On Watch with Peter Janssen

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By Peter Janssen on June 8, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Cruising the Loop, A Canadian Couple Live Their Dream When Mike and Maria Fenn left Krates Marina in Keswick, Ontario (just above Toronto), early last July to start the Great Loop, a friend gave them a small toy monkey to put on their boat; in fact, he gave a monkey to everyone starting a long cruise. “The purpose is to get the monkey off your back and instead put the monkey on the dash of your vessel,” Fenn said. The Fenns probably didn’t need a good luck monkey; they’d been cruising out of Krates for 21 years. And last summer,…

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By Peter Janssen on June 1, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Former Music Exec and Wife Take Dream Cruise on New Sabre 48 Last September, Jerry Ade, a former music talent agency executive and real estate developer, and his wife, Marci, bought their dream boat, a Sabre 48 flybridge, from DiMillo’s in Portland, Maine. They named it Famous (Ade had been president of the Famous Artists Agency in New York, representing Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and The Beastie Boys, among others), and they headed down the coast to deliver it to their home in Naples, Florida. But weather, and a fuel problem, got in the way, and they ran out of time in…

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By Peter Janssen on May 25, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Slowboat Flotilla to Alaska: Safety – and Fun – in Company The peak cruising season in the Pacific Northwest is just starting, but the Slowboat flotilla has already left Roche Harbor in the San Juans, heading up the Inside Passage to Sitka, Alaska. The flotilla has six boats this year, a Nordhavn 50, West Coast 46, Nordic Tug 42, two Nordic Tug 37s, and a Nordic Tug 34. All the owners are experienced boaters (including some who have lived aboard for 20 years and some who have cruised to Alaska before), but Laura Domela, one of the Slowboat organizers, says…

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By Peter Janssen on May 18, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

At Sea Once More, the Hamiltons Are Halfway to Ireland on their Nordhavn 52 James and Jennifer Hamilton are at it again (or more accurately, are at it still). The Hamiltons, a high-tech couple from Seattle, have already cruised around the world on MV Dirona, their 52-foot Nordhavn. Last year they cruised 3,650 nm from St. Helena in the South Atlantic to Barbados, the longest nonstop voyage ever taken by a Nordhavn under 100 feet. Now, they’re in the middle of a 3,000-nm cruise from Newport, Rhode Island, to Ireland. After that, they plan to head for the Scottish Isles…

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By Peter Janssen on May 11, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Annapolis Couple Starts Epic 10,000 Mile Tour Around the U.S. on an Aspen Power Cat And they’re off. After a year of planning, David Jenkins and his wife, Sue Ellen, from Annapolis, and his brother-in-law, Blake Eder, a professional delivery captain from North Carolina, just left Anacortes, Washington, on the start of their epic 10,000 nm cruise around the United States, on the Jenkins’ new 40-foot Aspen power catamaran Knot Wafflen’. And they started by heading north, to Juneau, Alaska, before planning to turn around and circle the U.S., ending up back home in Annapolis in October, 2018. The 10,000-mile tour…

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By Peter Janssen on May 4, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

After Completing the Great Loop, a New Jersey Couple Plans to Keep on Cruising – in a Bigger Boat There’s no stopping Clark and Evelyn Woodworth, a retired couple from Rumson, New Jersey. For a while, after they completed the Great Loop a year ago, they thought they were finished. Then they bought a bigger boat… Avid boaters, the Woodworths started planning for the Loop more than a decade ago; they owned a Mainship 350, named Sea Moss, that they had bought new in 1999. They took Power Squadrons courses; Clark even took a Yanmar diesel engine course so he…

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By Peter Janssen on April 27, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

A Man with a Plan Richard Bost, 66, a meteorologist and retired New York City high school principal, plans ahead, and so far he’s planned well. He left Providence, Rhode Island, on his 1989, 42-foot Kadey-Krogen Dauntless on July 20, 2014, and he’s been at sea ever since, crossing the Atlantic to the Azores, then cruising up to Ireland, the North Sea, the Baltic, and finally down the coast of Europe to Spain and the Canary Islands. He then crossed the Atlantic again, making landfall in Martinique before transiting the Panama Canal. Dauntless is now at Fish Hook Marina in…

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By Peter Janssen on April 20, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Another Nordhavn Fleet Plans an Atlantic Crossing Nordhavn is at it again. Another group of Nordhavn owners, six this time, are going to be leaving Florida soon, with four of them ultimately heading across the Atlantic for Gibraltar. (Two will go as far as Bermuda, watch the America’s Cup there and then cruise up to Nova Scotia.) The other four will continue to Horta in the Azores and then on to Gibraltar. The original Nordhavn Atlantic Rally, in 2004 (pictured in Gibraltar, above), was the first fleet of recreational powerboats ever to cross the Atlantic, with 18 boats (including 15…

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By Peter Janssen on April 13, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

Carlo Riva: The Engineer Who Created an Icon Ten years ago, my wife and I were cruising along the western shore of Lake Como, not far from the Villa d’Este, looking for George Clooney’s waterfront estate. She was hoping to see Clooney; I wanted to see his Riva. As it happened, we both struck out. But as the day wore on I was able to satisfy my Riva quota; there are more than a few Rivas running around on Lake Como. Actually, they’ve been built nearby in the little town of Sarnico, on Lake Iseo, since 1842. The great-grandson of…

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By Peter Janssen on April 6, 2017 On Watch with Peter Janssen

The Manatees, and the Manatee Zones, Are Here to Stay There’s good news for the manatees, Florida’s official marine mammal. They are no longer an “endangered” species; instead, they’ve been downgraded to just “threatened.” The U.S. Interior Department, which is in charge of such things, announced the change just after Manatee Appreciation Day. (Who knew? It’s March 29, in case you want to celebrate next year.) Manatees, which can live 60 years or so, have been around for the past 45 million years. They move slowly, spending most of their time eating seagrass or sleeping, although they can swim four or…

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