Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2018 i Yachting

OUR FIVE-MAN CREW GRABBED an opportunity for a few precious hours of early morning fishing before hitting the to-do lists in our lives. Even though it was cool and overcast, the sea was slick calm. Relaxing. At least until we heard the VHF radio crackle: “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” A 52-foot cruiser to our east had struck a submerged object and was taking on water in rapid fashion. The captain calmly told the U.S. Coast Guard: “We hit something. Broke the shaft. There’s about 10 inches of water in the engine room and rising fast.” He was about 15 minutes away. I looked at our boat’s owner, Tom. We nodded, pulled in our lines and beelined it to the sinking vessel. Tom communicated to the captain that we were en route.…

Svalbard, Norwegian for “cold coast” or “cold shores,” is also known by its former Dutch name, Spitzbergen, which also is an apt title, meaning “sharp mountains” or “pointed mountains.” The archipelago is roughly midway between Norway and the North Pole. Other than tourist charters, we encountered no other cruising vessels during our visit. Svalbard belongs to and is administered by Norway, although other countries are permitted to, and have, established settlements and commercial concerns here. No visa is needed to visit, and anyone can work without permits. Technically, while part of Norway, Svalbard is not part of the European Union.…

Larry Polster is a partner and vice president at Kadey-Krogen Yachts, where he has worked in various capacities since volunteering to help the company at a 2002 Annapolis boat show. Polster was born and raised in Cleveland and grew up boating on the Great Lakes. By age 12 he was experienced enough to run the family’s 36-foot Pacemaker from Kingston, Ontario, to Rochester, New York, when his parents fell ill with mal de mer. After earning a degree at Carnegie Mellon University, Polster worked in consulting for 17 years before opening Kadey-Krogen’s Annapolis office shortly after that Annapolis show.…

DURING HIS CREW’S FIRST NORTHWEST PASSAGE ATTEMPT in 1994, a massive closing ice pack threatened Roger Swanson’s plans. He tied up behind a grounded ice floe to protect himself and all souls aboard, but for three or four days, things were looking pretty grim. Then the wind shifted, and they escaped through 5 miles of passable, but somewhat concentrated, ice. ¶ Swanson returned twice more aboard Cloud Nine, his 1975 Bowman 57 cutter-rigged ketch, and — in 2007 — became the first person to skipper an American-flagged boat east to west through the Northwest Passage. He completed that bold journey using basic electronics, relying on hard-earned skills acquired over 217,928 nautical miles, including three circumnavigations, three Cape Horn roundings, and multiple Arctic and Antarctic “cruises.” ¶ Maritime history is rife…

MALLORCA TAKES ITS traditional pastry, the ensaïmada, quite seriously. The Balearic island established a denomination of origin, Ensaimada de Mallorca, to differentiate knockoff versions from authentic products, much as winemakers do. Pau Llull’s bakery, Forn Fondo, is one establishment whose ensaïmadas have the stamp of approval from locals and visiting cruisers alike. ¶ Forn Fondo has produced pastries since at least 1742, and it’s been in Llull’s family since 1911, when his great-grandmother and her husband took over. Llull and his sister, Neus, are now fourth-generation Forn Fondo owners. ¶ Naturally, Llull’s most popular pastries are ensaïmadas, which are spiral-shaped and can come with various fillings. However, Llull says, the most traditional ensaïmadas, and the ones that carry the denomination of origin, are “smooth” (sans filling) or filled with cabell…

THERE WAS NO HANDS-FREE, NO VOICE COMMAND AND NO FLY-BY-WIRE. MOST SYSTEMS COULD BE MENDED WITH SIMPLE TOOLS. I WAS JAWBONING with my pal Capt. Mike about his boss’s new ride. The fellow’s not shy about investing in the pastime and usually buys the latest and greatest, but this time around he was eyeballing an older analog sled. I suspected Mike had influenced the decision. ¶ “New boats go too fast and have too many damn computers,” Mike groused. ¶ Mike is still suffering post-traumatic stress from a fateful voyage more than a year ago. His charge had decided to stop working in 12,000 feet of water. ¶ “Not a tool aboard could change her mind, and as she drifted with the current, I had time to think,” Mike said.…

GRADY-WHITE has officially entered the monster-center-console game with its 45-foot-long, 14-foot-wide Canyon 456. With 50 rod holders, four 350 hp Yamaha four-stroke outboards and a top speed of about 47 knots, this boat was born to fish. And with a king-size berth belowdecks, as well as a galley with a refrigerator, cooktop and six-bottle wine chiller, a comfortable night on the hook after a day of fighting fish awaits. • Whom It’s For: Mega-yacht owners with a heavy interest in wetting a line can use the 456 for fair-weather fishing, as a major tender for a charter yacht or as a tournament vessel, depending on her owner’s druthers. • Picture This: You and all eight guests on board your 150-footer are hankering for some sashimi, and the bite is on.…

