Browsing: Great Loop

Cruising Life
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Historic Shoaling Closes Part of Tenn-Tom Waterway

Heavy rains have created historic shoaling along parts of the 234-mile Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, closing it to navigation below the Aberdeen Lock and Dam in Mississippi. The Army Corps of Engineers is trying to start dredging there, where the waterway is completely blocked, but it may take some time. Opened in 1984, the Tenn-Tom is a man-made waterway connecting the Tennessee River and the Tombigbee River. It is popular with recreational boaters as part of the Great Loop, and it also is used by commercial barge traffic connecting to the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy rains last month caused a rapid rise…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Florida Couple “Enjoyed Every Second of Every Day” on Great Loop. Plan To Do It Again

Steve and Jane McKinney just completed the Great Loop in Sabbatical, their 1988 Albin 36, crossing their wake just north of red day beacon 74 in Charlotte Harbor in Florida. The trip took 369 days and lasted for 6,845 miles, and they had such a good time they’re going to do it again. “We enjoyed every second of every day,” Jane told me. The McKinneys are not life-long cruisers. Indeed, they didn’t start thinking about the Loop until two years ago. They’d been married for 33 years and have four grown children, and they were approaching a time in life…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Virginia Couple Cruises Puget Sound on Their Brand-New Ranger Tugs 29

Before last summer, Jackie and Mike Quinn did most of their boating near home in Hampton, Virginia. They live in an inlet there, and they’d take day cruises on the James River or the lower Chesapeake on their 24-foot Crownline. But last August they expanded their cruising area, by about 2,900 miles. They spent five days cruising Puget Sound in Washington State on their brand-new, red-hulled Ranger Tugs R-29 CB, as part of Ranger’s Pacific Northwest Factory Delivery Experience.  They loved it. “We had a great factory delivery experience and continue to have an awesome post-delivery experience,” they told me…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Veteran “Commuter Cruisers” Jan and David Irons Complete the Great Loop

By Peter A. Janssen Back in 2004, Jan and David Irons left Annapolis and headed south on their Passport 37 sloop. Over the next dozen years or so, they made it as far as Cartagena, Colombia, and back. Along the way, the Irons discovered that cruising year-round wouldn’t work for them. So they developed a schedule of “commuter cruising,” leaving the boat somewhere safe, coming back home for six months of normal family life and then returning for six more months of blue-water cruising. They even started a website, www.commutercruising.com. Somewhere along the way they also dreamed of doing the…

Cruising Life
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Good News for Loopers, New York Cruisers: Erie Canal Will Not Charge for Tolls in Next Three Years

Here’s some good news if you’re thinking about cruising in the Northeast or taking on the Great Loop in the near future. The Erie Canal will not charge any tolls for the next three years. The New York State Canal Corp. just announced it will not charge recreational boats to use the Canal or its locks and  lift bridges through 2021. The tolls were lifted in 2017 to mark the 200thanniversary of the start of construction on the canal; the no-charge policy was continued this year. As a result, the Canal Corp. said, boat traffic increased. Indeed, it said 71,529…

Cruising Life
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Bad News on the Great Loop: Army Corps of Engineers Will Close Six Locks on Illinois River in 2020

Here’s some bad news for anyone thinking of tackling the Great Loop in 2020: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is closing six locks and dams on the Illinois River, that part of the Loop connecting Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, from July 1 to October 31, for major infrastructure repairs. The options for Loopers are to stay in the Great Lakes and leave Chicago on November 1, although as someone who has lived in Chicago, I can safely say you might get a bit cold then. You also need to determine how many marinas and other facilities would…

Cruising Life
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Tennessee Couple Complete Great Loop on Carver 43, Feeling More Alive Than Ever

More and more people are cruising the Great Loop after they retire. They’re looking for an adventure, the chance to do something new, to see new places, to meet new friends. The 6,000 mile circumnavigation of the eastern half of the United States, plus side trips to the Bahamas or up the east coast to Maine, add to the allure. The Loop is a dream, but it’s not an out-of-reach dream. It’s achievable. Here’s a fun story from The Tennessean about Ron and Karen Atkisson, from Brentwood, Tennessee, south of Nashville. They ran a chain of automobile repair shops for 30…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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On Watch

Ranger Tug 25 Update: Nellie May Passes 4,000 Miles on Great Loop, Now in Erie Canal By Peter A. Janssen The beat goes on. Tim and Mary Kenyon have put more than 4,000 miles under the hull of their Ranger Tug 25 Nellie May since they left Illinois last Sept. 11, and now they’re cruising on the Erie Canal (see the picture, top). If all goes according to plan, they expect to cross their wake in Ottawa, Illinois, about half way between Chicago and Peoria, in early September. We last covered the Kenyons in February when they left Nellie May in Melbourne,…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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On Watch

After the Great Loop, the McVeys Keep on Cruising: “There is so much more to see.” By Peter A. Janssen Charlie and Robin McVey from Louisville, Mississippi, just don’t know how to quit. Indeed, they’ve been cruising on their 42-foot 1986 Jefferson Sundeck trawler The Lower Place most of the time since they retired more than two years ago. After a few break-in cruises, they started the Great Loop at 5 am on Oct. 23, 2016, and completed it 343 days later, passing through 17 states, the District of Columbia and parts of the Bahamas and Canada. Back at their…

Boat Reviews
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New, Prize-Winning, Dutch-Built Linssen 40 Sedan: All Ready for the ICW or the Great Loop

The new prize-winning Linssen 40 Sedan, named the European Power Boat of the Year in the Displacement category at the Düsseldorf boat show in January, is a Dutch-built, salty-looking, steel-hull cruiser. It was designed for cruising Europe’s coast and vast inland waterway system, but it would be equally at home in the U.S., cruising on the Intracoastal Waterway or along the Great Loop. It will be introduced to the U.S. at the Annapolis Powerboat Show in October. The Linssen 40 comes in an aft cabin and a flybridge version, but the basic sedan version has a large forward stateroom, with…

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