On Watch with Peter Janssen

Ranger Tugs Launches New 43 CB Flagship

By Peter Janssen on April 14, 2021 Cruising Life, On Watch with Peter Janssen

Ranger Tugs has a new flagship, the 43 CB (Command Bridge), that’s powered by twin 340-hp Volvo IPS450 pod drives and hits a top speed of 29 knots but burns only 10 gph at a more tug-like 11 knots. (See the boat in action in the video below.) With two staterooms and two heads, the new Ranger can be just about anything you want it to be: A waterfront property that moves, a comfortable liveaboard, a floating office, or most likely, a family cruiser for everything from an overnight near home to a journey around the Great Loop. And you…

Crew Rescued from Stricken Ship: See Video

By Peter Janssen on April 7, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Here’s a searing video of the rescue of all 12 members of the crew of a 366-feet-long cargo transporter ship after it threatened to capsize in 50-feet seas off the coast of Norway. A helicopter lifted eight crew members off the slanting deck and picked up the other four after they had put on survival suits and jumped into the swirling water. The Dutch ship, the Eemslift Hendrika, was on a voyage from Bremerhaven, Germany, to Kolvereid, Norway, and was about 60 nm off the Norwegian coast when it ran into trouble in a storm. Heavy seas caused a list…

London Couple Renovate Ship, Live Aboard. Video

By Peter Janssen on March 31, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

A few years ago, Christina Miles and Rohan Tully were living in a small flat in central London, and they wanted to find something larger. The problem was that London real estate prices were going sky high. Their solution: Live on a boat. Christina was new to boating but game; Rohan had been boating all his life. After some searching, they found a rusted, 1965, 130-feet-long steel cargo ship in Belgium. They bought it for less than $100,000 and had it taken to The Netherlands for major repairs. First, they cut 32 feet out of the middle of the boat,…

Grand Banks Tests New 85 Long-Range Flagship

By Peter Janssen on March 23, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Now here’s a boat with a great attitude. Take a look at the running surface of the new Grand Banks 85 flagship on its maiden sea trial near Singapore (click on the link below for a short video). With its sharp bow and patented V-Warp hull, the boat is running almost flat, and leaving very little wake behind. All that’s due to the influence of Mark Richards, the world-class sailor (he’s won the grueling Sydney-Hobart race a record nine times) who’s the CEO of Grand Banks and its sister company, Palm Beach Motoryachts. Richards believes in high-tech solutions to boat-building,…

Azimut Launches 53 with “Floating Bridge.” Video

By Peter Janssen on March 14, 2021 Boat Reviews, On Watch with Peter Janssen

Azimut just launched its new 53, a low-profile, 31-knot cruiser with a “floating flybridge” and a wide bow to make more room for a large social area on the foredeck and more interior volume in the VIP stateroom below. The new Azimut has the line’s large raked windshield for a moving-even-when-standing-still look, and a large transparent black band around the flybridge. Alberto Mancini, the yacht’s designer, says the band “gives us a wraparound feature that looks like a floating flybridge.” Both the foredeck and the bridge on the new Azimut are special. The foredeck has super-sized, plush walkaround sun pads…

Grumpy Takes on the Great Loop – Again

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

John Hauck, a retired Army Special Forces major and helicopter pilot, doesn’t know when to quit. Not even two years ago, on Aug. 2, 2019, he completed the Great Loop on his 25-foot Rosborough named Grumpy when he was 80 years old. Now he’s at it again. Earlier this week, Hauck loaded Grumpy at the dock behind his lake house in Titus, Alabama (pictured above), and trailered it 125 miles to Demopolis, where he launched it in the Tombigbee River to start the loop one more time. He will turn 82 next month. “You guessed it,” he wrote on his…

Computers Fail: Yacht Crashes into Dock. See Video

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

With an LOA of 251’ 8” and a displacement of 1,952 tons, Go was the largest yacht ever built by Turquoise Yachts in Turkey when it was launched in 2018. It had a master suite, eight guest cabins, a helipad, gym, Jacuzzi, beach club, sauna, hospital, elevator, swimming pool with a waterfall and a crew of 18. It also had twin 2,570-hp Cat diesels producing a top speed of 17 knots. What it did not have at 10:15 one recent morning, was steering or reverse, and it slowly crashed into a dock, and then another dock, at the Sint Maarten…

New Foiler: Fly Above the Waves at 40 Knots

By Peter Janssen on February 23, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Foiling hulls, once the province of America’s Cup sailboats and high-speed ferries, are going mainstream. Take a look at the new 32-foot Foiler; it has top speed of 28 knots cruising through the water in traditional boat mode, but it hits 40 knots after it deploys its four spider-like foils and flies above the surface. And once it’s flying, with the hull more than three feet above the water, the ride is smooth, sure and swift. Foiler is made by Enata, a Swiss firm with offices around the world. The first Foiler hull was made out of carbon fiber in…

Merc Unveils Game-Changing 600-hp Outboard

By Peter Janssen on February 12, 2021 Engine Room, On Watch with Peter Janssen

Mercury just introduced its new V12, 600-hp giant outboard, a move that will surely cause more cruising boat owners to choose outboard performance. The world’s first V12, the new Mercury Verado also has the first steerable gearcase on an outboard; it pivots independently underwater while the engine remains fixed, providing more room for multi-engine applications and a wider steering angle for agile maneuvering. Mercury says the gear case rotates 45 degrees side to side, about 15 degrees more than a conventional outboard The 7.6 liter Verado also has the first two-speed automatic transmission on an outboard, optimizing engine rpm depending…

Changing Plans During Covid: A Year on Dirona

By Peter Janssen on February 9, 2021 On Watch with Peter Janssen

If you think the Covid pandemic caused a change of plans in your life last year, consider the cruising life of James and Jennifer Hamilton on their Nordhavn 52 Dirona. They started the year in Amsterdam and planned to go down to the Med, but Covid changed all that. They ended up spending 79 consecutive days on the boat in a harbor in southern Scotland, and finally, almost at the last moment, cruised across the North Sea to spend the winter in Norway. Plans change. In a review of the year, James wrote on their blog, mvdirona.com, that along with…

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