On Watch with Peter Janssen

New Bering 76 with 4,000-nm Range

By Peter Janssen on June 6, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Bering Yachts has launched its new steel-hulled B76 Lemanja long-range explorer yacht, with a range of 4,000 nm. Lemanja is the smallest custom yacht that Bering has ever made. The Turkish builder’s fleet runs from 65 to 145 feet. It says that while Lemanja is rugged on the outside, ready to take on waters all around the world, the interior “is constructed as a full-fledged luxury house.” The new Bering has three staterooms for six guests on its lower accommodations deck; a luxurious master and two guest cabins. “Our client was looking for a tough, go-anywhere explorer yacht with an…

Spirit Launches Long-Range Electric Foiling Boat

By Peter Janssen on May 30, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Spirit Yachts and BAR Technologies just launched their classic, retro-styled 35-foot foiling boat with a range of 100 nm at its cruising speed of 22 knots. The companies say that is the longest range for an electric boat yet. Top speed is 30 knots. Spirit built the new SpiritBARTech35EF at its yard in Ipswich, UK, while BAR used its America’s Cup experience to design the hull and develop both the foiling technology and electric powertrain. (BAR worked with Sir Ben Ainslie’s foiling America’s Cup boats.) The 35 has a narrow, 7’ 6” beam and a modified deep-V hull with a…

Atlantic Productions/Magellan

Dramatic New Images of the Titanic

By Peter Janssen on May 22, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

A high-tech digital-imaging project has created incredible and entirely new detailed views of the wreck of the Titanic lying 2.4 miles below the surface of the North Atlantic. The images are the result of a six-week expedition to the wreck last summer that produced a “digital twin” of the Titanic, the largest ocean liner in the world when it sank on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912, after it hit an iceberg. More than 1,500 people perished that night. The expedition last summer was organized by Magellan Ltd., a deep-water mapping company. It sent two submersibles, Romeo and Juliet,…

Bob Johnstone: “Time To Get Creative”

By Peter Janssen on May 16, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

If it’s appropriate to apply a boating term to a human being (and in this case it is), Bob Johnstone is a one-off, a combination of a world-class sailor, prize-winning marketing genius, and sharp-minded entrepreneur (starting two boat companies, one sail, one power, plus a highly profitable graphic arts business). Now that he’s 89 years old, Johnstone is also a published author, with the new Maverick Marketer (398 pages, Palmetto Publishing) under his belt. The book is a pleasure to read, largely because it reflects Johnstone’s wide-ranging intellect, humor and collected first-hand wisdom from both the business and boating worlds.…

Sirena 58 Hits Home Run in U.S.

By Peter Janssen on May 8, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Sirena Yachts, the luxury Turkish builder, seems to have hit a home run in the U.S. with its 58. Indeed, it just launched its latest one headed here, to new owners in California. The latest (hull #58) is the 30th hull built for U.S. owners, representing more than half of all 58s built so far, and the yard is building seven more for American buyers. Sirena initially introduced the 58 here at the Fort Lauderdale show in 2018, a semi-displacement yacht built for performance and easy living. The hull and exterior were developed by Germán Frers, the famed Argentine naval…

Ex-Tesla Engineer Making 800-hp Electric Boat

By Peter Janssen on April 30, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

John Yo thinks he has a better idea. Yo, 51, the former head of global manufacturing for Tesla who escaped from Vietnam when he was 16, is working on a 30-foot electric boat with two 400-hp motors, far more horsepower than other electric boats of this size. His new boat, called the R30, will have a top speed of about 40 knots and a range of a few hours at its cruising speed of 20 knots. A prototype will be ready in October; the first production boats are scheduled to be delivered in the spring of 2024. Chuan (John) Yo…

Wajer Building Smart 44 Cruiser

By Peter Janssen on April 24, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Wajer Yachts in The Netherlands just announced that it’s making a new, high-tech 44 couples’ cruiser. The first is due to be launched this summer. Wajer says it’s already sold 20 of them. The lines for the new Wajer were drawn by Van Oossanen Naval Architects, and the boat has a deep-V hull with a 21-degree deadrise at the transom for maximum performance. With twin 480-hp Volvo IPS650 pod drives, top speed is 40 knots, and the range is about 300 nm at a cruising speed of 26 knots. The boat uses Wajer’s Smart Boating concept, where owners use the…

Sarp’s Edge: Thinking Outside the Box

By Peter Janssen on April 19, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

When Sarp launched the first hull in its XSR 85 line in Turkey last summer, it said the head-turning yacht represented thinking outside the box; it was aimed a fresh generation of owners. Hull number one, named Edge, got a lot of attention when it was shown at the Cannes and Monaco shows last fall. Edge was indeed hard to miss. The hull was painted in “Porsche Guards Red,” a unique color not found in many other yachting venues. It was a finalist in two categories of the 2023 Boat International Design & Innovation Awards, “Outstanding Exterior” and “Best New…

New Frauscher 1414 Demon: Custom Cool

By Peter Janssen on April 11, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

If you’re looking for cool, the new Frauscher 1414 Demon should fill the bill. Indeed, it’s one of the coolest looking boats (at least in my humble opinion) made in Europe today. The plain-vanilla 45-foot 1414 Demon isn’t too shabby, but the Austrian builder will customize yours almost any way you want. Consider the Frauscher 1414 Demon displayed at the Düsseldorf show in January, for example. That boat had a unique customized dark metallic grey finish to match the color of the owner’s Audi. And every stainless-steel fitting (more than 1,000 screws, fittings and cleats) was powder-coated in matte black…

ChatGPT: Best Boat for the Great Loop?

By Peter Janssen on April 4, 2023 On Watch with Peter Janssen

ChatGPT, the latest major iteration of Artificial Intelligence, has been getting a lot of attention recently, becoming the subject of front-page articles in leading newspapers, on blogs, even in casual conversations at the Palm Beach show. Founded by a Stanford dropout and funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from Microsoft, ChatGPT was launched just last November as an AI chatbot. Its parent company, OpenAI, was then valued at $29 billion. ChatGPT is nothing of not versatile: It can write computer programs, compose music, create short stories in the voice of Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald, do your kid’s…

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