Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i Soundings

As with so many things in boating, the story of Belafonte begins with another boat: Reef Express. Reef Express, a 57-foot power catamaran, takes a few dozen people at a time on snorkeling trips out of Key West, Florida. A man who knew the boat found out about its St. Croix-based designer, Dave Walworth, and had a connection to one of the boat’s build-team members, Joe Kitchell. The man had small boats that take tourists on day trips, and he had an idea for a new one. He wanted Walworth to draw it and Kitchell to build it, for a specific itinerary. “What this boat is intended to do is go out for three hours or so,” Walworth says. “In Key West, there are these inshore dolphins that live in…

Time seems in short supply for many of us these days, which is why daysailers and weekenders are a great choice for maximizing your time on the water. (They’re also ideal for kids and adults who want to learn the basics of sailing.) Many of the boats we’ve corralled here are new ones, designed to be easy to get to the water and launch, or are models that can be trailered to expand your cruising range. We’ve also included a few recently built traditional daysailers and weekenders just because we can’t resist their sweet lines. Your biggest problem this summer may be figuring out when to get those weekend chores done, now that you have better plans. ALERION EXPRESS 30 Alerion Yachts built its reputation on designing and constructing sleek,…

LOA: 40 feet, 10 inches BEAM: 13 feet, 11 inches WEIGHT: 30,000 pounds (dry weight) DRAFT: 4 feet POWER: single 250-hp Cummins QSB 6.7 diesel SPEED: 10 knots top, 8 knots cruise (standard power) TANKAGE: 400 gallons fuel, 145 gallons water, 45 gallons waste PRICE: $409,000 LOCATION: Helmsman Trawlers, Seattle, Washington, (206) 282-0110. helmsmantrawlers.com Nearly 20 years ago I moved off my 30-foot sailboat and started developing a fancy for stout-looking pilothouse trawlers and other full-displacement vessels. Since then, I’ve been dreaming about a boat that could deliver my spouse and me up and down the U.S. coastline, and maybe to the Bahamas or the Caribbean when weather windows present themselves. Maybe that’s why the specifications placard on the dock behind a Helmsman 38E Pilothouse caught my attention at the…

The size of battery-charging equipment has grown to keep pace with larger and more sophisticated batteries. As charger output current has risen, cable sizes have increased in order to limit voltage drops or overheated conductors. This has led to direct-current cabling. It carries the charging current, which is much larger than the alternating-current conductors that operate the charger. This mismatch could pose a fire hazard if the AC grounding wire on the charger case — the green one — had to carry DC fault current home. Fault current could result if wire chafe or an internal DC connection occurred and caused a short circuit to the case. DC current in the charger’s case would want to “go home” any way it could. The pathway for the fault current is possible…

▪ The Titanic survivors staggered down the gangplank of the Carpathia, chilled from the cold and numbed from the sinking of the “unsinkable.” Among the crowd on the New York docks were children reuniting — hopefully — with mothers and fathers. Somewhere in the crowd were these two little boys: the “Orphans of the Titanic.” They were alone. They spoke no English. At ages 4 and 2, they could hardly have known where they were or what was happening to them. Margaret Hays, a Titanic passenger, realized they were speaking a childish French, and the story of Michel Navratil Jr. and his brother, Edmond, emerged. Their parents in France were separated. Michel Sr. had taken the boys to England and boarded the Titanic to sail to a new life in…

At the height of World War II, moviegoers paid about 30 cents each for tickets to “The Sullivans,” the story of five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, who served aboard the USS Juneau in the 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal. Toward the end of the film, an explosion tears through the 541-foot ship, and the screen fades to black, a cinematic retelling of how the five brothers — and more than 680 of their fellow crewmen and officers — perished after a Japanese torpedo strike. Americans watching on the big screen praised the story of the “Fighting Sullivans” as a legendary tale of an Irish-American family’s patriotic sacrifice. Three-quarters of a century later — on St. Patrick’s Day, no less — their watery grave has been found. The 250-foot research vessel Petrel,…

It’s said that in the 1880s, seven of the 10 boatbuilders on Man-O-War Cay in the Bahamas had the last name Albury. The Alburys built smacks, sloops and schooners from their home island in the Abacos, and in 1952, Willard Albury, with his father and brother, started building wooden, outboard-powered runabouts and skiffs. Willard Albury’s boats became known for their simplicity, strength and seakindliness, with fishermen from all around ordering his hulls. Don Albury is Willard’s son. Together with his dad and brother, Don grew Albury Brothers Boats into a company that now produces fiberglass boats from 18½ to 33 feet. As of 2003, demand for Albury Brothers boats was so high that most production moved to Riviera Beach, Florida. Today, the flagship Albury Brothers 33 is a far cry…

FOILING UFO Foiling sailboats aren’t anything new — folks have been fiddling around with one type of foiling device or another on sailboats since at least the 1950s. But these craft can be a challenge to sail, leaving a substantial chunk of hopeful foiling sailors on the dock. Fulcrum Speedworks’ Foiling UFO aims to change that. It’s 10 feet long, and its hull weighs 70 pounds, which means it can fly in as little as 8 knots of wind. Things can get hairy above those speeds, however, and sailors aboard traditional foiling sailboats have come into contact with some portion of the boat when things came crashing down. The Foiling UFO is designed to avoid all of that, keeping a clear splashdown area forward of the skipper. The whole package…

