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.
Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. — Herman Melville, Moby-Dick I’ve been going to boat shows for more than a decade now and — as with anything that becomes part of your professional duties — they have occasionally lost a little of their luster. It’s fair to say, though, that the very first boat show I went to changed my life — and it was more of a headfirst plummet than a long, slippery slide. I had always loved boats, but I tended to find myself aboard them through no fault or effort of…
The painting by West Fraser in the August issue inspired me to write to you about the artist of a painting I purchased this summer. The painting is of the whaleship Charles W. Morgan at Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, during her historic voyage from Mystic, Connecticut, to Boston and back during the summer of 2014. The artist, Peter Layne Arguimbau, is well known in the Northeast for seascapes from Connecticut to Maine, and paintings of classic yachts. His style and palette are unmistakable. This is not a historical fantasy scene — the catboat in the left foreground is the artist’s Molly Rose, behind that is the Gannon & Benjamin schooner Juno, and out in the middle is the schooner Alabama, all out of Vineyard Haven. As a resident of Mystic and…
Mercury Marine and Volvo Penta have each introduced new gasoline sterndrive engines. Mercury unveiled a 6.2-liter V-8 engine in 300- and 350-hp models, and Volvo Penta countered with a 5.3-liter V-8 — also 300 and 350 hp — and a 280-hp V-6 4.3-liter engine (pictured below). Volvo Penta has opted to continue using General Motors blocks, touting the advanced automotive technology, durability and reliability of GM’s fifth-generation engines. Mercury also had used GM blocks but about 2 years ago decided to manufacture its own sterndrive engine, saying that by going it alone it can design and build its MerCruiser I/Os specifically for marine use. Mercury splashed its first home-grown engine about a year ago, a 4.5-liter 250-hp MerCruiser. Volvo Penta answered earlier this year with the first two of its…
The 2015 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is rolling out some features that will brand the show as a worldclass event, treat showgoers to VIP amenities, and offer fun and entertainment to exhibitors and their clients. Show Management, which produces the show, has launched a streamlined, easy-tonavigate and mobile-compatible consumer website (flibs.com) with detailed maps of the show and information about it: exhibitors, boats on display, nearby hotels, parking and transportation, events and seminars, and package deals. (Show Management and Soundings are part of Active Interest Media’s Marine Group.) For visitors who like to preview the boats on display before they attend the show, the website’s exhibitor pages are richer in content now, with photos of the boats, their specifications and their locations at the show, says Brett Keating, Show…
It looks as if the iconic Bahia Mar Yachting Center, home of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, will get a makeover, including better digs for the show. After 10 years of bickering over what shape that makeover might take, the investment group that bought out the 39-acre property’s long-term lease this summer has proposed a $1 billion hotel-residential-marina complex with a parklike public promenade along the waterfront and a parking garage convertible to indoor exhibit space during the show. “We specialize in redeveloping tired assets and distressed assets,” says Jimmy Tate, partner with brother Kenny in Tate Capital, one of the investors, at a Marine Industries Association of South Florida meeting in September at the Bahia Mar to present the plan. (MIASF owns the Lauderdale show.) The Bahia Mar…
In May 2013 Benjamin, a Wave Glider named after Benjamin Franklin, was awarded a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an autonomous surface vessel. The 7-foot surfboardshaped “roboboat” traveled 7,939 nautical miles from California to Australia powered by waves alone and guided by an on-board command-and-control computer. No skipper. The Wave Glider, designed and built by Liquid Robotics of Sunnyvale, California, a Silicon Valley start-up founded in 2007, survived shark attacks, powerful currents and Tropical Cyclone Freda during the 15 months it was in transit, all the while collecting and transmitting wave, ocean and weather data. The Wave Gilder pokes along at a top speed of just 3 knots and averages about 1.8, but like the Energizer Bunny it keeps going. It needs no fuel; its information-gathering sensors,…
