Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Soundings

Welcome aboard the diesel-powered version of the impressive MJM 4 performance day yacht. We recently tested the MJM 4, looking specifically at her performance and handling as powered by the new Volvo Penta DPI advanced drives. We begin our look out of the water, with Volvo Penta’s twin, counter-rotating Duoprop propellers. This next-generation design features a double hydraulic clutch pack that performed silky smooth and with zero clunking in our testing. With the trim and steering hydraulic, the control unit is mounted on the transom inside the engine compartment. The DPI is a fully integrated package with the drive paired with the latest \ computer-controlled version of the 440-horsepower Volvo Penta D-6 inline 5.5-liter diesel engine. These drives are fly-by-wire and rigged with sensors and lots of anti-corrosion features we…

Imagine holding a flashlight above your desk and shining it down at the surface. The area it lights up is pretty small. The beam produces a tightly contained circle. Now, imagine climbing onto the roof of your house and pointing that same flashlight down toward the ground. A much larger area brightens. You can see a lot more. “That’s sort of what we’re doing with sound,” says Derek Sowers, mapping operations manager for the Ocean Exploration Trust and lead author of a study detailing how scientists just mapped the largest known deepsea coral reef in the world. “If you can picture, underneath a vessel, we have mounted on the hull a fan of transducers that look out broadly in each direction. It’s painting the seafloor.” The newly documented reef covers…

If the words “Fast, Handsome and Durable” weren’t written in the design brief, they were uppermost in the mind of Mark Ellis when he began to draw the lines of the Limestone 24 in the mid-1980s. Although it was the first powerboat design from his own drawing board, early in his career Ellis worked for John Deknatel at C. Ray Hunt Associates where he was inspired by Hunt’s deep-V hull concepts. After leaving Hunt, he built his reputation with George Cuthbertson and George Cassian at Canada’s C&C Yachts in the early 1970s. Subsequently, he did design work from his own company, Mark Ellis Design, on the Aurora 40 and the Niagara 35. Ellis’ big breakthrough in production sailboats came when one of his sailing and racing friends, Gordon Fisher, urged…

A brace of outboards is the most popular power choice for the current generation of large center console models, day boats and sport cruisers, but it is no longer the only choice. Volvo Penta is making a strong case for its DPI Aquamatic D6-440 as an alternative to outboard power, and a number of production boat builders now offer this diesel sterndrive powertrain for boats ranging in size from about 42 to 56 feet in length. They’re adding the Aquamatic to the list of power options for select models because the diesel sterndrive offers significantly better fuel economy and more range than outboards at a similar cruising speed. Outboards will still deliver more top speed, but many experienced boat owners have learned that conditions don’t always permit running at wide-open…

In 1919, at 21 years of age, Uffa Fox opened his boatbuilding business, Uffa Fox Ltd., on the Isle of Wight, launching the career of one of England’s great boat designers. Born in East Cowes, right on the Solent, Fox became a sailing enthusiast and quickly forged a reputation as an eccentric man. Despite that, or maybe because of it, he developed a close relationship with the British royal family. In the above image Fox teaches the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III of England, how to sail. Fox had long been principal sailor for Charles’ father, Prince Phillip, and as legend goes, he once playfully tapped Queen Elizabeth II on the bottom while urging her to hurry on to an event. Of Fox, Prince Phillip wrote in the…

Like you, we consider a lot of boating destinations our favorites. Choosing top cruising locales can feel an awful lot like pinpointing a favorite boat. But we have to do the deed as we celebrate Soundings’ 60th anniversary. So here, we offer a look at six destinations that we believe have most stood the test of time with generations of boaters. Yes, they’re all in New England, but that’s because that corner of the world was home port to Soundings when it was first launched, and the region remains close to the hearts of many of the people who continue to read and enjoy the magazine today. BLOCK ISLAND, RI Henry DuPont, who runs Block Island Community Sailing and has lived on the island for 50 years, says there’s a…

In the early 1960s, when fiberglass boat construction was rapidly catching on, wooden boatbuilding began its steep decline. But in Bay City, Michigan, the Gougeon brothers felt that wood was still a good material. Meade, Joel and Jan Gougeon grew up sailing in the 1950s on Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay. Like their ancestors, the Gougeon boys would build boats on the city’s beach using wood, bronze Anchorfast nails and Weldwood glue. One of those boats was an Optimist pram that changed Jan’s life, set the brothers off on a professional boatbuilding path and led them to create a line of epoxy products that transformed boatbuilding. In his later years, Meade, the firstborn, would say that Clark Mills, the designer of the Optimist pram, saved his baby brother from a life…

