On Watch with Peter Janssen

The Day the Mississippi Ran Backward

By Peter Janssen on September 2, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Earlier this week, the Mississippi River ran backward. For the last 70 million years, the Mississippi has flowed from north to south, emptying out in the Gulf of Mexico. But last Sunday, as Hurricane Ida made landfall with 150-mph winds at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, the river reversed course. A U.S. Geological Survey gauge south of New Orleans registered “a negative flow” of the river. It rose seven feet and changed from running about two feet per second going south to half a foot per second going north. “That is extremely uncommon,” said a government hydrologist. Ida devasted the area, leaving…

Brit Rows Wrong Way Across Atlantic, Solo

By Peter Janssen on August 29, 2021 Cruising Life, On Watch with Peter Janssen

Ian Rivers, a 55-year-old veteran of Britain’s Special Air Service, just became the first person to row across the North Atlantic by himself, without any support, without using a GPS and navigating with a sextant. All told, Rivers rowed 3,100 nm from New York to the Isles of Scilly in 85 days on his 27-foot boat. This voyage is “the wrong way,” going against the prevailing winds and currents. About 500 miles from the end, the boat capsized three times in a storm and Rivers was trapped upside down in the cabin filling with water. He suffered a concussion and some…

Virginia Oliver: Lobstering at 101 Years Old

By Peter Janssen on August 26, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Three days a week, Virginia Oliver, 101 years old, gets up at 1:15 a.m., pulls on her boots and goes to work on her son’s lobster boat in Rockland, Maine. Her son, Max, is 76. Virginia’s father was a lobsterman; she’s been working on lobster boats, on and off, since she was 7. Her husband, who died 15 years ago, was a lobsterman. A long time ago, Virginia worked for a printer, but she quit. She wanted to go to work on the boat with her husband. Now, Max hauls the traps and Virginia measures the lobsters, tossing out the…

Futur-E Electric Boat Flies on Four Foils

By Peter Janssen on August 22, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

David Cipriani, the Italian yacht designer, has developed an all-electric concept boat that looks something like a sportscar and handles like a jet fighter. The Futur-E boat has four foils so it can fly over the water at abut 30 knots. The CEO of Centrostiledesign in Bologna, Cipriani designed the Futur-E with foils on four retractable wings based on tank testing with the latest computational fluid dynamics technology. The boat’s “Foil Integrated Kinematic System” manages how far the four foils extend, and the angle of attack. They are independently adjusted for optimal attitude. The foils are operated by electro-hydraulic actuators…

New 50th Anniversary Whaler with 3 V12 Outboards

By Peter Janssen on August 17, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

In 1971, Boston Whaler launched its first Outrage, a 21’ 4” unsinkable vessel with a single outboard. Whaler sold hull number one to the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, which is still using it today. Over the past 50 years, Whalers have become ubiquitous around the world. Who among us has not owned, driven, or wanted a Whaler? Now, Whaler has launched a special 50th Anniversary Edition 420 Outrage, and it’s a bit different from the first. The new Outrage has grown to 42’ 6”, and it’s powered by three 600-hp V12 Mercury Verado outboards, giving it a…

Father and Son Cruise Solar/Electric Boat to Alaska

By Peter Janssen on August 10, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

When we last wrote about the father-son team of David and Alex Borton at the end of May, they had just left Bellingham, Washington, on their 27-foot solar/electric boat Wayward Sun, headed for Alaska. They wanted to be the first to take such a vessel all that way, without using any fossil fuel at all. And they succeeded. Using only the sun for power, the Bortons cruised 1,216 nm from Bellingham to Ketchikan, Alaska, and then up to Glacier Bay and finally to Juneau, in a total of 45 days. They actually were underway for 38 days, averaging 32 nm…

Boat Sinks in Marlin Tournament. See Rescue Video

By Peter Janssen on August 4, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

The 48th annual White Marlin Open, the world’s largest billfish tournament, started on Monday morning in Ocean City, Maryland, with 421 boats competing for a record $9 million in prize money. At 10:30, Knot Stressin’, a 34-foot Pursuit and one of the competitors, sent out a Mayday call saying its engine room was flooding and all six men on board were abandoning ship. It was about 60 miles offshore. The Coast Guard heard the call and sent out an 87-foot patrol boat and a 47-foot lifeboat. But Bill Chapman, the captain of Fishbone, a 65-foot fishing boat that also was…

John Hauck, 82, Completes Great Loop Again, Alone

By Peter Janssen on July 28, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

John Hauck, 82, just completed the Great Loop, again, by himself. Hauck finished the Loop, crossing his wake, 132 days after he left Demopolis, Alabama, on his Rosborough RF-246 named Grumpy. For Hauck, the second Loop came almost two years after he completed it the first time, on Aug. 2, 2019, after he had cruised 6,303 miles in 110 days. He spent most of the time by himself on that trip, although a lady friend joined him for a short spell. A retired Army special forces major who flew Cobra helicopter gunships for the 101st Airborne in the Vietnam war, Hauck…

New Vesper Cortex Smart VHF; Touchscreen AIS

By Peter Janssen on July 26, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

The new Vesper Cortex smart VHF is much more than just one more marine radio. It’s the first with high-speed AIS transponder technology, making your boat visible to others, and it’s also a major safety device, alerting you to potential collisions, providing an anchor watch, and giving you the security of a sophisticated man-overboard system. A New Zealand company, Vesper Marine developed the Cortex with wireless touchscreen handsets working with a mounted NMEA 2000-enabled mounted hub; it can work with up to ten tethered or portable rechargeable handsets, so you and your crew can use them from anywhere on the…

Cruising 15,000 Miles on an Aquila Power Cat

By Peter Janssen on July 21, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

April and Larry Smith, and their one-eyed dog Abby, don’t know how to quit. They completed the Great Loop in 2017 on a 52-foot Hatteras motoryacht; they completed it again in 2019 on their then-new 44-foot Aquila power cat. And they’re still going strong; in fact, earlier this week they were working their way up the East Coast, stopping in Ocracoke to explore the Outer Banks. Along the way, the Smiths have become well-known for their travels, as well as for Abby. They named their boat One Eye Dog, which helps make friends. They have electric bikes for exploring towns…

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