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I connected with an old colleague recently, and we got caught up on what he’s been doing and where he’s been going. Capt. Stuart Reininger, who keeps his boat in Connecticut, travels a lot for pleasure and for work as a marine journalist, charter skipper and delivery captain. When the conversation moved to cruising and weather he asked, “Have you ever seen a white squall?” I have not encountered this rare weather phenomenon—a sudden and intense windstorm that’s often unaccompanied by the black clouds characteristic of a conventional squall. Stu had been caught up in one while running a 65-footer near Montauk Point, New York, and the experience tested his seamanship mettle. On that day, NOAA had predicted possible thunderstorms with high winds, lightning and hail, so Stu was watchful.…
The men in all the photographs looked rugged and weather-beaten. Sophie Elmhirst kept looking at the faces, one after the next. She was researching an article about all the ways people were responding to the pandemic, including by trying to escape in boats headed offshore. Then her research brought her to a series of photos of boat-sinking survivors and the images made it clear that freedom from life on land didn’t necessarily turn out to be all sunshine and blue skies. Two particular faces captured Elmhirst’s attention. “There was a picture of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, who I’d never heard of before,” she says. “The more I dug into it, and once I started finding all the source material and people who were still alive that knew their family…
You don’t always have the luxury of a skilled crew when it’s time to get the boat on or off the dock. Sometimes you’re doing it with just one other person, or maybe you’re boating alone. It’s especially tricky when you, the skipper, serve as a deckhand. Who is driving the boat if you’re on the stern, fending off, or hauling in a line? If you have a wireless remote docking control, it will be you. A wireless remote docking control is about the size of your TV remote and will let you manipulate your shifts, throttles, thruster(s), the windlass and even the horn, from anywhere on the boat. Remotes can even have a joystick. You can stand in the cockpit or on the side deck, hold the boat alongside…
I heard it said more than once at the Palm Beach International Boat Show last spring that the docks were overwhelmingly choked with center consoles. And while it’s true that anglers and the go-fast crowd have plenty to appreciate in the layout and performance of this design, center consoles are almost always—and perhaps inherently—lacking in a couple of other departments. One boat that stood out from the fleet was Sōlace’s new 30CS. It’s the third and smallest model in the builder’s CS (short for Center Step) line of offshore-ready, fishing-friendly designs that includes a 32 and a 37. The 30 CS caught my eye because it looked to be the most amenity-laden center console boat in its size range. It was equipped with the features I saw on boats in…
Sitting at the flybridge helm of the Marlow 65 Explorer, northbound for Onslow Bay and well off the coast of North Carolina, I marveled at the ride of this passagemaker. As it reacted to 6-foot waves and high winds on its stern, the motion was comfortable, the ride was dry, and the tracking was as straight as the proverbial train on tracks. Marlow Founder David Marlow is well known for his long-distance luxury cruisers, but maybe more so for his hull designs that are capable and efficient in deep water. The Marlow 65 was codesigned with Doug Zurn, the Marblehead, Massachusetts, naval architect who gained fame with his creation of the Shelter Island 38. “The 65 was our design number 9954, which we started in 1999,” Zurn said. “It was…
Sonal Desai and Hement Kanakia had owned a Freedom 40 sailboat that they kept in Annapolis, Maryland, and from that homeport, they spent 15 years cruising the East Coast. They traveled as far north as Maine, where they made great memories, particularly in Camden, one of their favorite destinations. But after they sold the Freedom, the couple got to thinking about their next boat. The choice would be important, because the vessel would take Hement into retirement and Sonal into semi-retirement, when they’d have the chance to spend more time on the water. “We loved our Freedom, but I realized that for me, if our plan was to be aboard more than a couple weeks at a time, it would not be as much fun on a sailboat. So I…
