Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Soundings

Boaters for years have turned to the pocket cruiser to fulfill their dreams of spending time on board. These boats typically range from about 24 to 30 feet, and their enclosed deckhouses neatly pack everything needed for coastal cruising, including air conditioning and heat. A single engine powers many of these boats, which translates to a lower purchase price and better fuel efficiency than higher-horse twin-screw cruisers. Their trailerability gives owners the freedom to explore new destinations, not to mention saving money on slip fees. And it gets better. Today’s 4-stroke outboards have made pocket cruisers less expensive to purchase, operate, maintain and service. “The outboard power gives us a chance to offer a lower price and still continue to offer a trailerable, fuel-efficient boat,” says Sam Bisset, director of…

For the crew of Velasquez, one of the best moments on the south coast of Cuba this spring was the day they caught a big red snapper while sailing off Cayo Macho de Afuera. The cruising guide says locals on this small but gorgeous sandy island will cook up whatever you bring in, so the six crewmembers dropped anchor and jumped into the dinghy with the fish in a pail and cold beers in a bag. There was nothing that looked like a restaurant, but a local they met at the end of a long and rickety dock turned out to be the cook. He walked them back to a little house, with a cooler full of lobster tails, and negotiated the meal. “They spoke no English, and we had…

Chesapeake Bay has been Nancy Hammond’s font of inspiration for 40 years. Though born and raised in upstate New York, the 74-year-old artist has spent much of her adult life along the Bay’s shores and cruising its waters on her sloop, Northern Spy. Using a variety of media, including silkscreen and lithograph, Hammond continues to bring her perspective to scenes of children, dogs, racing sailboats, lighthouses, Bay watercraft and even the Naval Academy. All have found their way into her Annapolis, Maryland, gallery. If you walk into her studio by the Chester River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, you might see various projects underway, with crayons, acrylic paint, glue and colorful paper scraps carpeting the floor. (She also designs scarves, jewelry, shirts, place mats, etched-crystal bowls and neckties.) In the cut-paper…

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a time of technological wonders, among them the incandescent light bulb, the automobile and the airplane. Refinements in the internal-combustion gasoline engine also were fueling innovation. Put one of these small, powerful engines into an airplane, and how far could it fly? Install one in a motorcar, and how fast could it go? It was no different in the marine industry. About the same time daredevils were flying over the English Channel and racing cars on beaches in Florida, yachtsman and industrialist W.E. Scripps decided to see how the gasoline engine would fare during a long sea voyage. It was 1912 when Scripps, commodore of the Detroit Motor Boat Club and president of Scripps Motor Co., took delivery of his trans-Atlantic-capable motorboat.…

Say his name in certain salty circles, and you’ll notice a reverence in response. Capt. Jim Sharp has spent his long adult life on the water, loving (and piloting) more boats than most of us have even been aboard. He had a peripatetic childhood and a father who passed on his love of boats. At 12 he contracted polio and developed the grit to keep it from slowing him down. As a young man Sharp bought the Alden yawl Malabar XI with a couple of friends and started offering Chesapeake and Bahamian charters. After that, there was Stephen Tabor, Adventure, Bowdoin and Roseway. And these were just the schooners. Sharp has spent his life sharing his knowledge and love with charter guests aboard his boats, and when it was time…

Wefing’s Marine in Eastpoint, Florida, on Apalachicola Bay, has made its mark selling and servicing pilothouse boats. Southern boaters like the weather protection a pocket cruiser offers, says Marc Grove, who has co-owned Wefing’s since 1999. They can escape the sun in the well-ventilated deckhouse. “When it’s real hot, they just button them up and crank the A/C,” he says. “And these boats have shallow drafts, so they can be safely navigated in [skinny waters].” I spent a day with Grove and Bruce Perkins of Eastern Boats, the New Hampshire company that builds Eastern, Seaway and Rosborough boats. Wefing’s carries all three brands, and we trailered a pair of Rosborough RF-246s from Eastpoint to a launch ramp in Apalachicola for a demo. The RF-246’s trailerability, shallow draft and climate-controlled pilothouse…

Government regulations limit where and how you stop along the way. Even after clearing Cuban immigration and customs, on a boat you also have to clear in and out of every port that has a Guarda Frontera base. Keep your passports and “dispatcho” from the previous port handy. You’re on your own out here. The Guarda Frontera does not help boats in trouble, there are no towing services, and many local fishermen use rowboats. Don’t expect help. Provisions are a struggle. Many staples are in short supply, the Cienfuegos charter base can’t fill many items on the menu, and reprovisioning underway is unlikely. Unless you catch fish, learn to love chicken and ham. “At the marina commissary you can get 60 to 70 percent of what you need. Buy the…

When fielding questions about bonding and corrosion, I’m inevitably asked where stray current comes from. The biggest offender is a poorly wired bilge pump circuit, as connections have to be made only inches above water in the bilge, which acts as an electrolyte. The first challenge when wiring a bilge pump is finding the correct connector since the wiring might be a different gauge — depending upon the calculated sizing of the manual and automatic circuits — than the often smaller pump pigtails. There are step-down butt connectors that allow for one size difference in the wiring, but there also is the difficulty of having two conductors on the positive side that connect with the pump positive wire, all of which must be properly sealed. Sealing these connections is vital…

