Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Soundings

Few things polarize recreational boaters more than the topic of electronic versus paper charts. It’s safe to say that electronic and paper charts should both be viewed as position-fixing tools. Most of us employ some version of electronic chart systems these days, ranging from inexpensive handhelds to standalone GPS chartplotters or costly arrangements integrated with AIS, radar and more. Commercial ships almost universally now use the Electronic Chart Display and Information System, which is computer-based satellite navigation integrated with position information, an array of other navigational sensors, and Automatic Radar Plotting Aid. Its users have to be trained and certified. Recreational boaters don’t have electronic charts that complex, but the technology we do have access to can make folks realize that it’s wonderful to have the world at one’s fingertips.…

DIY WORLD CRUISING Desiree and Jordan Wicht come from different parts of the globe, but a love for the sea brought them together. They met while crewing on superyachts in the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Southeast Asia, among other locales. Though these adventures brought them closer, they stashed away some money, quit their jobs and bought a 1963 Allied Seawind. They named her Atticus and began an extensive refit. Their YouTube channel, Sailing Project Atticus, follows them from the beginning of their journey (about six years ago) to now. It shows the steps they took to rehab the boat, as well as subsequent cruising journeys. More recently, the couple has been refitting Atticus to sail across the Pacific.…

As we’re about to cast off from the Miami International Boat Show aboard the Mag Bay 42 Express Sportfish, I ask Mag Bay President Mike Howarth if he’ll be driving. “Ain’t no way I’m driving this boat,” he says. “I haven’t driven a boat in years.” Howarth has been building boats for more than 50 years, most notably at Cabo Yachts, which he co-founded in 1991. Today, he owns Mag Bay with his son, 31-year-old Mag Bay Vice President Barrett Howard, and leaves the driving to him. “Barrett drove a Cabo in a tournament when he was 15 years of age,” Mike says. “I’m really proud of him.” “I was younger than 15.” Barrett tells me. “My dad taught me how to drive a [Cabo] 35 at age 9. At…

The 601-foot tanker West Virginia is docked at the Marathon Petroleum Corp. oil terminal in Port Tampa Bay, Florida. She has unloaded her cargo and is about to set sail for a refinery in Louisiana. Capt. Caroline Kurtz is on the starboard bridge wing with the vessel’s master, Capt. James Cunningham. It’s Cunningham’s ship, but it will be Kurtz, a Tampa Bay pilot, who will take the Crowley Maritime tanker off the dock this morning and to the Gulf of Mexico. West Virginia is facing up the dead-end Ybor Channel and needs to be turned around. Royal Caribbean’s 958-foot cruise ship Brilliance of the Seas is docked across the channel with a tug and fuel barge, which is only 150 feet away. Once Kurtz moves the tanker’s 106-foot-wide hull into…

I’d been dreaming of catching a false albacore—a feisty, hard-pulling member of the tuna family—for at least 20 years. I started fumbling my way around the internet and flipping through fishing magazines to find a guide. One name kept popping up: Capt. Sarah Gardner. About two months later, my fishing buddy and I arrive at Harkers Island, North Carolina, a salty locale with access to the Cape Lookout fishing grounds. It’s early—about 45 minutes before sunrise—when we shuffle down the dock toward Gardner’s 23-foot Jones Brothers Marine Cape Fisherman, Fly Girl. “How’s it going?” Gardner asks as we load our gear. “Fishing has been good! Let me take a look at your flies and tackle to make sure you’re rigged up the right way.” Gardner examines everything we’ve brought along,…

Lance Cunningham’s boating roots go back a long way. “I would get dropped off at the local church for kindergarten, and I’d walk down to the river,” says Cunningham, 66, who grew up around the Navesink River in Rumson, New Jersey. “Even at that age, I was skipping school to get down to the water.” A few years later, he was hanging around the local boatyard. “Paul’s Boats,” he recalls. “For a quarter, I’d bail the boats out for them and do other odd jobs.” It’s no coincidence that Cunningham runs his own boatyard today. He’s owned and managed the Carriage House Marina on the Shrewsbury River in Sea Bright, New Jersey, since 1985, and he’s owned a fleet of interesting craft over the years. One was a Roberts 34,…

