Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i Yachting

THE 50-FOOT SPORT-FISHING BOAT I CREW ABOARD hasreceived major technology upgrades recently. Its owner refitted all of the helm’s electronics, including the black-box system, radar array, multifunction displays and more. It looks like a NASA-level setup. The depth sounder shows what’s below with pinpoint accuracy, and the radar displays targets and their potential threat levels, which is useful because we fish tournaments and often run in the dark. He added FLIR thermal imaging too. This piece of gear gives us a level of situational awareness that was previously left to reading the radar and the running lights of nearby vessels. ¶ That said, the one thing that remains vital is the human element. We still have three people at the helm when operating in the pitch-black. One person keeps an…

HARGRAVE YACHTS is known for building custom vessels. The challenge with that business model is that custom yachts are one-off projects, which means they can be harder for brokers to sell. Most customers like to see a rendering or brochure for an existing model as a starting point in their shopping process.¶ So, when Miami-based designer Patrizio Facheris asked to show Hargrave CEO Mike Joyce an idea for a 120 that could be a production boat, Joyce was happy to take a look. ¶ “He laid it out on the table, and I said, ‘I think Jack Hargrave would’ve liked this,’” Joyce says. “As modern as this 120 is, everything lines up. The windows, the hull—that’s what Jack was known for.” ¶ Now, Hargrave is preparing to roll out a…

THE INVINCIBLE 33 Catamaran is a fishing-specific boat withsemi-asymmetric hulls for 360 degrees’ worth of casting possibilities. The hulls are by Morrelli & Melvin, a California design firm long known for its high-performance sailing catamarans. Each boat is built from fiberglass and vinylester resin via a vacuum-bagged construction process. Owners can select from four twin-outboard power options with a total 600 to 900 hp (the most powerful setup employs Mercury Racing 450Rs), as well as options such as livewells, rod holders, racks and electric-reel outlets. Additional upgrades include hardtops, a folding tower, outriggers, windshield wings and custom seating. Whom It’s For: The Invincible 33 Catamaran is for serious anglers who want a strong, slippery hull form and a menu-style options list. Picture This: It’s early April, and you and…

Absolute Yachts has spent the past several years focused on its Flybridge and Navetta ranges, but the Italian company started out building sports cruisers. With its 48 Coupe, Absolute comes full circle. This yacht is based on the builder’s 47 Fly platform, and it offers something a little different. ¶ Instead of a conventional transom of opaque composites and perhaps a built-in sofa or sun pad, the 48 Coupe’s aft deck comes bare. There is tinted glass, stainlesssteel railing aft for safety, and just one transom gate to starboard. All 102 square feet of “cockpit terrace” is essentially open to owner interpretation, and Absolute offers a range of modular deck furniture for the purpose. (Teak decking is one of the bigger options.) ¶ Like the rest of this Absolute range,…

CO-OP COMMUNICATIONS Intellian’s redesigned FB250 FleetBroadband terminal (from $10,000) operates on Inmarsat’s Elera L-band network for voice and data speeds up to 284 kilobits per second. Features include analog and digital voice-communications lines. While the FB250 is a stand-alone communicator, it can be paired with an Intellian Ka-band GXNX antenna to create an ultra-fast Fleet Xpress system. Intellian, intelliantech.com LIFE INSURANCE Exposure OLAS’ OLAS N2K ($270) is an NMEA 2000-compatible base station that monitors networked, crew-worn OLAS T2 tags ($110). Should a tag break radiofrequency contact (read: person overboard), the OLAS N2K can trigger onboard alarms and record the yacht’s GPS position on the multifunction display. OLAS T2 tags can be worn on a belt clip, lanyard or wristband. Exposure OLAS, exposure-use.com NETWORK SURVEILLANCE Digital Yacht’s NavAlert monitors…

WILLARD JOHN is a man of great stature on St. Croix—even when he is not wearing his 6½-foot-tall stilts. ¶ John is the founder of Guardians of Culture Moko Jumbies, a group dedicated to preserving the art of stilt dancing in the US Virgin Islands. Since 1993, the group has trained young Crucians to carry on this centuries-old tradition, which started in Africa as a spiritual expression but evolved into a more colorful and festive form in the Virgin Islands. ¶ “What’s important to me is that when visitors see these entities on stilts, dancing, they also understand its context and significance,” John says. A former high-school principal, he narrates the group’s Wednesday performances at the Palms at Pelican Cove in Christiansted to provide a primer on the art form’s…

GARMIN IS takingboaters’ situational awareness to new heights—literally. With its Surround View camera system, the company aims to mitigate virtually all problems that skippers typically have when docking and maneuvering in tight spaces. ¶Using six cameras located around the boat, Surround View provides a bird’s-eye video and 360-degree views from the helm. For now, Garmin says, regardless of the boat’s size, there will always be six cameras: two amidships (one each to port and starboard), two foredeck cameras (again, port and starboard), one camera at the tip of the bow, and one far aft at the stern. Surround View stitches together the videos from each camera to create a seamless, real-time feed. ¶ Skippers can also access each camera individually, with zooming and panning capabilities. The in-hull camera integration doesn’t…

“How many yachts built these days will live as long and look as good?” one of my millennial boys asked. Eighty feet length overall and more than 80 years of age, the schooner When and If still drew more eyeballs than the modern, Euro-styled supersled parked next to it. Andy Warhol came to mind. ¶ My holiday gift to the family was a Christmas Eve sunset sail aboard the schooner. John Alden designed it for then-Colonel George S. Patton to sail around the world when the war was over—if he survived. Patton died before fulfilling his dream, but When and If lived on for many years in the loving care of my wife Nelia’s extended family. ¶ Alden attended MIT and apprenticed with the great naval architects of the day,…

THE FOOTAGE IS VIOLENT: Fifty-foot waves and 105-knot winds hammer the 23-foot Saildrone Explorer and its wingsails. Seas rise and fall in the kinds of towers and crashes of blue that movie producers usually have to create with special effects. But this is footage from inside Hurricane Sam, a Category 4 storm. And the only reason anyone can see the video is that SD 1045’s cameras kept filming. It was late September 2021, and SD 1045 was in the process of becoming the first uncrewed surface vehicle to negotiate a hurricane’s eyewall. ¶ For decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has relied on brave pilots flying Lockheed P-3 Orion turboprops and Gulfstream IV-SP jets near or through hurricanes to gather scientific data. While this practice delivers valuable information, it…

JIM MCGOWAN, RAYMARINE’S AMERICAS MARKETING MANAGER, was aboard a Judge 22 center-console with a 110-watt Cyclone Pro radar and 3-foot antenna array. The boat was heading out of a harbor in Dennis, Massachusetts, when McGowan noticed a family enjoying a late-afternoon stroll on a Cape Cod beach. Then, the Cyclone displayed something curious. “I could track all five contacts on screen,” McGowan says, “and I could see the kids’ heads when they were swimming in the water. ¶ “It’s almost scary how much this radar can pick up,” he added. ¶ Doppler-enabled, solid-state radars arrived in 2016, forever changing navigation. The initial rub, however, was power. The first open-array Doppler-enabled radars (by Garmin) transmitted at 40 watts, while the first radome-enclosed Doppler-enabled radar (by Furuno) boasted 25 watts. Both were…