Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i Soundings

It’s evening in late February and I’m at home listening to the howling wind. I pace the house, driving the family a bit crazy. As my departure time gets closer, I get the chart and spread it on the dining room table, using jigs and sinkers to lay it flat. With my finger, I trace the direction of both the wind and swell. “This will not be pretty,” I say out loud. I run a pilot boat on Block Island Sound. This evening we have an outbound ship arriving from New Haven, Connecticut. My job is to get the pilot off the ship so he doesn’t end up taking a ride to Singapore. We meet the ships between Block Island and Point Judith, Rhode Island. In weather, this maneuver can…

For more than a decade, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been working on ways to improve forecasts of two things boaters care deeply about: hurricanes and rip currents. Now, technology is finally catching up with these researchers’ visions—and making it possible to give boaters information so detailed, it represents a big leap forward. “The technology is challenging, and anytime you’re promoting something new in the government, it’s challenging,” says Joe Cione of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory Hurricane Research Division. “But I feel very good about this.” Cione is the principal investigator for NOAA’s work using drones to study hurricanes. Since the mid-2000s, he has been trying to figure out how to collect more data from deeper inside storms, including places manned aircraft can’t go.…

Fifteen miles from the ocean in Gray, Maine, the walls, ceiling, floor, stairs and benches of Steve Bunker’s barn are covered with ship’s lamps, wheels, navigational lights, anchors, portholes, compasses, flags, spyglasses, clocks, telescopes, sextants, octants, caulker’s irons, speaking trumpets, belaying pins, single and double sheave blocks, ship’s bells, rigging gear, deadeyes, bull’s-eyes, anvils, fids, spikes, palms, quarter boards, sea chests, carvings, maritime signs, posters and weaponry, including, pistols, knives, muskets, cannons and a wooden barrel full of swords. A layer of dust provides an additional layer of authenticity. It’s cold inside the barn, so Bunker, who’s been collecting for most of his 75 years, uses a soldering torch to light the propane heater underneath the workbench. He then brings the 5-inch-long flame toward his face and lights his pipe.…

LOA: 28’6” Beam: 10’4” Draft: 3’0” Power: (1) diesel or gas engine When you grow up in Newport, Rhode Island, you grow up around boats. “Dad had a J/24 when I was born,” says Josh Parks, a 34-year-old lawyer and Newport native. “So, I started out on that.” The young sailor went on to compete in dinghy racing in college, and later campaigned a trimaran around New England with his father. “I did a lot of sailing,” says Parks, who owned and raced a Hobie 16, Vanguard 15 and Laser-class racing dinghies. But when Parks and his wife, Amy, a nonprofit and political consultant, started looking for their first “big” vessel, they had a powerboat in mind. “We wanted something to go cruising on,” says Parks. “I have plenty of…

A LOYAL BERTRAM FAN I liked your story “The Legend of the Bertram 31” (soundingsonline.com). And I appreciate the reference to the fact that when Dick Bertram put this boat into production in 1961, he relied on a highly skilled workforce made up of Cubans who had fled Fidel Castro’s newly established communist regime. I was a part of that exile community. Today I’m proud of our accomplishments and thankful for the welcome we were given in the 1960s and beyond. One year after I became a U.S. citizen, I joined the U.S. Coast Guard Officer Candidate School and was commissioned an Ensign in 1969. I was assigned to USCG headquarters and assigned to the National Search & Rescue reporting system. I’m glad to have been of service. My first…

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING THE ART OF BOATBUILDING Bob Emser is an internationally known artist and sculptor whose work has always been inspired by the way boats are constructed and their aesthetics. On his YouTube channel, The Art of Wooden Boatbuilding, Emser takes viewers on a journey through the process of boatbuilding as seen through his eyes—those of an artist and craftsman. Emser films the videos in his studio, which has been converted into a boatbuilding shop, and covers everything from keels and garboard planks to deep dives into tools such as planes, mallets and reefing hooks. MORE SALTY READS COASTAL CULTURE Photographer Caryn B. Davis’ new coffee table-style book Connecticut Waters: Celebrating Our Coastline and Waterways takes readers on a nautical journey around the rivers, sounds, bays and shores of…

LOA: 46’7” Beam: 13’4” Draft (engines down): 3’6” Weight (full load): 27,217 lbs. Fuel: 694 gals. Power: (4) Mercury 450Rs Price: $1,212,000 With the speed and power of a blue marlin on a rampage, Valhalla Boatworks has morphed from the new boatbuilder on the dock to a major player in the luxury center console segment. The brand was launched in late 2019 and yet in just over a year, it boasts a line-up that’s four boats strong. The newest addition is the company’s flagship, the V-46 center console. Valhalla Boatworks is a subsidiary of Viking Yachts of New Gretna, New Jersey, a family-owned and operated builder of convertibles and motoryachts ranging from 38 to 93 feet. “Our goal when we started Valhalla Boatworks was to be a dominating force in…

