Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i Soundings

LOBSTER BOAT LIFE Fifth-generation boatbuilder Robert “Chummy” Rich is the name behind Bass Harbor Boat in Tremont, Maine. Though he sold his interest in the company in 2014, his name remains synonymous with finely built wooden lobster boats, commercial vessels and recreational craft. The 30-minute documentary “Chummy Rich: Maine Boat Builder” takes viewers from lofting to launching as Rich and his crew build the 28-foot wooden cabin cruiser Andromeda. Gunner Hansen wrote the film and Bob Bowman scored the music. Joe Marshall is the narrator. Dobbs Productions filmed, edited and produced the documentary with support from the Tremont Historical Society, among others. You can view the film on YouTube. SAVE OUR SALMON If you’ve eaten salmon, chances are pretty good you’ve consumed fish that were raised using aquaculture, a process…

Do you want to pay a half-million bucks more for your next yacht, or do you not want to have the option of buying the yacht at all? Those are the only two choices that boatbuilders say consumers will have because of Tier III emissions regulations that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has scheduled to take effect January 1, 2021. The regulations will hit boats with a load-line length of at least 78 feet, which generally means yachts starting around 90 feet in length overall, and will apply to any boat that cruises outside U.S. or international waters, including in the Mediterranean and Caribbean. “What’s happening is that we can say, ‘Here, Mr. Customer, thanks for buying the boat, but it costs more, you have less space and you’re really…

Boating conditions in the Pacific Northwest can quickly turn challenging. Leave Sucia Island at the southern end of the Strait of Georgia on a calm summer day, and in minutes you can find yourself in 4 to 6-foot waves. Or, motor through Cattle Pass at the south end of San Juan Island near the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the currents can be frightening. Round Strawberry Point toward Oak Harbor in opposing wind and current and Saratoga Passage can serve up steep waves and confused seas. Throw in water cold enough to kill you, rocky coasts, lots of debris—including deadhead logs—and you’ll want to be in a tough boat. Fortunately, the Pacific Northwest has plenty of boatbuilders whose designs can handle the conditions. Whether it’s Nordic Tugs, Ranger Tugs,…

This painting is a result of my first trip to Jonesport, Maine, and seeing an old wooden Beals Island lobster boat pulled up on the shore,” says marine artist Robert Dance from his studio in North Carolina. “I feel very fortunate. I firmly believe that the most beautiful lobster boats are built on Beals Island.” That trip was back in the late 1970s, and the old wooden boat in question was the Maria Elena. Dance took some pictures and “stashed the sight of it in my memory,” as he puts it. Years later, he came upon the Maria Elena once again, hauled out for sale on Maine’s Great Wass Island. “The old boat was in terrible shape,” Dance says, “but I had the presence of mind to photograph and measure…

48 FT SABRE SALON EXPRESS 2012 48’ Sabre 2012 Salon Express w/T/Cummins 550hp w/Zeus drives. Well equipped and over maintained. Full third cabin layout. Full galley, salon, 3-staterooms, 2-heads w/showers. Plenty of storage. Custom high end décor throughout. Spacious cockpit with wide walkways on side decks. Cockpit awning extends cockpit use. Lots of extras and options. Located in Falmouth, MA. Call today. 781.331.2400 bostonyacht.com. 45 FT SEAHUNTER 45 2018 45’ SeaHunter 2018 with only one year of use in New England waters, this spectacular SeaHunter sports a Pimlico Blue hull with custom black engine paint on her Quad 350 Yamaha four stoke engines (170-hours). She delivers a breathtaking full throttle experience with speeds over 60 MPH. The engines have 4 years remaining on transferable warranty. Meticulously maintained. Call 781.331.2400 bostonyacht.com…

It was 2016, and John Giglio was seeing a problem. “It wasn’t a massive problem, but we noticed that as we continued to grow, there was more of a likelihood that something bad was going to happen,” says Giglio, president of Freedom Boat Club, whose members can use the club’s boats all across the United States. “We’re going to do 400,000 outings this year, and every outing is an opportunity for somebody to get into trouble.” That particular kind of trouble was boating under the influence of alcohol, or BUI. While the club did training and checkouts prior to handing a boat over to a member, it had no formal process for making sure skippers knew it was their responsibility to stay sober. “We’ve always been proactive with alcohol: If…

Smartphones have enough processing power, sensors and capabilities to augment or even replace navigation equipment. While I still believe boats should have at least one dedicated display, as mobile devices are susceptible to moisture, heat, dead batteries and falling overboard, the list of mobile apps is extremely long, with more coming out every day. Today’s navigation apps, for instance, have features and functions that rival, and in some cases beat, those that come with dedicated hardware. One of the biggest advantages a mobile device has is an (almost) always available internet connection. This connection makes updating charts and other data easier and more frequent. Here’s a look at some of the leading navigation apps available for onboard use right now. Navionics Boating This navigation app has dock-to-dock auto-routing, community-sourced SonarChart…

Between periods at a hockey game at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens in 1965, Canadian hotel builder and inveterate yachtsman Peter Connolly asked sailboat designer George Cuthbertson to build him the “meanest, hungriest 40-footer afloat.” The result was Red Jacket, named after a record-setting White Star Line clipper ship from the 1850s. Launched in May 1966, the fiberglass racing machine won 11 of 13 races in Canada that season, including the prestigious Freeman Cup and the Lake Ontario International. Spurred by his boat’s success, Connolly took her south to the “conch-shell-and-flying-fish circuit,” otherwise known as the Southern Ocean Racing Conference (SORC) series. It drew world-class racers to the waters off Florida and the Bahamas. When Red Jacket won the St. Petersburg-to-Venice race, yachtsmen took notice. She came out of the north…