Paul Larson wanted to go hunting and fishing in the waters around his parents’ farm on the outskirts of Little Falls, Minnesota, but he needed a boat. The year was 1895, and buying a new one seemed out of the 11-year-old’s reach. So, he built one himself. Little did he realize he’d be building thousands more while running one of the country’s most successful companies, producing sporty craft such as the runabouts shown here. By the time he was in his late teens, Larson was building boats for hunters and fishermen. With his profits from a winter of trapping, he bought woodworking equipment and started building boats in Little Falls on the banks of the Mississippi River. Larson built boats for the government during World War I, and by 1925,…

LIFE LESSONS Mario Vittone makes several good points about life rafts in his column “The High Cost of Waiting” (March). I’d like to provide a few more pieces of advice for those who want to learn how to use this critical piece of gear before they need it. Always make sure that before inflating a life raft you have made its painter secure to the boat; otherwise, it could blow away and out of reach in a heartbeat. Also, a life raft needs to be serviced every one to three years, depending upon its type. A raft that remains folded up for several years is likely to develop creases in the material, and those creases can weaken it. In addition, moisture wicking inside from exposure to the weather could corrode…

Until recently, digital switching has only been available on new, high-end boats. Today there are quite a few systems on the market for used boats from several different manufacturers, with more coming. So, what’s a digital switch and why should I care? That’s a reasonable question, and the answer can be a little involved. When compared to traditional mechanical switches, the biggest benefits are reduced weight and automation—all in a weather-sealed, highly reliable package. Traditional DC switching and power distribution starts with a centralized electrical panel where large cables run from the batteries. For each circuit, wiring runs from the panel to the point of use. On my boat that means that loads like the freshwater pump, located a few feet from the house batteries, run all the way from…

On March 11, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus to be a global pandemic, having spread to more than 100 countries. In the United States, the virus was reportedly affecting close to 1,100 people in 40 states as well as Washington, D.C., with at least 31 patients having died. Larrain Slaymaker, owner of North-Point Yacht Charters in Rockland, Maine, was relieved to be living in one of the states that, at least for the time being, remained unaffected. “The thing is, I have a son who lives in China. I’ve been dealing with this since the beginning of the year,” Slaymaker says, referencing the place of origin for the virus. “In Maine, our state government is doing an exceptionally good job. We don’t have any cases here. I’m…

Twenty-two years ago, when Alan Lang started work at Scout Boats, he made regular use of his center console, spending weekends off the coast of South Carolina hunting dolphin, tuna, grouper and snapper. He loved to fish in his 20-footer, which was a pretty typical design at the time: a center console with a reliable hull for offshore work, and a bare-bones interior with a leaning post, tackle stowage and rod holders. But were there creature comforts? “I had a jump seat off the console, and that’s about it,” Lang says with a laugh. “It’s what I needed. I was young and trying to save money. I didn’t have a family yet, and my friends and I weren’t interested in taking the boat to nice restaurants. We just wanted to…

DISPLACEMENT HULLS Displacement hulls are shaped to go through the water, unlike their planing and semiplaning cousins, which are shaped to fly on the water’s surface. The biggest limitation for a displacement hull is speed, which can’t be faster than an open-ocean wave of the same length as the hull at the waterline. That slow speed also reduces a skipper’s options when trying to avoid bad weather and reduces the boat’s agility, making it harder to zig and zag around breaking waves. Deep-draft displacement hulls are also restricted in their ability to take shortcuts through shallows. For pure ocean-crossing capability, however, there’s no substitute for a displacement hull. These boats are often ballasted to increase their range of stability to 90 degrees or more and can use very little fuel.…

Who We Are: Nestled in between a protected residential area and Hammonasset Nature Preserve, Cedar Island Marina is a perfect choice both seasonally and as a transient. Consistently rated one of the best marinas on the Connecticut Shoreline, we invite you to view our full-service facilities and to meet our expert staff whose experience in the marine industry is unmatched. At Cedar Island Marina, we offer more than just a slip to tie up at. We offer a community of diverse boaters and a complete summer experience. From those looking to go fishing early on a Saturday morning, those looking to relax with their families on a Sunday afternoon, or those looking to stay up way too late on a Friday night, we are confident you will find likeminded individuals…

