Cruising Life

California Couple Tackle Great Loop on New Nordhavn Coastal Pilot

By Peter Janssen on August 31, 2019 Cruising Life

In a recent email, I asked Larry McCullough, an experienced boat owner who’s now about half way through the Great Loop with his wife Jamie, why they had bought hull number one of the Nordhavn 59 Coastal Pilot. “Yesterday was a good example of why Nordhavn,” he replied. “We are in Lake Michigan, which can be very treacherous. NOAA was calling for three-foot seas but the wind picked up more and we were in some seven-footers that were very close together. I must say the boat handled it better than some of the crew.” McCullough, a retired stockbroker from Tiburon,…

Lightning Hits Florida Boat with Four Men on Board

By Peter Janssen on August 31, 2019 Cruising Life

The first lightning strike was about a mile away, so George Haddad, 71, and his three fishing friends huddled under the hardtop of Time Out, his 31-foot Stamas, about seven miles off Grand Cay in the Bahamas. “It made me cringe,” said Haddad, who’s from Palm City. The second strike hit the boat. Haddad, who had both hands on the wheel, felt the strike surge through his body. “It felt like somebody hit me with a hammer,” he told TCPalm.com. The fishing trip, which had started earlier that day under clear blue skies, had turned deadly. The strike hit the…

BoatUS: How To Prepare for a Hurricane

By Peter Janssen on August 26, 2019 Cruising Life

The Boat US Catastrophe Team has some 36 years of experience in studying what happens to boats in a hurricane. They’ve gone through the insurance claims, resulting from hurricanes. And they’ve learned some lessons that can help you prepare your boat, so that you can avoid, or minimize, the damage. First, many people underestimate the damage of a surge, which not only raises the water level far above normal, but also forces evacuation and lifts boats well above their docks and pilings. Surge accounts for the major damage to boats because it puts docks and dock lines underwater. Hurricane Sandy in…

Italian Skipper Cruises His 36-foot RIB, Solo, to Newfoundland

By Peter Janssen on August 25, 2019 Cruising Life

Sergio Davi, a professional skipper and the captain of his water sports club in Palermo, Italy, just landed in St. Anthony, Newfoundland, having cruised alone more than 6,000 nm from home in his 36-foot RIB Nautilus Explorer. Davi, 52, who has previously made solo journeys on RIBs to Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam and Norway, is waiting for a weather window and then he’ll resume his voyage to New York. He left Palermo on July 21, and headed north, past Portugal, Spain, France, the UK, Ireland and Greenland. He had to spend 10 days in Qaqortoq, in southern Greenland, because of…

Boaters Stay Home After Cyanide Spill Near Lake Michigan

By Peter Janssen on August 24, 2019 Cruising Life

A cyanide spill by a chemical plant killed 3,000 fish in Portage, Indiana, on the south shore of Lake Michigan, two weeks ago, and boaters are still staying away from the marina there and fishing boat captains are worried about their business. The chemical company, ArcelorMittel, admitted responsibility for the spill, according to The Chicago Tribune. The spill, in the Little Calumet River which runs through Portage into the lake, killed bass, walleye, panfish, channel catfish and shad. Various officials closed the river to fishing, while the National Park Service closed Indiana Dunes National Park, on the lake just east…

“No Wake Jake” Sinks Boats in Alabama, Becomes a Folk Hero

By Peter Janssen on August 24, 2019 Cruising Life

To some people, No Wake Jake is becoming something of a folk hero around Smith Lake, Alabama. Now we know that we usually don’t write about lake boating, or Bonnie-and-Clyde types either, but this story is just too good to pass by. Particularly when the hero is a masked man called No Wake Jake. It turns out that a masked vigilante has been sinking boats in Smith Lake at night, in an effort to reduce the damage that boat wakes are causing on shore. A surveillance camera caught his image, above, which was posted on the Facebook page of the…

Cruising the Remote Broughton Islands on a Nordhavn 55

By Peter Janssen on August 22, 2019 Cruising Life

Kevin and Allison Jeffries just spent a month cruising through the majestic wilderness of the Broughtons, an archipelago of more than 200 uninhabited islands off the coast of British Columbia, on their Nordhavn 55 Red Rover with their two shelter dogs, Zoe and Max. They found a cruising paradise there, with a way of life that could be hard to preserve in the future. The Broughtons are flanked by an often snow-capped coastal mountain range on the mainland side and the upper reaches of Vancouver Island to the west. Most of the area is a Provincial park with protected Indian lands and…

New Prize-Winning Garmin Sonar with 200-Foot Range

By Peter Janssen on August 21, 2019 Cruising Life

If you’re thinking about doing some fishing on your next cruise or trip around the Great Loop, take a look at the new, prize-winning Garmin Panoptix LiveScope sonar. Its images of fish as far away as 200 feet from your boat are so clear that you almost could give them names. The new Garmin sonar delivers crisp live images in all directions – in front of the boat, under the boat, behind the boat and to the sides of the boat – in real time. The company says it’s the only live scanning sonar on the recreational boat market. The…

Phuket, Thailand: An Easy and Exotic Chartering Destination

By Peter Janssen on August 21, 2019 Cruising Life

The beautiful and safe waters off Phuket, on the east coast of Thailand, offer some of the best cruising and chartering opportunities in the world. The scenery in this exotic part of the world can be stunning, with towering limestone cliffs, secluded coves, pristine white-sand beaches and a mix of uninhabited islands and resort nightlife. The scuba diving and snorkeling are simply spectacular. Cruising there, in the Andaman Sea, is easy; navigation is usually line of sight. You’ll need to keep an eye on your charts and GPS to avoid the coral reefs, and the tidal range can exceed eight…

New Sta-Plug Mini Could Keep Your Boat from Sinking

By Peter Janssen on August 20, 2019 Cruising Life

Here’s something you’ll probably never use, but if there does come a time when you need it, you’ll really need it. The new Forespar Sta-Plug Mini, designed to fill small holes in your boat’s hull in an emergency, is making its debut at the Newport International Boat Show in September; it’s part of the Newport for New Products promotion. The Sta-Plug Mini is cone-shaped and made from high-strength, rubber-like composites with riblets that help it conform to the shape of the hull. It’s four inches high and two inches across the base and you can compress it by hand and…

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