Nothing says Chesapeake Bay like a skipjack, with its distinctive profile and raked rig. These days skipjacks are romanticized, but for a long time they were simply hardworking boats linked to watermen’s traditional way of life. Minnie V. is among the last of the breed, a regional treasure with a quirky history. The waterman’s life always had plenty of allure. Pretty morning light and the slap of gentle waves on the hull were just the beginning. Making a satisfying lick, as men called each pass with the oyster dredge, paid the bills. In close quarters, with skipjacks tacking and gybing to stay over productive bottom, dredging could be downright exciting. Skilled watermen were rightfully proud of their local knowledge. And they were part of something bigger: a universe of watermen…

Can You Canoe? With masts reaching high into the sky and carrying more canvas than any boat their size should, Chesapeake Bay log canoes require a hefty crew perched outboard on long boards to keep them balanced and upright. Watching crews manhandle these graceful, overpowered vessels is a summer Eastern Shore tradition. In Tradition, Speed and Grace, John C. North II discusses his 70 years of experience in log canoes. North’s family owns and campaigns four of them, and he captains Island Bird, which his great-grandfather built in 1882. The 150-page book has more than 140 photographs and illustrations. ($65, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum) A Grand Adventure Randy and Rebecca Tisch have piloted their Nordhavn 68 Argo from Florida halfway around the world to New Zealand. The couple recount their…

SAIL A LEGEND Berths are available to sail aboard Sir Francis Chichester’s iconic Gipsy Moth IV for the July 1 start of the 2018 Golden Globe Race. The yacht is scheduled to leave Southampton, England, on June 25 and arrive in Les Sables d’Olonne, France, on June 28 at the height of festivities. The return leg commences July 2. Chichester completed the first solo, one-stop circumnavigation aboard Gipsy Moth IV in 1966-67, which was the inspiration for the original Golden Globe Race, staged in 1968. gipsymoth.org Back Cove Yachts has taken the wraps off its first outboard-powered boat, the 34O. “Back Cove recognizes the shift to outboard power that is going on in the market,” says Bentley Collins, vice president of marketing and sales. “This first Back Cove outboard retains…

SUPERNOVA Germania Nova is a reproduction of the 1908 schooner Germania, designed by Max Oertz. Built of steel in 2011 by Factoria Naval De Marin in Pontevedra, Spain, she is 196 feet with a beam of 26 feet and draws 18 feet. Below are five staterooms for 10 guests, plus quarters for 13 crewmembers. She cruises at 12-plus knots. The asking price is $7.3 million. edmiston.com THROUGH WIND AND FOG Formally lit on Dec. 1, 1870, after a 15-year land dispute, Point Reyes Light Station in Marin County, California, sits on a jagged piece of land the Coast Guard once called the “windiest and foggiest on the Pacific Coast.” The area is often buffeted by 75- to 100-mph winds and locked in fog for a week at a time. The…

Boston Whaler caused quite a sensation in the early part of its distinguished 60-year history. Not only were its boats unsinkable, but they also looked different. The cathedral hull, the squared bow and low freeboard, the open layout, even the blue interiors of the original models made them easily recognizable. In 1970, the burgeoning company introduced another boat that stood out from the crowd: the 21 Outrage. Its look was radical. The rub rail dropped from high on the bow down to the waterline, giving the impression of the gunwales draping over the side of the boat, and six perpendicular “ribs” were molded into the topsides. Boston Whaler designer William Mills Jr. reportedly gave the Outrage its name when he first saw it. With its mahogany helm console and bench…

Just before 6:00 a.m. Danielle Randolph, the second mate, appears at the bridge companionway. “Hi, how are you, Captain?” she says brightly. “How are you?” Davidson replies. He sounds happy to see her, but his question, like hers, is ritual. Both officers know how they are, and it’s not so hot. Davidson, as always, puts a bright face on the situation: “A scuttle popped open and there’s a little bit of water in three-hold. They’re pumping it out now.” The bridge telephone rings. The chief engineer now asks the captain to reverse his earlier move and turn the ship back to starboard, bringing the wind on the port side again to resume the starboard list. Apparently the list to port causes worse problems than a tilt the other way. What…

The wave in the foreground dominates the scene in Paul Garnett’s dramatic Charles W. Morgan Off Cape Horn. It’s called a graybeard, the seaman’s name for huge, rolling Southern Ocean waves driven over countless miles by endless winds. They pick up a ship and drive her down into the next churning cauldron of water, foaming in relentless succession. “Here we have the famous whaling vessel Charles W. Morgan on her maiden voyage, which began in September of 1841,” Garnett says. It’s early December, two months out, and Capt. Thomas A. Norton has shaped a course to pick up the northeast trades before bearing away for Cape Horn and the Pacific whaling grounds. Garnett went to the Morgan’s logbook to depict a particular moment in the voyage. It’s Dec. 11, and…

SPECIFICATIONS LOA: 38 feet, 3 inches • BEAM: 11 feet, 10 inches • WEIGHT: 11,000 pounds • DRAFT: 2 feet, 1 inch • HULL TYPE: deep-vee POWER: twin 350-hp Mercury Verados • SPEED: 39 knots top, 32 knots cruise • TANKAGE: 450 gallons fuel, 50 gallons water, 40 gallons waste BASE PRICE: $750,000 • CONTACT: Rambler Yachts, Newport, Rhode Island, (401) 369-0931. rambleryachts.com Rambler Yacht Co. will launch its first boat, the Rambler 38. It’s a center console designed by Sparkman & Stephens and built at the Lyman-Morse yard in Thomaston, Maine. Constructed of aluminum that is 85 percent from recycled sources and 100 percent recyclable at the end of the boat’s life, the Rambler 38 has a 21-degree deadrise for cutting through the choppy stuff and a 2-foot, 1-inch…