Cruising Life

Meet Laura Comela and Kevin Morris as They Cruise the Pacific Northwest

By Peter Janssen on January 4, 2017 Cruising Life

Laura Comela and Kevin Morris are hardly a stay at home couple. Indeed, it seems that they’re always on the road, or on the water, or in the air. That’s because they have a 27-foot Airstream for the road, a 34-foot Nordic Tug for the water, and a Cirrus turbojet for the air. They actually live in Portland, Oregon, where she’s a studio photographer, and he runs an electronic publishing business (Electronic Engineering Journal). But when they’re traveling, he runs his business from anywhere in the world, and she takes pictures, anywhere in the world. Right now Comela and Morris…

New Photos from the Titanic: It Wasn’t the Iceberg??

By Peter Janssen on January 4, 2017 Cruising Life

Just when we thought we knew everything about the Titanic, an Irish journalist found old photos, taken by the chief engineer of the Belfast shipyard that built the unsinkable ship, showing the extensive damage caused by a coal fire that started three weeks before the Titanic left the dock in Southampton in 1912. The photos had been stored in an attic in Southwest England. The journalist uncovered them while doing research on a documentary. They clearly show the extent of the fire in a three-story coal bunker, next to one of the ship’s boiler rooms, that damaged the hull and…

New 32-Knot Grand Banks 60 Flagship Coming This Summer

By Peter Janssen on January 3, 2017 Cruising Life

The new, more contemporary Grand Banks 60 is under construction in the factory in Malaysia, and is due to be launched this summer. The three-stateroom, two-head cruiser will be the flagship of the Grand Banks Heritage fleet, which now tops out at 54 feet. Built under the leadership of Grand Banks (and Palm Beach) CEO Mark Richards, the new 60 also will be stronger and lighter and made with more sophisticated materials than previous models, reflecting Richards’ decades of experience as one of the leading sailboat racers in the world. We don’t have may details yet, but we know the…

Granny, World’s Oldest Killer Whale, Dies at 100

By Peter Janssen on January 3, 2017 Cruising Life

The last time anyone saw Granny, the world’s oldest killer whale, was more than two years ago in the Salish Sea between Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle. Researchers, who had been studying orcas there for many years, thought she was about 100 years old then, qualifying her as the oldest killer whale on the planet, and she was still using her accumulated wisdom to find food for her whale family. They now assume that she has died. Read about Granny here: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38496164 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38496164

Yikes! Watch an SUV Slide Off Ferry and Just Float Away

By Peter Janssen on January 3, 2017 Cruising Life

This is so weird: A video showing an SUV (without passengers, fortunately) sliding off the back of a ferry heading for Fraser Island in Queensland, Australia, on New Year’s Eve. It floats for a while, and then, after the video ends, finally sinks. Not a happy way to start the New Year. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg1x0WYq-cI

It May Look Like an Egg, But This Jet Capsule is Really a 20-Knot Cruiser. See the Video

By Peter Janssen on January 3, 2017 Cruising Life

You probably don’t want to take the Jet Capsule on the Great Loop (the locks would be a problem), or on the Inside Passage to Alaska, but I’d love to have one for tooling around Fort Lauderdale, say, or Lake Union in Seattle or even Narragansett Bay off Newport. It may look like an egg, but the new jet-powered craft is 24 feet long, 12 feet wide and with a 370-hp Rotax 4TEC engine it’s supposed to cruise at 20 knots. And it’s fun. Be the first kid on your block…Take at look at this video of the Jet Capsule,…

See Seattle’s Annual Lighted Boat Parade: A Fun Video

By Peter Janssen on December 28, 2016 Cruising Life

In Seattle, boating is a way of life, all year long. And boat owners there don’t have to look hard to find ways to have fun on their boats. Here’s a fun video of Seattle’s lighted boat parade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_9_80mS_-U&feature=em-subs_digest

Coast Guard Icebreakers Start Clearing the Great Lakes

By Peter Janssen on December 20, 2016 Cruising Life

So you think it’s cold where you are? Take a look at the ice beard on the crane on the Coast Guard Cutter Alder, above. And that’s before the 225-foot Alder and other Coast Guard vessels start their annual ice-breaking duties on the Great Lakes. They’re starting on northern Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, and then will move south (relatively speaking) as winter sets in. The Coast Guard urges recreational boaters to use caution in the area. See the story, and more pictures, here: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/12/coast_guard_begins_ice_breakin.html

Arctic Ice Melting Dramatically, See Two New Videos

By Peter Janssen on December 15, 2016 Cruising Life

Each year, more and more old, thick ice in the Arctic is melting in the summer and is being replaced in the winter by new, thinner ice, which is turn melts even faster the next summer. You can see these changes, which have dramatic consequences both for the Arctic and for the oceans of the planet, on these two new videos: https://youtu.be/c6jX9URzZWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofsncwIMeWA

Great Dismal Swamp Canal Closed Indefinitely

By Peter Janssen on December 15, 2016 Cruising Life

The Army Corps of Engineers now has closed the Dismal Swamp Canal, which first opened in 1805, indefinitely so it can clear all the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew in October. The Canal, which is part of the ICW connecting the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia with Albermarle Sound in North Carolina, will be closed while the Corps removes trees and debris, completes dredging and checks for shoaling. Work on the Deep Creek Lock river gates alone will take 75 days, starting in early January. Meanwhile, if you’re heading south for the winter, use the Albermarle and Chesapeake Canal section of…

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