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.
“He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.” — George Herbert I flew to Providence, Rhode Island, last week, on my way to a meeting. It was a beautiful morning, and as we descended from cruising altitude I could clearly see Jamestown to starboard. Dutch Harbor Boat Yard was peppered with boats, in full summer mode. I was surprised to feel my eyes welling. Five years ago I spent the summer there aboard Bossanova, and the very best weekend of many wonderful ones was when our friend (she’s family, really) Martine came for a visit. We rented kayaks and paddled through the Narrow River to Narragansett Bay, went to Beavertail Light with the dogs, swam off the stern, ate dinner and lingered with wine under a velvety…
The June issue is a real pleasure — so many good articles: “A Tragic Loss In The Clipper Race”; “A Champion Of Our Maritime Heritage [Peter Stanford]”; “The Disappearances Of Niña And Baychimo”; the article about Graham McKay and the Lowell Boat Shop [Walking the Plank]; the Kirby Paint story (we used Kirby’s when I worked for the harbormaster in Chatham, Massachusetts — great bottom paint, of course copper is not so good these days); the Blue Peter article; the details about the Grand Banks 42 refit (I had the pleasure of helping take a GB42 from Harwich Port to Fort Lauderdale in 1978); and the article about L. Francis Herreshoff. What a story! All of these are great, and many brought back memories of my wooden-boat days. Thanks for…
JET SET The Hinckley Co. launched its 1,000th jetboat June 15 at the builder’s Southwest Harbor, Maine, headquarters. The Talaria 48 Flybridge belongs to a Texas couple who will cruise to Florida. The iconic Picnic Boat was Hinckley’s first jetboat, launched in 1994. hinckleyyachts.com With its twin swim platforms, enclosed head compartment and seating from bow to stern, the new Grady-White Freedom 235 dual console is designed to meet all of your dayboating needs, from fishing and water sports to snorkeling and swimming. The swim platforms, integrated into the hull, flank the single outboard. The starboard platform has a sturdy four-step swim ladder. The cockpit can be accessed through a transom door, also on the starboard side. The oversized head includes stowage that extends into the bow for rods and…
Test your knowledge with these Coast Guard license exam prep questions from the National Captain’s Institute captains.com 1. INTERNATIONAL RULES: In a rain storm a vessel sounds 4 short blasts on a whistle. It indicates: A. There is danger. B. It is a pilot vessel. C. It is lost. D. none of the above 2. INTERNATIONAL RULES: An auxiliary sailing vessel would be considered a powerdriven vessel: A. when under power alone B. when under sail and power C. both A and B D. neither A nor B 3. INTERNATIONAL RULES: Which of the following vessels would be considered underway? A. vessel tied to a buoy with engines running B. vessel drifting with engines stopped C. vessel anchored with engines running D. vessel shifting berths using mooring lines 4. Range…
Is it finders keepers or a kind of hostagetaking when a fisherman “rescues” an oceanographic buoy that was adrift and won’t return it to the U.S. Geological Survey until the government agency pays him for his trouble? Daniel Sherer, 39, who owns the 30-foot commercial fishboat Irish with partner Patrick Anderson, was trapping Pacific hagfish in January — hagfish resemble eels and are prized in South Korea for the dinner table — when he came across the approximately 4-foot-diameter buoy floating five miles off Monterey, California, says David Sherer, a semiretired lawyer and his son Daniel’s original legal counsel in the case. Daniel Sherer turned his boat around to get a closer look, fouled his running gear in the buoy’s mooring cables and hauled the scientific gear aboard, his father…
For 95 years, the gravesite of the USS Conestoga and her 56 crewmembers remained a mystery. Thought to have been somewhere in the vast Pacific off Mexico or Hawaii, the wreck of the oceangoing Navy tug was found and identified recently less than a day’s voyage from San Francisco, where she had set out on a 4,800-mile passage to her new duty station in American Samoa on March 25, 1921. “I’ve never in my career had something like this happen: Find something where nobody thought it would be, solve a 95-year-old mystery and bring closure to the families of a ship’s crew,” says Jim Delgado, director of NOAA’s Maritime Heritage Program and co-leader of the NOAA-Navy team that identified the wreck of the 170-foot steel-hulled tug. The Conestoga was found…
