jackets work, as well as how to orally inflate or manually activate them. Show guests where the throwables (life rings, flotation cushions)…

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