LOA: 40’0”Beam: 14’0”Draft: 3’3”Displ.: 22,000 lbs.Power: (1) 100-hp Cummins dieselFuel: 142 gals.Water: 240 gals. Patti and Bill Linscott were on a mission when they began the hunt for a coastal cruiser. Specifically, they wanted a vessel that would allow them to explore the Salish Sea, an area of open and protected waters and tributaries stretching from the lower arms of Puget Sound to a point in the Strait of Georgia, near the northern end of Vancouver Island. For this purpose, they wanted a proven design with good seakeeping abilities, sufficient room on one level to make living aboard a comfortable experience, and enough character to stand out from the crowd. That criteria eventually led them to a Pilgrim 40, which they named Sunshine. Sunshine was not the first boat owned…

Mainers are used to big storms, especially in winter. Residents still talk about the blizzard of 1978 and the Patriot’s Day storm of 2007. But on January 10 and 13, Maine was hit by two ferocious, wind-driven storms that caused massive damage along the coast—wiping out docks, shoving historic fish houses off their pilings, damaging roads, completely destroying oceanfront homes and even damaging lighthouses that had withstood the ocean’s fury for a hundred years or more. The scope of the damage was unprecedented. A King tide contributed to the mayhem, but what set the storms apart was where they came from. Both storms rolled in from the southeast, an unusual direction for winter storms, and at an angle that was unfortunately almost perfectly perpendicular to Maine’s coastline, driving ocean waters…

The Sirena 48 is the smallest vessel in a four-model line that runs to 88 feet from the Turkish shipyard. Like her sisterships, the 48 is drawn by the Argentinian yacht designer Germán Frers. Her profile is defined by an elegant plumb bow, copious hullside glass and a tall pilothouse with forward-facing windows that echo her straight bow. It is a fetching look that translates well up and down Sirena’s model line. During the Sirena 48’s premiere at the recent Cannes Yachting Festival, the optional passerelle brought me over her hydraulic swim platform and into the cockpit, where buyers have a choice of layouts. These can include fixed or loose furniture with a deep lazarette and a transom door that opens to the swim step. An owner could opt for…

Cruising yachts have been the lifeblood of Sabre Yachts since the company was founded in 1970. Sabre, based in Raymond, Maine, exclusively built sailing yachts until 1989, when it debuted the Sabreline 36 Fast Trawler, the first in a series of Downeast-style powerboats. In 2003, the company launched a sister brand, Back Cove Yachts, initially designed to meet customer demand for single-engine Downeast cruisers. In 2013, Sabre shifted its focus entirely to building powerboats. Over the years, the two brands have evolved with advances in marine construction and propulsion technology: Today, Sabre builds express and flybridge cruisers from 38 to 58 feet powered by Volvo IPS pod drives; and Back Cove offers models sized from 35 to 41 feet, with outboards and diesel inboards. At the same time, both Sabre…

Renowned realist artist Jamie Wyeth, the third generation of the Wyeth painting dynasty, commissioned a Monhegan skiff from the Carpenter’s Boat Shop in Pemaquid, Maine, in 1984. Under the watchful eye of the shop’s founder, Robert (Bobby) Ives, an apprentice constructed the skiff that Wyeth painted in the work Monhegan Skiff. Wyeth kept the skiff, but the painting was sold to a private collection in Colorado. So it was pure chance when a board member from Carpenter’s Boat Shop stumbled upon the work in 2023 while visiting the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. Working closely with the Farnsworth Museum and Wyeth himself, the Carpenter’s Boat Shop produced a series of prints of Monhegan Skiff to raise money for the non-profit organization, which specializes in nurturing lives and helping others…

As the days get longer and the grass gets greener, the time to properly prepare your boat for the coming season has arrived. Commonly referred to as spring commissioning, the process is not just vital for a long and successful boating season, it’s also important for the overall lifespan of your boat and your own safety. A spring commissioning to-do list is dependent on what you did to winterize your boat, the type of boat, and her age. As seasoned skippers know, boats suffer far more equipment failures the less you use them. So, in an effort to fully maximize the boating season after a long winter on the hard, we’re going to take a look at the critical spring commissioning tasks. HULL MAINTENANCE Proper maintenance of the hull is…