Soundings is the news and feature publication for recreational boaters. Award-winning coverage of the people, issues, events -- and the fun -- of recreational boating. Check out our generous boats-for-sale section and our gunkholing destinations.
As you might imagine, the best part of my job involves looking at and thinking about boats. The frustrating part of my job is I get to do that much less than you might imagine because a desk job is a desk job is a desk job. I wind up thinking about serial commas, ledes, contracts and invoices, covers, writer assignments, photo searches and lower back pain much more than I do boats, alas. And yet each month the smoldering ember that drives the whole process forward is a shared obsession with the world of watercraft: How can we create a well-balanced, beautiful, authoritative magazine that you will love, on budget and on deadline? Well, we like a challenge, and luckily, we never lack for ideas. Every now and then,…
My husband bought a J/24 when they first came out and was the first person to own one on Sodus Bay [Classics, March]. As a matter of fact, John believes he was the first J/24 owner on all of Lake Ontario. I wish we had a video of the delivery; those in attendance at the marina were stunned, with mouths dropped open, when the truck arrived. Ginny Fowler Sodus Bay, New York HEAT, NOT ICE I was struck by a stingray, and Mary South is right about the extreme pain — worst I’ve ever experienced [Underway, March, “Once More Unto The Beach”]. What every boater or swimmer should know is that ice does nothing to alleviate the pain. It’s crucial to apply heat or very hot water immediately. I have…
The 450 Sundancer, the third model among Sea Ray’s next-generation coupe-style sport yachts, is a foot longer and beamier than its predecessor, launched in 2009. “With today’s boaters, it’s all about interior volume and space that’s comfortable and controllable,” says Ron Berman, Sea Ray vice president of product portfolio. “This is a new-from-the-keel-up boat and much different than the previous 450, having the ability to be completely enclosed or open.” The switch from express to coupe called for extending the hardtop and side windows aft, enclosing the deckhouse with sliding glass doors, and moving the galley and saloon up to the helm and companion area. A three-window opening skylight in the hardtop lets in air and natural light. “There’s no canvas to be dealt with,” says Scott Ward, senior vice…
Anavigation app with a “buddy” feature that enables a friend or family member to track your boat saved the life of the app developer’s son and four of his friends while they were duck hunting. Developed by Jay Stipe, president and CEO of MiraTrex, of Tampa, Florida, the “buddy” feature of the Pro Charts mobile app was designed to help prevent a repeat of the July 2015 disappearance of teens Austin Blu Stephanos and Perry Cohen off Jupiter, Florida, Stipe says. A recreational aircraft pilot, he had wanted to help search for the boys but didn’t see how he could do any good without their last known position. The pair went out Jupiter Inlet in Stephanos’ 19-foot outboard to fish and were lost, likely in a vicious squall. Rescuers found…
Few things fire the imagination like a mystery at sea, where distances are vast, the heart of the deep is fickle, and ships and crews meet their end in ways upon which we can only speculate. Ships are lost or abandoned; crews disappear; ghost ships drift through fog-shrouded water; skippers go missing or, as we have just seen in the news, are found adrift and mummified. In The Mirror of the Sea, Joseph Conrad writes: In the word “missing” there is a horrible depth of doubt and speculation. Did she go quickly from under the men’s feet, or did she resist to the end, letting the sea batter her to pieces, start her butts, wrench her frame, load her with increasing weight of salt water, and dismasted, unmanageable, rolling heavily,…
Linda Greenlaw’s first experience with commercial fishing was during her undergraduate years at Colby College in Maine, where she majored in English and government. She needed tuition money, so she got a job as a cook and deckhand aboard the swordfishing boat Walter Leeman. She liked it and was good at it, and after school she decided to stick with it. Greenlaw went on to become the first female captain of a swordfishing boat on the East Coast — and one of the industry’s best. But that English degree wasn’t going to go to waste. Her appearance in Sebastian Junger’s book The Perfect Storm, which recounted the loss of the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail in a deadly storm, first brought her into the public eye. Publishers, ever on the prowl…
