Cruising Life

New Nimbus 405 Flybridge: A Stylish, Sophisticated, Swedish Cruiser with Volvo Performance

By Peter Janssen on April 18, 2018 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

The new Nimbus 405 Flybridge is the latest iteration of the popular and prize-winning Nimbus 405 Coupe, adding space, an additional helm station and lots of entertaining room to the three-stateroom, two-head, Swedish-built, all-weather cruiser. The 405 Coupe was a hit when it was introduced three years ago, winning a Best of Boats Award and a nomination for European Powerboat of the Year. Nimbus is relatively new in the U.S., and it’s represented by Essex Yacht Sales in Connecticut on the East Coast and by Seattle Yachts on the West Coast. But the brand is well-established in Europe; it started…

SSCA Starts Daily Weather Net with Chris Parker for All Atlantic Cruisers

By Peter Janssen on April 18, 2018 Cruising Life

Here’s some good news if you’re planning to cross the Atlantic this year. The Seven Seas Cruising Association has formed a partnership with Chris Parker, the chief forecaster for the Marine Weather Center, and two other HAM stations to provide a Trans-Atlantic Cruisers’ Net. The service is available to all mariners, not just members of the SSCA. The service started on April 15 and will continue through the traditional crossing seasons. Parker (pictured above) will provide weather routing for the Atlantic. He will broadcast at 2200 UTC on SSB frequencies 8.137 and 12.350. Half an hour earlier, at 2130, SSCA…

The Blackbeard Book Club? A Surprise Find After 300 Years Produces a Book from the Pirate’s Sunken Flagship

By Peter Janssen on April 18, 2018 Cruising Life

You may wonder what pirates did in their spare time, when they weren’t raiding, plundering and killing their victims at sea? Turns out, at least some of them spent their time reading. Conservators for Queen Ann’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s flagship, which sank off the North Carolina coast 300 years ago, found 16 fragments of paper with legible printing, none larger than a quarter, wedged into a chamber of a canon. After more than a year of research, they determined that the fragments came from the first edition of a book by Capt. Edward Cooke published in 1712 called A Voyage to…

Absolutely Great Video and Still Pictures of a Pod of Orcas Swimming 20 Miles Off San Diego

By Peter Janssen on April 17, 2018 Cruising Life

Here are some of the best whale pictures I’ve ever seen, both video and stills, taken by a San Diego marine photographer about 20 miles offshore on a beautiful, clear, blue day. Dominic Biagini, of La Jolla, who works for Captain Dave’s Dolphin Safaris, a whale-watching business on Dana Point, took something of a busman’s holiday when a friend was visiting recently from Chicago. He took the friend out on a private boat in search of whales. As he told Fox 5 in the story below, after an hour or so they came across a pod of six orcas, swimming by…

Lifetime Sailor and Washington Insider Starts New Chapter in His Life, on a Ranger Tugs 25

By Peter Janssen on April 17, 2018 Cruising Life

Like many of us, Craig Fuller started out in sailboats. He sailed in both Northern and Southern California before he headed to Washington, D.C., in 1981 to work in the White House for President Ronald Reagan. He then started sailing in the Chesapeake, and stayed in Washington, working for Vice President H.W. Bush and then for many years as the head of public relations firms and trade groups. But times change. As Fuller just wrote in The Talbot Spy, from Easton, Maryland, last summer he thought it was time to start a new chapter in his life. He started looking…

New Study: Ship Traffic and Fishing Boats Moving Closer to North Pole Every Year. Now Transiting Treacherous Northwest Passage in February

By Peter Janssen on April 16, 2018 Cruising Life

Melting sea ice in the Arctic means that the fabled Northwest Passage, the sea route over the top of the world linking the Atlantic and the Pacific that has trapped explorers and frustrated mariners for hundreds of years, is opening up. Now a new study using 120 million data points tracking ship traffic there over seven years shows exactly how much and how fast the area is changing. Indeed, it found that the center of ship activity in the Arctic moved 186 miles closer to the North Pole from 2009 to 2016. Researchers from Tufts University and the Woods Hole…

Six Things to Check Now on Your Hurricane Insurance from BoatU.S.

By Peter Janssen on April 16, 2018 Cruising Life

The last thing you need is for a hurricane to damage your boat. Well, that’s not quite right. The last thing you really need is for a hurricane to damage your boat when you don’t have enough hurricane insurance. To keep that from happening, here’s a list of six things you need to know about insuring your boat in a hurricane zone from BoatU.S. This may be particularly important because the experts at Colorado State University have already predicted that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season could be worse than usual, with the possibility of 14 tropical storms and seven hurricanes.…

Wind Farm Off Coast of Atlantic City Moving Ahead

By Peter Janssen on April 16, 2018 Cruising Life

If you’re cruising along the New Jersey shore, you may see a wind farm in the ocean off Atlantic City in a few years. Both houses of the New Jersey legislature now have approved a bill that could help the 24-megawatt project move forward; it gives the state’s Board of Public Utilities 90 days to consider an application by Fishermen’s Energy LLC to build the wind farm about 2.8 miles off Atlantic City. Former Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, had rejected the plan. But new Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, says he wants to pursue it. The new bill would…

Miami Charter “Captain” Arrested After He Kills Passenger in Biscayne Bay

By Peter Janssen on April 14, 2018 Cruising Life

A Miami man who said he had run some 40 charters on Miami Vice, a sleek 95-foot yacht , even though he didn’t have a Coast Guard license, was just arrested as he tried to flee the country after he ran over and killed a paying passenger in Biscayne Bay. The U.S. Department of Justice said that federal agents arrested Mauricio Alvarez, 49, and charged him with “misconduct or neglect of a ship officer that resulted in death.” Authorities said that one of the passengers was “sucked up by the propeller” while he was in the water and Alvarez put the…

New Protector 33 Has Custom Fully Enclosed Cabin for All-Year Use

By Peter Janssen on April 12, 2018 Boat Reviews, Cruising Life

Here’s a new Protector Targa 33 customized by previous owners who wanted a completely enclosed cabin, more deck space for entertaining and additional waterline for a smooth ride. The new cabin makes the Protector a truly all-weather boat for year-round boating. Protectors are tough, sturdy and fast RIBs that are built to handle most sea conditions safely and comfortably. The basic design includes a large anchor locker, a luxury aft bench seat, shock-mitigating captains’ chairs, and a large aft deck for diving gear or water toys. The dash is built to hold large electronic displays and the steering wheel is…

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