Coal and mining run through the fabric of Svalbard like an obsidian thread. Mines have opened and closed as the world fought wars, endured depressions and undertook revolutions. Coal mining is thankless, dangerous work even under the best of circumstances, and the Arctic serves up anything but favorable conditions. Most of the coal seams in Svalbard border on the edge of profitability, and many are relatively thin, which means much of the coal needs to be dug by hand. ¶ Located adjacent to the Nordenskiöldbreen glacier, the Russian coal mine of Pyramiden was established prior to World War II. The original buildings were little more than log cabins, some of which still stand. The mine was productive; however, the fjord is frozen for much of the year, making it difficult…

SOLID-STATE SPEED Airmar’s UDST800 Ultrasonic Smart Sensor ($1,030) provides yacht helmsmen of all stripes with distance, speed and temperature information in a single, solid-state, and might we say elegant, housing. The UDST800 shows precise readings and has a reporting rate as fast as 10 hertz, making it a match for vessels of most sizes, speeds and types (including sailing yachts). It automatically configures itself for different water depths, water-clarity levels and vessel velocities. Airmar Technology Corp., airmar.com QUANTUM LEAP Raymarine’s Quantum 2 ($1,949) radar has a solid-state power amplifier, chirp technology, and algorithms that deliver Doppler processing. Quantum 2 radars are designed to make boats safer by working with Raymarine’s Axiom multifunction displays to paint potentially dangerous targets red on-screen while rendering nonthreatening traffic green. The radar has Raymarine’s Safety…

PRINCESS YACHTS’ S78 leads the builder’s three-yacht S Class series, which also includes a 60- and a 65-footer. The S78 adds a new transom and cockpit layout. While the S60 and S65 have steps off the swim platform flanking a tender garage and leading to the cockpit with U-shaped dining aft, the S78 has teak steps on centerline with two sun pads set over a transom garage that accommodates a 14-foot-6-inch tender. With this sun-pad arrangement, dining space is forward, and the modular furniture allows owners to personalize the space. ¶ Some things that remain the same are the S78’s relatively low profile, accented by a raked forward windshield, sunroof and razor-straight sheer line. Hullside glass and a sweeping superstructure enhance the visual effect. Like her sisterships, the S78’s hull…

The first Pershing 140 is under construction at the Ferretti Group’s facilities in Ancona, Italy. As with all Pershings since 1985, Fulvio de Simoni designed this new flagship, which has a snub nose. The 140 is also the first all-aluminum Pershing, the first to have a raised pilothouse, and the longest hull to date, besting her next-closest sistership by 25 feet. Features will include a beach club with three fold-down sides, and a covered hot tub on the foredeck. ¶ Fabrication began in early 2017, and Hull No. 1 is expected to launch by September, when she’ll be delivered to Asia as Chorus Line. She has the more powerful of two propulsion options: four MTU 16V 2000 M96Ls and four Marine Jet Power water jets, with a projected maximum speed…

Virgohamna, North Danskøya, 79°43N latitude is enveloped in fog. We drop anchor 200 yards from a tiny, rocky island. Special permission, which we have, must be obtained to visit this site because it’s rich with archaeological remnants from two historic North Pole expeditions: Salomon August Andrée’s Swedish 1896-97 balloon, and Walter Wellman’s 1906, ’07 and ’09 U.S. zeppelin launches. Andrée and his fellow balloonists crashed here and managed to make it to one of Svalbard’s far northeastern islands, Kvitøya, where they perished, it is believed, from eating undercooked, trichinosis-infected polar bear meat. ¶ As a boy, I was enthralled reading about Andrée’s expedition, learning how his team made hydrogen for the balloon on-site by pouring sulfuric acid onto iron filings. On this day, I walk amid these very filings and…

This yacht was designed for long stays aboard. Kadey-Krogen Vice President Larry Polster and his wife, Janet, left on an extended trip to the Bahamas after our sea trial. They needed comfortable accommodations, as well as a place for Polster to get some work done. The master has two hanging lockers and 12 (count ’em) cabinets and drawers for stowing clothes and other necessities. There’s also access from the master stateroom to the engine room for owners like Polster, who is hands-on when it comes to machinery maintenance. Forward of the master stateroom is an office for those days when you have to work.…