Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2016 i Soundings

In the Tasman Sea, where muscular westerlies blowing unimpeded across the Southern Ocean pile up towering waves and ride the vortex of savage storms, yachts are swallowed with disturbing regularity, in winter especially. The 1,200 miles of sea between New Zealand and Australia known as “the ditch” — the Tasman Sea — is a nasty shrew at May’s end, when three months of winter descends on these parts. “The Tasman Sea is shooting gales out like a machine gun, living up to its reputation,” wrote David A. Dyche III, owner and captain for 25 years of the staysail schooner Niña, in a May 2013 entry on Facebook. He was aiming for a May 29 start from Opua on New Zealand’s North Island, bound for Newcastle, Australia, 1,500 miles away. “We…

Marine radar just got a whole lot better. Raymarine, Garmin, Simrad and Furuno have introduced new solid-state systems that give you the power — and confidence — to extend your boating safely into the darkness, through fog and rain or in congested waters. Garmin’s and Furuno’s units use Doppler technology, which takes some of the guesswork out of reading radar by showing a live view of targets as they move. “I usually find the phrase ‘game-changing’ an exaggeration,” says Ben Ellison, who runs the electronics website Panbo.com. “But I’m seeing Doppler target speed discrimination as the killer feature that will really make a difference, leading to safer, more relaxed boating. I even picture salty veteran power cruisers and sailors with conventional radars having ‘come to Doppler’ moments.” With Doppler, targets…

Don’t Miss The Whole Story At myboatworks.pmyyachtclub.com If you haven’t followed the adventures of Arawak in the pages of Soundings’ sister magazine Power & Motoryacht or at betterpowerboat.com, here are the basics. In 2013 the AIM Marine Group launched a project known as My Boatworks, in which a 1996 Grand Banks 42 would be given a thorough refit with the help of sponsoring partners. To say Arawak had seen better days is an understatement. After 15 years of chartering in the Virgin Islands, the old girl had fallen on very hard times and was home to a group of vagrants. Once she was scrubbed from stem to stern, the real work began. New engines, a fuel-polishing system and new props were installed. The air-conditioning system was replaced. A new generator…

The boating lifestyle drew Bobby and Bonnie Weis to Deltaville, Virginia, the self-proclaimed “Boating Capital of the Chesapeake.” The couple built their the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath home on Jackson Creek in 2006 and became very active in the community. Now they are moving to Cape Coral, Florida, and their 0.36-acre property — which includes 123 feet of bulkheaded waterfront, an attached two-car garage, a shed and a 50-foot dock — is on the market for $895,000. “My grandfather bought this property in 1948, and I’ve been coming here all my life,” says Bobby Weis, 65, a Virginia Air National Guard retiree. They replaced the old cottage with their dream home, “putting in every convenience, right down to hot water in the hoses and outside shower so we could wash the dogs…

I very much enjoyed Chris Landry’s “Carolina On Our Minds” piece in the March issue. What a rich heritage every builder here in northeast North Carolina has, tying back to the great fishermen, builders and teachers like Omie Tillett and Warren O’Neal. Thanks for a great read! Joan Maxwell President, Regulator Marine Edenton, North Carolina A SIBLING PATROL BOAT I was intrigued by your article about Zaida and the World War II Corsair Fleet [“All American,” April]. I also own a former member of that fleet, the 44-foot (LOD) Java Head, a Charles Mower-designed cutter launched as Jubilee in 1933 by Hodgdon Brothers in East Boothbay, Maine. She raced with distinction in the 1934 Newport Bermuda Race, placing second in class. During WWII, she was CGR1942 in the Corsair Fleet.…

As friends, family and sailors in the Clipper Round the World Race mourned her loss, Clipper founder Sir Robin Knox-Johnston promised a full investigation into the death of IchorCoal crewmember Sarah Young, who was swept overboard shortly before midnight April 1 in heavy seas and 35- to 40-knot winds as a localized low enveloped the 12-boat fleet in the north Pacific. Racing from Qingdao, China, to Seattle with 3,242 miles to go, Young, 40, an experienced sailor from London and IchorCoal’s quartermaster, “was tidying the cockpit after reefing the mainsail in 35 to 40 knots of wind when she was knocked from her position by a wave. She fell back toward the guard wire and was swept under it by another wave,” said race officials in a statement. Young was…

Graham McKay is executive director of Lowell’s Boat Shop, a national landmark and working museum whose mission is “to preserve and perpetuate the art and craft of wooden boat building.” The oldest continuously operating boat shop in America, Lowell’s was founded by Simeon Lowell in 1793 on the banks of the Merrimack River in Amesbury, Massachusetts. The shop produces eight to 12 beautiful wooden boats each year (lowellsboatshop.com). A range of apprenticeships and classes teach traditional boatbuilding methods and, in the process, strengthen science, technology, engineering, art and math skills. Beyond that, Lowell’s introduces students to maritime and regional history. But like all good programs, what it does for some who pass through its doors is light a lifelong ember and fan it. McKay’s early fascination with boats and maritime…

