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“You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming.” — Pablo Neruda Is it a bright, cold day in April? Hang in there. The days are lengthening, and the tepid sunshine of winter’s fraudulent orange orb will soon be replaced by real warmth. Spring is almost here, and we eagerly scout the frozen tundra for a glimpse of its first tiny soldiers: brave crocus and hyacinth, unfurled flags of golden forsythia, battalions of bright tulips. Spring has always seemed to me like much more than the next regularly scheduled season. It is also the annual retreat of a defeated and villainous winter. I know — Ecclesiastes 3:1: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. But winter, like…
Thank you Jack Atzinger for bringing forth Jack Sherwood’s great, humble qualities. As in many things, I don’t think we will hear from a man such as him again. I miss him so. Thank you all at Soundings. I have loved your magazine since I was a teenager in the ’70s. Chad E. Brown S/V Beluga via email Jack Atzinger hit all the points in his story about Jack Sherwood [“Former Soundings Writer Was A ‘Sailor’s Sailor,’ ” March]. I thoroughly enjoyed this well-deserved tribute I received a comment from Jack’s 16-yearold granddaughter Claire Sherwood after she read the tributes. She asked if he knew how loved and admired he was. Her father Mark later responded, “I do now.” And I say we all do now! Honoring Jack means so…
LAND OF THE LOST A research team from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa has found part of a lost continent deep in the Indian Ocean. A report in the journal Nature Communications says the lava-covered land, found beneath the island of Mauritius, was left behind after the breakup of supercontinent Gondwana 200 million years ago. Ancient pieces of zircon were determined to predate any known geological strata from Mauritius. Scout’s new 380 LXF bridges the gap between the 350 LXF and the 420 LXF in the builder’s fleet of sportfishing center consoles. In addition to fishing offshore, the 380 LXF is ideal for outings with friends and family. Standard equipment includes a patented hardtop with curved glass enclosure, a 5-kW genset, cabin air conditioning, a convertible queen berth,…
Editor’s note: Bob Grieser was a legendary photographer, a frequent Soundings contributor and an all-around colorful character who was wellknown in the boating community. “Bobby G” died in January at age 70. A longtime friend and colleague offers this remembrance. What is the world coming to? Up is down. Wrong is right. Fake is real, and truth seems lost. How can I ever hope to make sense of this mess, especially now that the reverend from the Church by the Sea has sailed for Fiddler’s Green? It seems like only yesterday that you and I met in Mission Bay, California, during that windy Cat Fight regatta. Boats were flying, flipping and crashing into the jetty, and you were stuck without a photo-boat driver. So you hired me, a goofy guy…
It may have been fire, not ice, that sank the Titanic. A new Smithsonian Channel documentary suggests that a smoldering coal fire was to blame for the 1912 disaster that killed 1,500 people some 400 miles south of Newfoundland. The discovery is the “Titanic equivalent of [finding] Tutankhamun’s tomb,” says Irish journalist Senan Molony, director of Titanic: The New Evidence. Molony has spent more than 30 years researching the doomed liner. A section of the Titanic’s hull was significantly weakened by the coal fire, smoldering in a three-story hold next to a boiler room for as long as three weeks, and gave way after hitting an iceberg, Molony contends. The damaged bulkhead was warped and distorted, and it had lost 75 percent of its strength, according to Molony’s findings. The…
Anative of the Great Lakes region, Doug Zurn grew up sailing and boating. His father owned boats that exposed Zurn at a young age to the design talents of Phil Rhodes, Ray Hunt and Jim McCurdy. Zurn established his company, Zurn Yacht Design in Marblehead, Massachusetts, straight out of Westlawn School of Yacht Design in 1993 and spent his early career apprenticing for some of the industry’s most respected designers and builders. He’s a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the American Boat and Yacht Council and the Yacht Brokers Association of America. Twenty-four years after hanging out his shingle, Zurn has 149 designs and more than 450 launches under his belt, including the MJM line. He’s established a reputation for boats that are beautiful, efficient…
