Friday, March 29

Browsing: Cruising Life

More and more people are cruising the Great Loop after they retire. They’re looking for an adventure, the chance to do something new, to see new places, to meet new friends. The 6,000 mile circumnavigation of the eastern half of the United States, plus side trips to the Bahamas or up the east coast to Maine, add to the allure. The Loop is a dream, but it’s not an out-of-reach dream. It’s achievable. Here’s a fun story from The Tennessean about Ron and Karen Atkisson, from Brentwood, Tennessee, south of Nashville. They ran a chain of automobile repair shops for 30…

Arthur Medici, 26, loved to surf and ride his boogie board on the waves off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Born in Brazil, Medici had come to the United States two years ago to go to college. He lived in Revere, just north of Boston, and was riding his boogie board off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet on the Cape, having fun with his girlfriend’s brother about noon on Saturday. A great white shark hit him. People on the beach heard him scream “shark”; they saw him kicking at the water; they saw the shark’s fin. The friend dragged Medici to the…

The beautiful, fast and light Palm Beach GT50 and the new twin outboard-powered Back Cove 34O were just named best new powerboats at the Newport International Boat Show. The Palm Beach GT50 was named Best New Powerboat at the show, as well as Best New Powerboat Over 35 feet. The Back Cove 34O was named Best New Powerboat Under 35 feet as well as winner of the show’s annual People’s Choice Award. More than 400 powerboats are on display at the four-day show. A panel of five judges visited more than a dozen new powerboats to determine the awards on…

The wave of stand-up paddle boards has swept through recreational boating all across the United States in the past few years. SUPs are everywhere; they’re so popular that a lot of cruising boats now come with cabintop racks to hold them. But just when you thought you’ve seen all there is to see in SUPs, BOTE has come up with something new: an inflatable SUP with a 6-hp Mercury outboard. You no longer have to do all the paddling yourself. Instead, turn on the Merc and you can go up to 100 miles at speeds up to 18 mph. BOTE’s…

Jeanneau has just launched its new 35-foot outboard-powered NC 1095 cruising boat, the flagship of its NC (New Concept) fleet. The new 38-knot cruiser will make its U.S. debut at the Annapolis powerboat show, starting Oct. 11. The new cruiser from the prestigious French builder is powered by twin 300-hp Yamaha F300 four-stroke outboards. It cruises at about 25 knots, and is remarkably fuel efficient, burning about 1 nmpg at that speed. It is available in a two- or three-stateroom arrangement, with additional sleeping space for two in the convertible dinette area in the salon. The cockpit and salon are…

Now that hurricane season is heating up, you need to make double-sure that your boat is prepared for the worst. As the old saying goes – prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Here is some great advice from BoatU.S. about how to help your boat survive a hurricane, drawing on lessons learned from hurricanes dating back to 1983. Since then, BoatU.S. Marine Insurance has been collecting evidence of what worked – and what didn’t – when owners thought they were making their boats safe. You already know to take off your Bimini and anything else that can blow…

Here’s a new idea from European Waterways, the company that runs 17 hotel barges in nine countries, from the Scottish Highlands to the Midi in the South of France: “Girls’ Getaway” charters, aimed at the growing market of women traveling on their own or who want to create their own charters with families and friends. The Girls’ Getaways can be very flexible and organized around such themes as culinary excursions, wine appreciation, wellness or simply walking along scenic towpaths. “Today’s women travelers are more confident and independent than ever before,” says Derek Banks, managing director of European Waterways. “The social…

A 2,000-foot-long floating boom just left San Francisco on its way to the Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of trash between California and Hawaii, with 1.8 trillion pieces of garbage, including 87,000 tons of plastic. The Pacific Garbage Patch is about three times the size of France. The unmanned boom was towed by a ship from the nonprofit Ocean Cleanup, an organization founded by Boyan Slat, a 24-year-old Dutch inventor. Once on site, the boom will detach from the towing vessel. The current is expected to pull it into a U shape, which will trap the plastic as it is…

The Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard just launched the U.S. Coast Guard Ready for Rescue Challenge, a competition to develop easier ways to find people in the water, with $225,000 in prize money. The idea is to create new ways to find and rescue a man overboard. “Boater safety solutions that harness new designs and technologies can improve the chance of a successful rescue,” said William N. Bryan, from the DHS Directorate of Science and Technology. “New, innovative solutions are critical.” The competition starts with ideas for a new or updated life jacket or PFD, or an…

Lexus just announced it will launch its new LY 650 luxury yacht, which will be built in Wisconsin, in 2019. The LY 650 is the fourth in the brand’s new fleet, a 65-footer that Lexus says will be designed with the “L-finesse” language and aesthetic. The company, part of Toyota, unveiled its Lexus Sport Yacht Concept at the Miami boat show in 2017. That design won the “Boat of the Year” award at the Japan International Boat Show, where Shigeki Tomoyama, the executive vice president of Toyota, announced the company’s partnership with the Marquis-Larson Boat Group in Pulaski, Wisconsin. Marquis-Larson…

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