SPECIFICATIONS LOA: 31 feet, 4 inches BEAM: 10 feet, 4 inches DISPLACEMENT: 10,500 pounds (with engines) DRAFT: 2 feet, 1 inch (engines up) 2 feet, 8 inches (engines down) HUL TYPE: deep-vee DEADRISE: 24 degrees POWER: twin Yamaha F300s FUEL: 300 gallons PRICE: $242,995 CONTACT: Regulator Marine, Edenton, North Carolina, (252) 482-3837. regulatormarine.com Regulator Marine has added a 31-footer to its fleet of center consoles, bridging the gap between its 28- and 34-foot models. “We hit the sweet spot,” says company president Joan Maxwell. “This boat is a hardcore fishing machine that gives you more space without sacrificing performance, plus it has every amenity you need for a day on the water with family and friends.” Regulator has powered the new boat with twin Yamaha F300s on an Armstrong bracket,…

Their location on protected Cockey Creek in Pasadena, Maryland, inspired Matt and Jenny Knoepfle to rebuild their 1940 house, melding historic charm and contemporary style. Eight years later, they want to move closer to family. Their 0.35-acre property has a four-bedroom, 3½-bath home, a 2½-car garage, 90 feet of timber-bulkheaded waterfront and a private pier complex with 5-foot depths at mean low water. It’s on the market for $899,000. Knoepfle’s family-owned Baltimore-based construction company replaced the second floor, rebuilt the main and lower levels to take advantage of the water views, and added outdoor living spaces. The street-side foyer opens into the great room, with its 9-foot ceilings, teak flooring, 12-inch-wide crown molding and wall of waterfront windows. The living area features custom shelving flanking a gas-log fireplace. The adjoining…

JET SET The Hinckley Co. launched its 1,000th jetboat June 15 at the builder’s Southwest Harbor, Maine, headquarters. The Talaria 48 Flybridge belongs to a Texas couple who will cruise to Florida. The iconic Picnic Boat was Hinckley’s first jetboat, launched in 1994. hinckleyyachts.com With its twin swim platforms, enclosed head compartment and seating from bow to stern, the new Grady-White Freedom 235 dual console is designed to meet all of your dayboating needs, from fishing and water sports to snorkeling and swimming. The swim platforms, integrated into the hull, flank the single outboard. The starboard platform has a sturdy four-step swim ladder. The cockpit can be accessed through a transom door, also on the starboard side. The oversized head includes stowage that extends into the bow for rods and…

For 95 years, the gravesite of the USS Conestoga and her 56 crewmembers remained a mystery. Thought to have been somewhere in the vast Pacific off Mexico or Hawaii, the wreck of the oceangoing Navy tug was found and identified recently less than a day’s voyage from San Francisco, where she had set out on a 4,800-mile passage to her new duty station in American Samoa on March 25, 1921. “I’ve never in my career had something like this happen: Find something where nobody thought it would be, solve a 95-year-old mystery and bring closure to the families of a ship’s crew,” says Jim Delgado, director of NOAA’s Maritime Heritage Program and co-leader of the NOAA-Navy team that identified the wreck of the 170-foot steel-hulled tug. The Conestoga was found…

A new age in boating was dawning in the 1960s. Using fiberglass construction, bold designs and improved propulsion, builders were coming up with new sail- and powerboats to capture the public’s attention. At the same time, the old boats were disappearing — the wooden vessels of a bygone day, developed over generations. It looked as if the catboat, a quintessential New England working design for more than a century, would go the way of the pinky schooner and the Block Island cowhorn. Enter Breck Marshall, sailboat racer, boatbuilder and catboat enthusiast. Marshall grew up in catboat country around Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island, and he learned to build boats crafting Beetle Cats at John Beetle’s shop in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1962 he designed a pioneering fiberglass catboat,…

Modern life is complicated. I needed a car, a bus, a train and a taxi to get to my square-rigger. When no cabs could be had, a young police officer offered me a lift. Musing on my last conveyance in such a vehicle, I thought, My, how a touch of gray can change your circumstances. It was May 6, and I had come to New London, Connecticut, to join the Coast Guard training barque Eagle to sail her to Dublin, Ireland. A snotty, wet easterly met me at the pier, speaking more of March than May. The spires of New London and the I-95 bridge jutted from the murk, and a portion of a nuclear submarine was discernible across the Thames River at General Dynamics Electric Boat. It was a…

SS United States, the biggest, fastest, most glamorous of the U.S.-built ocean liners, may be put back into service as early as 2018 as the crown jewel of Crystal Cruise’s burgeoning luxury fleet if she can be brought back up to snuff after 20 hard years of languishing at Pier 82 in Philadelphia. Crystal Cruises, a Los Angeles-based luxury travel company, has signed an option agreement with the SS United States Conservancy — the ship’s owners — to buy the historic 990-foot ocean liner, popularly known as “America’s Flagship.” The deal’s consummation is contingent on the results of a feasibility study to see if the ship can be upgraded to meet today’s environmental, safety and luxury-market standards within a budget of $700 million to $800 million. The option expires in…

Aydin Multitouch Display Aydin Marine’s 17-inch KMGBL-17T multitouch, sunlight-readable display features an LED-backlit LCD monitor with a slim-profile aluminum case. Constructed of milled billet aluminum, the lightweight case protects against water and dust ingress (IP68 rating). The display is designed for pilothouse and flybridge installations, and features include a 5-to-4 aspect ratio, 1,280-by-1,024-pixel resolution, and HDMI, DVI, VGA and composite inputs. $4,800. Aydin Marine, Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, (610) 404-7400. aydindisplays.com Northern Lights Control Panel With a back-lit LCD and large, easy-to-read buttons, the TSC Tough Series control panel for Northern Lights gensets permits remote monitoring and control connection through a single data and power cable as long as 90 feet. The panel is custom-programmed and comes with voltage and current monitoring for single- and three-phase applications. Pressure and temperature warnings and…