Doug Douty was a pontoon boat guy. The Fair Haven, New Jersey, businessman (he owns The Lusty Lobster seafood market in Highlands) grew up on the local waters of the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers. “I was out on boats as soon as I knew where the water was,” Douty says. “At one point, I had a 13-foot Boston Whaler and I was out enjoying the river at all times of the day and night, running around, waterskiing, just having fun.” After a boatless period, he bought a series of pontoon boats wellsuited to the rivers he grew up on. “They were fun boats for the family,” says Douty, who has a wife and three children. “I had a full barbecue grill on all of them, and we’d turn the motor…

Twelve years ago, the cruise ship Empress of the North was on a routine cruise in Alaska. The ship was carrying 206 passengers. The ship was also carrying a new third mate, fresh out of maritime school. Sensibly, there was a plan to have the new guy overlap with the senior third mate for a week, to learn the ship and its routines. But on the first day of training, the senior third mate fell ill. The captain slotted the new guy into the watch rotation. After all, he had a license. The third mate was paired with a seasoned deckhand in hopes of offsetting the inexperience. Without any orientation to the navigational equipment or emergency procedures, and without the support of another licensed officer, the new third mate took…

The Lowcountry of South Carolina is not only a place, but also a way of life. That’s something I’ve discovered over the years, while traveling through the region on my way north and south along the Intracoastal Waterway. Sculpted by the rivers that slowly carve their way to the ocean, the Lowcountry, river basins and sea islands have a unique geography and diverse culture that come from the blend of early inhabitants—English, French and Spanish, along with African and Caribbean people brought in to work the indigo and rice plantations that today are nature preserves and protected wildlife habitats. There’s also a surreal beauty to the live oaks draped in Spanish moss. When cruising through the Lowcountry aboard our trawler, a frequent stop for our crew is the town of…

It was 144 years ago when several hundred iron, steel and wooden parts and pieces were floated down the Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore, Maryland, to where the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse stands today. The screwpile lighthouse, which is about 50 feet tall and around a mile and a half from the Annapolis, Maryland, shoreline, is one of the Chesapeake’s most iconic structures. And it’s in dire straits. After decades of exposure, dozens of steel tie rods and beams that stabilize the lighthouse cottage are badly corroded, endangering the integrity of the cottage itself. John Potvin is one of the people trying to save it. He serves as the lighthouse’s preservation foreman, and he took me out for a look one chilly November morning. Three carpenters were also on board, to…

A wobbly 14-second video shows part of the giant diesel engine, as tall as a man at 6 feet and as long as two at 12 feet. Three cylinders sit in line, the rocker arms and tappets frivolously exposed like fuel and oil lines. The whole assembly sounds like a loud sewing machine that’s playing a waltz as intake and exhaust valve springs do their thing: compress and release. If you are into old boats and engines, there’s nothing quite like this Washington Iron Works three-cylinder diesel from 1929, with all its key parts fully uncovered and easily accessible. This magnificent machinery appears to have traveled in time from a different era when high tech was all mechanical, and when power was doled out by the teaspoon. It produces only…

Andrew Cooley long had it in mind to set up his business as the go to for the restoration of deep-V hulls pioneered by Bertram Yachts in the 1960s. The owner of Cooley Marine Management in Stratford, Connecticut, he mentioned his idea to a good friend, Steve Shaw, who was once Cooley’s boss at Derecktor Shipyards. Shaw connected Cooley with Justin Bass (shown above with his wife, Sandi), who was recently retired and looking to transition from his Tiara 42 into a smaller, classic-looking Bertram. “Justin is gung ho and I’m very gung ho,” Cooley recalls. “We hit it off.” The two found a Bertram 31—one of the originals, built in 1969—at Seaward Boatworks & Charters in Warwick, Rhode Island. “They had stripped the boat and done some of the…

Among the fiberglass hulls that fill the slips at Port Niantic Marina in East Lyme, Connecticut, is an odd ship out. Loafer is only 26 feet long, but she makes a big and immediate impression. She is the last remaining wooden vessel at the marina, and she is cared for by an equally memorable woman. Judy Andrew-Healy is Loafer’s keeper. She grew up on the boat with her family, and she now single-handedly tends to all of its needs. She has made it her mission to protect and document every known aspect of the boat’s past. Loafer herself is a cute, albeit simple, little ship. Her aft deck has a bench and a fold-down table, and her cabin has two bunks and a forward head. The interior is filled with…

A bright red outboard engine mounted on the stern of a fiberglass dinghy has these two youngsters enthralled; for them, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of. More precisely, it’s the newfor-1958 Mercury Mark 10 Alternate, a twin-cylinder, 10-hp power plant that comes with a 12-volt electric starter, a generator and a host of other gear. Manufactured by the Kiekhaefer Corp. in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the Mark 10 Alternate’s features, listed in the pages of a September 1957 boating magazine, include an automatic transmission with a single-handle shifter on the tiller that also controlled the throttle. Below the waterline, the lower unit’s Glide-Angle design was meant to slough off underwater obstacles: “stumps, rocks and thick weeds,” as the sales pitch went. The Flo-Torq propeller drive had rubber bushings,…