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.
If you want a more adventurous boating life, shove off from your comfort zone. We all do that in our own way. Some gingerly, some full throttle. On the cautious end sits yours truly. Offshore fishing trips have never been easy for me, as I get sick even at the thought of a boat wallowing in the trough at trolling speed. Still, I recently pushed past the discomfort to cast lines with an expert angling crew in the Keys (page 48). The effort was worth it, and I was reminded that stepping outside the familiar can pay dividends. The opposite extreme is Mario Vittone, who spent last summer aboard an FPB 64 as it transited the Northwest Passage (page 34). He was aboard for 75 days as the boat traveled…
Generally when you see a product with Mark II after its name, it’s the same as Mark I, but with a tweak or two to make it a little bit better. Not so with the Nordhavn 46 Mark II from Pacific Asian Enterprises. The 46 MKII isn’t just an update of the original Nordhavn 46. It’s a completely new boat, one that’s designed, engineered and equipped for 21st-century tastes. About all the MKII shares with the older boat is the 46 in her name, and the fact that an experienced cruising couple without crew can handle her. Built at the South Coast shipyard in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the first 46 MKIIs will be delivered this year—quite a few decades since the years between 1989 and 2003, when PAE built 82 Nordhavn…
Tiara’s Luxury Sport series was born out of an appeal to edgier outboard enthusiasts. It was a bit of a style leap from the classic, understated Tiara design, layout and lines—which are timeless, and which are coming back, in a way, in the Tiara 39 LS. This is an entertainer’s boat, with an inviting setup from the swim platform through the cockpit and forward to the helm bench seat. A grill, sink and cooler in the stern sit abaft a plush bench seat in a pivoting module. Want to face over the port rail and open up the swim platform a little? Or do you prefer the settee to face aft? An electric switch unlocks the seat and allows manual movement to 90- and 180-degree positions. A fishing module can…
Pursuit Boats of Fort Pierce, Florida, recently expanded its Sport range of center consoles with the launch of the S 388. The second-largest model in the Sport family, it’s intended for cruising and offshore fishing. The boat replaces the builder’s S 378, offering more usable space, high-tech systems and comfort features, plus improved performance. One of the first things the Pursuit team did as part of the upgrade was to grant the S 388 another 8 inches. (Length overall is 41 feet, 1 inch.) They also raised the sole 2 inches. These evolutions allowed Pursuit to make significant changes to nearly every aspect of the boat. A statistic that stands out is the increase in onboard stowage, with places to put things now spread out from stem to stern. The…
Adventure makes the human soul grow. It also allows a break from the monotony of everyday life. That’s what Cruisers Yachts is aiming to inspire with its VTR line of boats, which stands for venture, trek, roam. “We call this segment the adventure series,” says Matt VanGrunsven, director of marketing at Cruisers Yachts. Cruisers builds midsize yachts from 42 to 60 feet. The Cantius series is express cruisers with luxe accommodations. The Fly series adds a flybridge, while the GLS series gives owners a choice of inboard or outboard power. The VTR series and its first model, the 38 VTR, take everything the builder has learned from those previous lines and adds features and amenities tailored for cruisers who want to plan adventurous itineraries around fishing, watersports and more. That…
Roald Amundsen and his crew left Norway on June 16, 1903, hoping to be the first to transit the fabled Northwest Passage. By mid-September, the ice closed in around their ship, the Gjoa, in a cove on the southeast coast of King William Island. A Netsilik Inuit man taught them how to survive, build igloos and drive dogsleds. They ate what they hunted and made clothes from the hides. After two years, they finally left King William Island. It would be another year before they reached Nome, Alaska. To send word of their success to Oslo, Amundsen had to drive a dogsled over a thousand miles to the nearest telegraph station. His family had waited three years and four months to find out if he and the crew had survived.…