When Chris Edmonston, president of the BoatU.S. Foundation, heard last year that lawmakers in Georgia were debating legislation to restrict overnight anchoring in all kinds of places where boaters enjoy cruising, he was frustrated, but not surprised. “This isn’t just a Georgia thing,” Edmonston says. “We’re seeing proposed anchoring rules in other places too. In Florida, we see municipalities trying to make rules that only affect their municipalities. We’re seeing problems on the West Coast.” Two issues are combining along both of America’s coastlines, he says, in a way that has lawmakers listening to requests for restricted anchorages. The first issue is abandoned and derelict boats, the result of people dropping the hook and walking away—creating an eyesore and a problem for government that nobody defends or condones. The challenge…

Marlow Yachts has been around for two decades, but the Florida-based company takes a different approach to boatbuilding than many of its competitors. While countless builders churn out new model after new model every single year, David Marlow has always chosen to evolve the ideas that work best, at whatever pace suits the ideas themselves. That’s why, from custom tenders to 100-footers, Marlow Yachts focuses on improving each model’s quality, as opposed to the quantity of Marlows out there. Take the Marlow Yachts 53E, which is intended to be a cruising boat for owner-operators who want to be on the water every day. Hull No. 1 of the Marlow 53 launched in 2016 and is now at Hull No. 25. According to Marlow, each yacht has been built better than…

They were big and bold, built to take on the Seven Seas and carry their owners to any port in the world. They were the Feadships, a fleet of luxury yachts that emerged from the ruins of war-torn Europe to become one of the leading names in the history of recreational boating. It all started over cups of coffee. In 1949, the owners of seven Dutch shipyards got together at De Roode Leeuw’s coffee house in Amsterdam, hoping to re-build the Dutch ship and the boatbuilding industry in the Netherlands that had been ravaged by World War II. Led by naval architect Henri de Voogt, the group formed the First Export Association of Dutch Shipbuilders, which they shortened to Feadship. The idea was to build cabin cruisers and larger yachts…

At first glance, Richie Moretti does not look like a sea turtle rock star. Small-statured and blue-jeaned with his dark hair pulled back into a thin ponytail, he could be lost in a crowd—but not in this crowd that has gathered on a bright, breezy Saturday morning at Higgs Beach in Key West, Florida. “Richard, how ya doin’?” yells a man wearing a key-lime-green T-shirt that reads Key West Sea Turtle Club Beach Patrol. “We’re here to help!” Moretti smiles, pats the man’s arm and thanks him. The man is among hundreds who have shown up after getting the word on local radio and social media channels: The Turtle Hospital is releasing a sea turtle at noon. Already, scores of kids have swarmed the back of the turtle ambulance: a…

We can imagine marine artist John Stobart standing on the shores of Aucoot Cove, looking across to Converse Point in the distance. It’s a beautiful day on Buzzards Bay on the southern coast of Massachusetts, a good day for boating. And there are a variety of craft to admire: dinghies and an inflatable; an outboard runabout getting ready for a day trip; and that beautiful catboat, a symbol of the region’s rich maritime history. Aucoot Cove is one of the hundreds of bays and coves dotting the New England coast, which was a safe haven for the sailing ships of old and today provides boaters with picturesque destinations and a chance to gunkhole in charming towns and villages along the shores. Stobart has a feel for harbors, from the big…

Spring Island is a private community that has integrated its architecture and amenities into the natural landscape. Located in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, it is just half an hour from Hilton Head and downtown Savannah, and a one-hour, 45-minute drive to historic Charleston. Members consider Spring Island a community within a nature preserve, as 1,800 of its 3,000 acres are permanently protected. The island seems to exist outside of time, but the private community and its members are vibrant and engaging. The Spring Island community consists of artists, golfers, shooters, paddlers, anglers, students, farmers, wine connoisseurs and naturalists. The club has programs for both leisure and learning; it hosts guest lecturers, and coordinates an array of outdoor activities. In addition to the private golf course designed by Arnold Palmer,…