Soundings is the news and feature publication for recreational boaters. Award-winning coverage of the people, issues, events -- and the fun -- of recreational boating. Check out our generous boats-for-sale section and our gunkholing destinations.
Ken Perry dropped me a note recently, to share an experience he’d recently checked off his bucket list. It had been a lifelong dream of his to sail his own recreational boat to distant places. “And by sailing I mean literally harnessing the wind in sails to discover new shores,” he said. During a 30-year-plus career in the Navy, Perry commanded submarines, harnessing the power of nuclear reactors for subsea missions, but, he said, it was not the same as heeling into wind and waves as a civilian on an open deck. And while he had skippered pleasure sailboats periodically, the frequent relocations for work made owning one impractical. But following retirement, he finally had time to explore on his own, so he and his wife bought a Hallberg-Rassy in…
Brooklin, Maine, has wooden boatbuilding in its veins. It’s home to the WoodenBoat School, which, since 1981, has taught more than 20,000 people about the construction, maintenance, repair, design and seamanship of wooden boats. The town is also home to Brooklin Boat Yard and other builders who keep the craftsmanship alive. Yes, it’s a stretch when these folks call their town “the boatbuilding capital of the world,” but when it comes to wooden boats, they proudly mean it. Amid all this sawdust is the Friend Memorial Public Library, which got its start in the late 1800s and has held on with the town’s tiny, year-round population of about 800 people. The current building was renovated in the 1990s and is used not just by the locals, but also by summertime…
Having made a career by boating all my life, I have seen hundreds of models from canoes to yachts come and go. The one boat that I think compares to Noah’s sturdy ark is the Boston Whaler Montauk. I am a proud owner of a 1985 Boston Whaler 17 Montauk that is amply powered with an equally eager-to-please 90-hp Yamaha outboard. This is my second Boston Whaler. The first was a 17 Tashmoo with an 85-hp Johnson Sea Horse. I purchased the Montauk more than 20 years ago and have repowered it once. From my Montauk, I’ve caught fish, raked clams, hand-lined blue claw crabs, watched fireworks on summer evenings, visited waterside restaurants, enjoyed romantic evening cruises and taught kids how to dock and drive. Whether it was trips to…
My wife was, at best, lukewarm about my plans. Less than a year earlier, we’d purchased our first boat, a 20-year-old Hallberg-Rassy 43, to explore the Chesapeake Bay. The idea was that after a season or two, and following retirement, we’d embark on more ambitious adventures. When the 2024 Salty Dawg Caribbean Rally from the Chesapeake to Antigua came around, I figured it was time to aim a bit farther than the local ports. “Have fun,” she told me as I joined a four-man crew on a 48-foot Leopard catamaran for the 1,700-nautical-mile passage. For those not familiar with this event, it is a large organized flotilla of boats that depart from the U.S. East Coast each fall. Hosted by the Salty Dawg Sailing Association (SDSA), sailors cruise together to…
LOA: 33’6” Beam: 11’7” Draft: 2’3’ Max. Power: 1,050 hp Fuel: 293 gals. The design team at Grady-White has a knack for taking great boats and making them even better. When they introduce a feature that becomes a customer must-have, the designers will roll out the same touches on other models across the lineup. The Freedom 345 is a great example, combining the comfort and style of the Freedom 415 with the fishability of the Canyon 456 in a slightly smaller package. “We recognized our customers’ strong desire for top-of-the-line design details, which we noted in their reaction to the Canyon 456, 386 and Freedom 415. With this in mind, we made sure to include similar amenities while planning the 345,” says Grady-White Product Designer Christian Carraway. “This results in…
When it comes to beauty and efficiency, sailboat designs by Sparkman & Stephens rank at or near the top of virtually all lists. The Tartan 37, which debuted in 1976, is one example of the iconic work produced by this naval architecture firm. With its modest but pronounced overhangs, gently sprung sheer and low trunk cabin, the Tartan 37 looks timeless. It followed in the wake of the popular Tartan 27 and 34 models, which launched S&S into the rapidly growing auxiliary keelboat market of the 1970s and 1980s. According to one source, Tartan Marine built over 480 Tartan 37 models over a period of 13 years. When Gordon K. (Sandy) Douglass and Ray McLeod founded the Douglass and McLeod boat building company in Grand River, Ohio, in 1951, sailing…