Some anglers say they dream of one day owning a Carolina boat, but what exactly do they mean by that? Often, they’re referring to a sportfisherman constructed near the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where big waves, shifting shoals and unpredictable conditions test the mettle of any vessel. A Carolina boat can cut through heavy seas and traverse nasty inlets, keep the crew dry and make good time. In short, it’s a seakindly vessel with efficiency and maneuverability, particularly while on a fish. When people think of Carolina boats, many visualize custom builds from yards such as Jarrett Bay, Scarborough and Spencer. But Carolina boats are available in production models too, and they share some of the traits seen in custom designs, including lines that are indigenous to the region,…

Over a long career, marine artist Robert Sticker gave his viewers a behind-the-scenes perspective of multiple corners of the maritime world, from whalers and fishing boats to warships and steamers. He painted a crew handling sails on a square-rigger, a sailor at the wheel in rough weather and men unloading a riverboat. Though considered mundane tasks at the time, these scenes provide a glimpse of an older way of life. Sticker grew up on Staten Island, New York, watching ships and boats traveling through New York Harbor. After serving in the Navy in World War II, he began painting as a hobby, studying part-time at The Art Students League of New York. He attended school as a full-time student at age 41. In “The Sounding Party,” he takes us to…

It’s April 1955, and the folks around Apalachicola, Florida, are celebrating the coming of a new boating season on the Chattahoochee River with a Boat-A-Cade, an event during which many boats will cruise together to multiple destinations. In this image, participants attempt to get a little wooden runabout with its 25-hp Johnson Seahorse onto its trailer, under the gaze of a crowd of onlookers. A Chevrolet Bel Air is backed up at the makeshift launch site, the rear wheels perilously close to the water. One person gets his pants wet at the boat’s end, while the other one gets to roll his up on the car’s end. The marriage of the trailerable boat and the automobile was in full swing by the 1950s. As boat sales picked up after World…

For about $230,000, someone who loves sailing history is going to take home a piece of it. That’s the asking price for Gipsy Moth IV, a 53-foot ketch built in 1966 that Sir Francis Chichester commissioned to sail singlehandedly around the world in 1966-67. His journey captivated countless imaginations—a man in a boat trying to accomplish what Clipper ships five times the size were doing in those days. And, Chichester was 65 years old at the time. The BBC reported that a crowd a quarter million strong gathered at Plymouth Hoe to welcome Chichester and Gispsy Moth IV back to England as he completed the circumnavigation. Thousands of small boats accompanied Gipsy Moth IV into Plymouth Sound. The Royal Artillery sounded a 10-gun salute, and at the breakwater, Chichester’s wife…

When it comes to diversity, the America’s Cup is still in the dark ages. This year’s 36th edition featured four boats with 11-man crews. Forty-four men, zero women. That’s not just sad—it’s pathetic. And it needs to change because female sailors have been marginalized for far too long. It’s been 32 years since Tracy Edwards showed up with an all-female crew for the 1989 Whitbread Round the World Race. Male sailors openly mocked Maiden’s 12-woman crew, and many said they would never finish. Then, the women won two of the individual legs of the race and finished the grueling competition second in their class. Six years later, Mighty Mary showed up in San Diego with an allfemale crew for the 1995 America’s Cup with U.S.-born New Zealander Leslie Egnot at…

Founded in the mid-1960s, Wynne Marine Inc. designed fishing and performance boats and luxury yachts for more than 30 manufacturers, including major American production builders such as Chris-Craft, Hatteras, Grady-White and Larson. The company’s founder was competitive raceboat designer and driver Jim Wynne, who led what is now called one of the most influential independent design houses in the marine industry. One of the boats that enabled Wynne Marine to earn that reputation was the Phoenix 29. More than 750 of these deep-V, mid-sized fishing machines were built during the boat’s long and successful production run from 1977 to 1987. Owners prized the boats for their clean styling, large fishing cockpit and rugged construction. The 29 was the first in a successful fleet of recreational fishing craft from Florida-based Phoenix…

The sun had yet to rise but there was enough light peeking over Elk Neck State Park to illuminate the Susquehanna Flats, a broad expanse of shallow, grass-filled water at the top of Chesapeake Bay. There wasn’t a breath of wind on that cool spring morning, leaving the flats looking like a seamless piece of wet glass. The only sounds were migrating warblers, the occasional squawky seagull and our 18-foot center console slicing through the water. We had the whole place to ourselves. There wasn’t another boat in sight. Fatigued after a 3 a.m. wake-up and 90-minute drive from my home in Annapolis to Havre de Grace, Maryland, I stood holding the console handrail with my eyes closed, nodding in and out of sleep. Moments later, the water erupted with…

In early January, when the outside temperature in Rhode Island was in the thirties, Onne van der Wal decided it was time to bring the mast and boom from his 1986 Grand Banks 32 to his home workshop, where the conditions would be much friendlier. Besides the spars needing a paint job, the electronics on the mast and spreaders needed to be replaced. Most were original or vintage. The Raytheon radar was from the 1990s. “The stuff was pretty old,” Onne says. So, he ordered new instruments. At about 12-feet long, the mast was just small enough to fit into his workshop, so he took it down—something he realized he should have gotten help with when he was lowering it to the ground—put it in his Suburban and drove it…