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Recently, I asked readers of Soundings to share their memories of a person who introduced them to boating. I received a number of thoughtful responses, including one from John Simpson of Solomons, Maryland, who says his father, John Sr., had a big impact on his interest in the sport. John Sr.’s passion for the water was nurtured when he was a young man working as a purser in the Merchant Marine. “Then he met my mother, Lorraine, and they decided to settle down and go to work building a business,” says Simpson. “For fun on weekends he’d take us out on the Potomac River aboard a 16-foot Whirlwind with a 35-hp Johnson. That was the first of many boats they owned. Their boats were all named Honeypot, the last one…
TAKE IT EASY OUT THERE I enjoyed Kim Kavin’s story “Defensive Driving” (November) and agree that it can be challenging for a boat operator on the waterways these days, given the increase in traffic. It’s my impression that many of the newcomers have a large learning curve ahead of them. As a delivery captain, there are two dangerous situations I come across frequently. First, PWCs are often operated by underage and/or inexperienced drivers. It is scary to see a kid who is too young to drive an automobile piloting a 60-mph machine on the water. Then there are the kayaks. But once again, some operators are totally oblivious to what’s going on around them. Kayaks can frequently be found in the middle of narrow channels or shipping lanes on the…
Some people go to the opera. In South Bristol, Maine, people go to a John’s Bay Boat launch. John’s Bay Boat Company owner Peter Kass has been building his traditional plank-on-frame lobster boats from a water-front property in South Bristol, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He started his boat-building career down the road at Gamage Shipyard, but when Gamage started building steel boats, he went to Padebco and then opened his own shop in 1983. Kass designs and builds recreational and work boats, but his wooden vessels are admired for their easy motion, a feature that’s prized by all the lobstermen who swear by his boats. When Kass gets ready to launch one of his new boats, other John’s Bay Boat owners, curious onlookers and friends and family of…
The fall weather couldn’t have been more perfect for the hundreds of attendees on the docks at Trawlerfest Baltimore, hosted by Soundings’ sister publication PassageMaker in October. Harbor East Marina in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was the location for the combination boat show and seminar series that featured trawlers and long-range cruisers ranging in length from 23 to 55 feet. After touring the boats on display, show-goers were asked to cast votes for their favorite new model. The winner: North Pacific’s 49 Euro. The 49 Euro is more of a departure than a brand-new design, in large part because it rides on the same semi-displacement hull as the builder’s 49 Pilothouse. The major difference between the two is styling. The Euro is more contemporary, and it was made that way to…
After three decades of boating and fishing from an inlet where commercial vessel traffic was almost non-existent, I moved to a new locale adjacent to the main thoroughfares for New York Harbor and Port Newark. I am a lifelong recreational fisherman with a penchant for center console boats who formerly called Point Pleasant, New Jersey, my home port. That area includes a small commercial fishing center that caters to trawlers and clammers, but most of the boats are recreational craft. While the narrow waterway could get congested, it always felt manageable. That all changed two years ago when I moved my boat about 35 miles north to Gateway Marina near the mouth of the Shrewsbury River in Highlands, New Jersey. Suddenly, I was navigating to fishing spots in and around…
OCEAN GUARDIAN Just about anyone with a connection to the sea knows something about Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the Frenchman who spent a lifetime exploring the world’s oceans while documenting his adventures, discoveries and research on film. Some may remember his television series, “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,” which aired from the late 1960s through the 1990s. A new National Geographic documentary film, “Becoming Cousteau,” chronicles the life of the explorer and his constant desire to decipher the ocean’s mysteries. The film was directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus and dives deep into Cousteau’s personal life, his iconic films and inventions, and the voice he used to inspire generations to protect the Earth and its oceans. The documentary premiered on the big screen in late fall last year and will…