George Kirby IV and his wife, Shari, are tickled when anyone shows interest in the history of the Kirby family’s paint business, which dates from a time when sailing ships were at the center of the nation’s commerce. “It’s kind of funny. I tell people how old the business is, and I say 1846. And they say, ‘Oh, really?’ ” George relates, imitating an uncomprehending expression. “They say, ‘So your grandfather started this business?’ And I say not 1946 — 1846, before the Civil War!” George and Shari are welcoming people, plain-spoken and warm. On the day I visit their New Bedford, Massachusetts, plant — crammed into a dilapidated residential neighborhood heralded by a rusty highway billboard — the noise of a paint mixer behind the counter fills the small…

There’s something about sailing in fog. The swirling mist, with its smells and sounds, creates a sense of timelessness. Boats move in and out of the shifting gray, and the outer world is veiled and silent. Sergio Roffo captures that mood in Foggy Regatta. The 30-by-48-inch oil painting shows four racing sailboats in the Opera House Cup Regatta, gliding through the soup on Nantucket Sound. Roffo, who is well-known for his scenes of the New England coast, tries to attend the Nantucket, Massachusetts, regatta for classic wooden boats every summer, chartering a boat and heading out on the course. “It’s a great opportunity for an artist,” he says, “a chance to paint some beautiful and unusual boats, from the big yachts to the little Beetle cats and other small craft.”…

Bertram Yachts will follow its new 35 with a 58-foot convertible, scheduled to begin construction in June and launch in late 2017. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, company will base the 58 on the 1980s Bertram 54, with updated naval architecture from Michael Peters Yacht Design. The 54, which debuted in 1981, became an icon for Bertram — a reliable, good-looking sea boat with a big cockpit for fishing and a luxurious interior for the family. “We know the 54 set the standard,” says Bertram general manager Susan Davids. “It was known as a great fishboat with great performance in big seas.” The 58 will retain some of the 54’s DNA but will also show its own identity. A raked deckhouse, flybridge and windshield and a broken sheer give the 58…

New York City was on the verge of losing the last remnants of its oncevibrant maritime hub in lower Manhattan in 1967 when Peter and Norma Stanford quit their uptown jobs to found the South Street Seaport Museum and saved dozens of historic treasures. The Stanfords are considered icons in maritime heritage circles, whose members fondly remembered Peter when he died March 24 at the age of 89. “Peter was a persistent man, endlessly insisting that the apparently impossible could be achieved,” reads a remembrance by Jonathan Boulware, executive director of the museum. “It was Peter’s vision in the 1960s that led to the preservation of the counting houses of the Seaport, including Schermerhorn Row, one of New York City’s treasures. It was Peter’s work that led to the acquisition…

The Cape Dory 28 debuted in 1984, featuring a traditional trunk cabin, a single engine and a roomy cruising interior. During its decade-long production run, she set a standard for the fleet of salty Down East-style cruisers that would follow. At the time, Cape Dory was a well-established sailboat builder, based in Massachusetts and founded in 1963 by Andrew Vavolotis. By the 1980s, Cape Dory had built hundreds of sailboats as large as 45 feet, many of which came from the desk of Carl Alberg, who preferred simple lines, a narrow beam and a full keel for good seakeeping. When the company decided to build a powerboat, Alberg’s philosophy came through: an uncomplicated, capable, seakindly cruiser with a traditional profile. The Cape Dory 28 rode a semidisplacement hull with a…

Two winters ago, on a family cruise through the West Indies, Kirsten Scott poked her head out of the cabin of the sloop Eleda and spotted another classic wooden sloop drifting, apparently crewless, through the anchorage on Dominica. She didn’t need her lifetime of sailing experience to know that should this lovely yacht make open water, it might not be seen again until landfall in Nicaragua. Dispatched in their vintage Lawley tender, Scott’s husband, Ross Gannon, and son, Olin, were soon aboard The Blue Peter and secured her to a mooring in the upper harbor. When the owner of the wayward vessel returned from his shore leave later in the day, he learned of the narrow miss and came to meet his rescuers, the Gannon family. This is how Matthew…

Face seals are engineered for rotating applications to eliminate shaft wear, as there is no contact between the seal and the rotating shaft. They were developed for pumps but have been adapted for other applications, including propeller shafts. With prop shafts, a flexible bellows attached to the stern tube presses a fixed carbon contact against a stainless-steel rotor that spins with the shaft, creating a seal. The contact faces of the seal are highly polished stainless steel. This type of seal operates by blocking water flow in two places. Water cannot flow along the shaft, as rubber O-rings block that path, or through the contact face, because the fit of the polished rotor and the carbon is so precise that water cannot escape. The pressure between the matched faces is…

STAN LAUREL’S YACHT A restored 90-year-old yacht that hosted the rich and famous of a bygone era is for sale in California. The 46-foot Ida May (also known as Ruth L and Nada III) is a Sport Fisher model built in 1926 at the Los Angeles boatyard Fellows & Stewart for Willard Van Brunt, president of John Deere, for $120,000. Nine years later, Stan Laurel, of the comedy duo Laurel & Hardy, purchased her. She was known as the fastest and most expensive yacht in America at one time and is considered an important vessel in the lineage of sportfishing yachts. Laurel renamed her Ruth L after his wife, and the couple hosted many celebrities, including Charlie Chaplin. The seller asks that “serious inquiries only” be sent to ida.may@hotmail.com. “If…