Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i Soundings

Editor’s note: Bob Grieser was a legendary photographer, a frequent Soundings contributor and an all-around colorful character who was wellknown in the boating community. “Bobby G” died in January at age 70. A longtime friend and colleague offers this remembrance. What is the world coming to? Up is down. Wrong is right. Fake is real, and truth seems lost. How can I ever hope to make sense of this mess, especially now that the reverend from the Church by the Sea has sailed for Fiddler’s Green? It seems like only yesterday that you and I met in Mission Bay, California, during that windy Cat Fight regatta. Boats were flying, flipping and crashing into the jetty, and you were stuck without a photo-boat driver. So you hired me, a goofy guy…

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came These are the words of President John F. Kennedy, addressing the crews of Weatherly and Gretel in Newport, Rhode Island, during the America’s Cup in 1962. JFK’s passion for the sea is well documented. In photos, he looks most at ease on the water, spending time with family and friends. One of his favorite boats was a power cruiser named Marlin. Purchased by the Kennedy family when JFK was a young senator, Marlin became a Cold War conference room for the president as he dealt with complex postwar issues. The 52-foot powerboat — with a double-planked, mahogany rumrunner hull…

MORRIS M29 LOA: 29 feet, 2 inches • LWL: 20 feet, 10 inches • BEAM: 7 feet, 4 inches • DRAFT: 4 feet, 6 inches; 3 feet, 8 inches (shoal keel) • DISPLACEMENT: 4,375 pounds • SAIL AREA: 395 square feet • FUEL CAPACITY: 8 gallons • ENGINE: 14-hp Yanmar diesel • PRICE: $229,300 • CONTACT: Morris Yachts, Trenton, Maine, (207) 667-2499. morrisyachts. Whether she’s sashaying around a mooring ball, tugging on her lines at the slip or resting her quarters on a trailer, a small boat can be your best friend. These pocket-size sailboats typically require little care because they don’t have complex systems to maintain. The smallest of the lot can be dry-sailed and don’t need annual applications of bottom paint. Rigs and sail controls don’t require powered…

The rectangular shapes of the stone wharf and its gray-clad buildings stand out against the formless grandeur of a sunlit sky, a layer of light clouds softening the colors in this oil painting by William Duffy. It’s evening at the American Yacht Club in Rye, New York, as the small boats tied up at the dock fade into irregular shapes in the dying light. “I was intrigued by the pattern of buildings and the light and atmosphere,” the 68-year-old artist says. “There’s the play of the architecture against the water and the very dramatic sky. It’s a half-lit sunset, not a full-blown colorful sunset — just enough to create a kind of personal mood separate from the location.” The cluster of boats form a recognizable mass of texture, Duffy says.…

More than a century ago a local writer referred to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as “The Old Town by the Sea.” Its connections to the nautical past still run deep. Boaters will find no other place like it in the Northeast — an eminently walkable destination of great restaurants, waterfront bars, theater, concerts in the park and historic buildings, all crowned by a busy working waterfront. Check it out, and you’ll realize that the tidal pulse of the Piscataqua River is still the heartbeat of this town. Inbound skippers may find themselves sharing the channel with a 38,000-ton tanker and tugs, or occasionally with a nuclear submarine. No problem. The channel is wide and well-marked. As you proceed upstream from the sea toward the three architecturally stunning bridges crossing the river…

Thank you Jack Atzinger for bringing forth Jack Sherwood’s great, humble qualities. As in many things, I don’t think we will hear from a man such as him again. I miss him so. Thank you all at Soundings. I have loved your magazine since I was a teenager in the ’70s. Chad E. Brown S/V Beluga via email Jack Atzinger hit all the points in his story about Jack Sherwood [“Former Soundings Writer Was A ‘Sailor’s Sailor,’ ” March]. I thoroughly enjoyed this well-deserved tribute I received a comment from Jack’s 16-yearold granddaughter Claire Sherwood after she read the tributes. She asked if he knew how loved and admired he was. Her father Mark later responded, “I do now.” And I say we all do now! Honoring Jack means so…

It may have been fire, not ice, that sank the Titanic. A new Smithsonian Channel documentary suggests that a smoldering coal fire was to blame for the 1912 disaster that killed 1,500 people some 400 miles south of Newfoundland. The discovery is the “Titanic equivalent of [finding] Tutankhamun’s tomb,” says Irish journalist Senan Molony, director of Titanic: The New Evidence. Molony has spent more than 30 years researching the doomed liner. A section of the Titanic’s hull was significantly weakened by the coal fire, smoldering in a three-story hold next to a boiler room for as long as three weeks, and gave way after hitting an iceberg, Molony contends. The damaged bulkhead was warped and distorted, and it had lost 75 percent of its strength, according to Molony’s findings. The…

Rod Fortier, owner of Fortier Boats in Somerset, Massachusetts, is a let’s-get-down-to-business kind of guy. He doesn’t much like to be interviewed, and he refuses to be photographed. His father, Roger Fortier — the company’s founder, who died in 2011 — wasn’t much for photographs, either But the younger Fortier, seated in his second- story office with a panoramic view of the Taunton River and the town of Fall River across the water, doesn’t want to talk about any of that. He also doesn’t want to discuss the yard’s nearly half-century history or any of his personal recollections. He wants to talk about the Fortier 33, the focus of his marketing efforts. The value of Fortier powerboats, he says, is in their timelessness. The 33, like all of the yard’s…

LOA: 39 feet, 6 inches BEAM: 12 feet, 4 inches WEIGHT: 16,580 pounds DRAFT: 2 feet, 11 inches POWER: 370-hp Yanmar diesel SPEED: 23.5 knots top, 12-17 knots cruise TANKAGE: 185 gallons fuel, 105 gallons water, 17 gallons waste PRICE: $427,650 (as tested, fully equipped) CONTACT: SVP Yachts, Harbour Towne Marina, Dania Beach, Florida, (917) 685-4111. greenlinehybridusa.com Powerboating with minimal environmental impact — that’s what Greenline is all about. Greenline Hybrid Yachts produces a fleet of boats from 33 to 48 feet that allow you to enjoy fuel-efficient, clean and quiet coastal cruising. With their diesel/electric hybrid propulsion, solar panels and slippery hull design, these coupe-style cruisers suit environmentally conscious boaters who appreciate not just the destination, but also the journey. “I think people had their suspicions about hybrid power…

LAND OF THE LOST A research team from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa has found part of a lost continent deep in the Indian Ocean. A report in the journal Nature Communications says the lava-covered land, found beneath the island of Mauritius, was left behind after the breakup of supercontinent Gondwana 200 million years ago. Ancient pieces of zircon were determined to predate any known geological strata from Mauritius. Scout’s new 380 LXF bridges the gap between the 350 LXF and the 420 LXF in the builder’s fleet of sportfishing center consoles. In addition to fishing offshore, the 380 LXF is ideal for outings with friends and family. Standard equipment includes a patented hardtop with curved glass enclosure, a 5-kW genset, cabin air conditioning, a convertible queen berth,…

Anative of the Great Lakes region, Doug Zurn grew up sailing and boating. His father owned boats that exposed Zurn at a young age to the design talents of Phil Rhodes, Ray Hunt and Jim McCurdy. Zurn established his company, Zurn Yacht Design in Marblehead, Massachusetts, straight out of Westlawn School of Yacht Design in 1993 and spent his early career apprenticing for some of the industry’s most respected designers and builders. He’s a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the American Boat and Yacht Council and the Yacht Brokers Association of America. Twenty-four years after hanging out his shingle, Zurn has 149 designs and more than 450 launches under his belt, including the MJM line. He’s established a reputation for boats that are beautiful, efficient…

As the story goes, B.B. Crowninshield, former owner of the property where Fortier Boats now stands, bought the site from a shipbuilder working on a four-masted schooner named Luther Little, destined to carry freight along the coast. But a fire destroyed the yard and the boat in 1917. Crowninshield rebuilt Luther Little (left), as well as a sister ship, Hesper, completing both in about 10 months. If you think about it, they had to pull together and start from scratch in a place that had burned down, with the lack of equipment that we have today,” says Somerset Historical Society curator Diane Goodwin. After Luther Little splashed, the launch of Hesper was scheduled for Fourth of July 1918 as part of the community’s festivities. But the next day’s headline in…

Casting off the bowlines, the Greenline 40 crept silently out of her slip and glided toward the Intracoastal Waterway. We had barely left the dock, and I was already experiencing the joys of green boating. Twin electric motors pushed the hybrid cruiser at 5 knots. I took the wheel from Dennis Rhodes, Greenline’s U.S. sales manager, who had set up the demo ride for me at Harbour Towne Marina in Dania Beach, Florida. If you’re looking for an adrenaline rush, driving an electric boat probably isn’t your thing. But if you enjoy the sense of being enveloped in nature and close to the water, you’ll be thrilled by the Greenline’s quiet performance. The electric propulsion lets you enter and exit marinas and anchorages in silence, with zero emissions. How cool…

Para-Claw Survival Bracelet The Para-Claw combines a 1½-inch hawkbill blade with a hand-tied bracelet made of 550 parachute cord so the wearer always has a utility knife at hand. A patent-pending sheath locks the blade — ground from 8Cr13MoV stainless steel — but allows immediate deployment, and an adjustable loop makes for a perfect fit. The Para-Claw is available in small, medium and large, for wrist circumferences of 5¾ to more than 7 inches. $29.95. Outdoor Edge, Denver, (800) 447-3343. outdooredge.com Insect Repellent The new MR450 repeller from Thermacell Repellents establishes a 15-by-15-foot zone of protection from mosquitoes and other flying insects. A butane cartridge heats a repellent-soaked mat — silently and without odor or an open flame — to disperse vapor around you. The repellent mimics the natural one…

A big flybridge motoryacht barrels through the chop in this 1959 magazine cover by Lester Fagans. Little known today, Fagans was a top commercial illustrator and painter through three decades, honored by the American Merchant Marine Institute as “one of the country’s leading contemporary marine artists. Fagans was known early on for his detailed boat portraits. A 1939 work, Breezy Day, shows Henry Gibson’s powerboat Vesta, built by Hubert Johnson’s yard in Bay Head, New Jersey. After serving in the South Pacific during World War II, Fagans began a career in commercial art, working for a variety of companies. He did road maps for Esso (Standard Oil); illustrated articles for Popular Science (one on “How to Drive” required Fagans to do extensive study of accident photographs); and a series of…