Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i Soundings

Last year, Nate Drouin visited a West Marine store in Daytona Beach, Florida. The owner of a marina and water-scooter rental company on New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee, and additional scooter-rental shops in both states, needed advice about the best material for repairing fiberglass damage on the scooters. “An older gentleman walked down the aisle and said, ‘Can I help you?’” Drouin recalls. “I said, ‘What do you know about polyester versus epoxy and different types of resins?’ The gentleman kind of lit up and said, ‘Well, I built 4,000 polyester boats in my life.’” After that chance encounter with Harry Farmer, founder of Seaway Boats, which made its name as a Down East builder in the 1970s, Drouin invited Farmer to visit his Daytona shop to give advice on the…

LOA: 31’2” Beam: 8’6” Draft (motor down): 2’6” Weight (dry): 6,200 lbs. Bridge Clearance: 8’2” Fuel: 116 gals. Water: 22 gals. Power: (1) 300-hp Yamaha I first saw the Solara S-250 Coupe at a boat show in Miami. This trailerable cruiser was on display at an indoor booth, where I had gone to get out of the hot sun, sip a cool lemonade and take a breather after a morning spent crawling around a dizzying number of goliath center consoles. Each one of those had carried no fewer than three outboards on the transom and enough seating for a dozen passengers to experience a high-powered thrill ride. The atmosphere around the Solara was different, as you can imagine. I’ll call it more laid-back. The people looking around the cabin and…

Heeled onto her chine, a reef in the main and a bone in her teeth, Panope bore down on me. Drifting in a tiny plastic dink across Mystery Bay with no place to hide and no way to escape, I was headed for a date with perhaps the world’s most substantial 34-foot sloop, her massive bowsprit and two stout anchors. A tad disconcerting was the fact that the skipper was out of sight, lounging on the aft deck, hands free, while calmly watching his craft whooshing past me with a couple of feet to spare. The drama felt real, but catastrophe was not in the script. Conditions and course hardly matter, Steve Goodwin—the owner, captain and caretaker of this remarkable craft—later explained. “Panope practically steers herself,” he said. Goodwin’s not…

In the waters off Provincetown, Massachusetts, the cutter Bloodhound cruises the pristine, blue waters in the painting of the same name by Derek Macara. Long Point Lighthouse and a small beach cottage sit on the otherwise empty shoreline. Boldly-stroked cirrus and cumulus clouds in the bright blue sky suggest gentle wind and ideal sailing conditions. Originally built in 1874 for the Scottish Marquess of Ailsa, Bloodhound was a 70-foot cutter designed by William Fife II. The Bloodhound in Macara’s painting is a replica built in the 1990s in Del Rey, California. Bloodhound was once a racing vessel, but now with a 22-foot retractable bowsprit and 3,500 square feet of sail, she is a cruising vessel. Owned by Hindu Charters in Provincetown, she regularly carries 34 passengers on short cruises around…

DIVERSE CROWD Regarding the story “Setting a Course for Success” (August), here are some more facts about Detroit Yacht Club. In the 1970s, we had our first woman on our board of directors, as well as our first African-American member. In 2001, Dorothy O’Brien was elected as our first woman commodore. A year later, Lucius Tripp was elected our first African-American commodore. In 2015, Joe W. Brooks, an African-American, was elected commodore. In 2017, Patricia Thull O’Brien was elected our second woman commodore. In 2019, Allen Pugh, an African-American, was elected commodore. Our current rear commodore and former treasurer, Hope Shoven, will be commodore in 2025. Through the years, women and African-American members have served on our board, on our Preservation Committee and as flag officers. Our current commodore, Leonard…

Few innovations have changed boating in recent years quite like IPS propulsion. The efficiency and maneuverability of pods, especially when paired with a joystick, have made docking feel like playing a video game. As a result, the technology ushered in a new, younger wave of boaters and allowed others to grow into larger vessels than their skills previously allowed. It’s important to remember that IPS was not universally accepted out of the gate. The Inboard Propulsion System was met with widespread skepticism. Consumers wondered if the pods would be hard to work on or service. Could forward-facing props even work? And, what kind of damage could occur if you ran aground and sheared one off? In short, the industry held its breath thinking that Volvo Penta was, well, crazy. The…

When offshore powerboat racer Bobby Rautbord introduced the first Fino 30 in 1968, his idea was to create an American sport boat that blended high performance and race-boat handling with the fit and finish of a custom Italian runabout. His boat was an instant success. Between 1968 and 1970, nearly 30 of the Fino 30s were delivered to owners. As methodical as any offshore powerboat racer would be before leaving the dock, Rautbord assembled a team of experts to help solidify his vision before he began production. He tapped Walt Walters, a designer of early Donzi sport boats, to create a hull that combined the hydrodynamics of a fast boat with head-turning above-water lines. To ensure that Walters’ design had the rugged build that would endure a lifetime of high-speed…

This year, Blackfin Boats turns 50, a venerable milestone for the Florida builder. But instead of dwelling on its past—which includes building best-in-class fishing boats like the 1979 Blackfin 32 Combi and 2019 332CC—the family-run company has invoked the future by launching a new flagship that incorporates the latest in marine technology. You name it, and the Blackfin 400CC has it, from carbon-fiber composite, resin-infusion construction and lithium-ion batteries to V-10 Mercury Verado outboards. When I first saw the 400CC at the dock at the Boca Raton Resort on the Intracoastal Waterway in South Florida, where Blackfin held its 2023 dealer meeting, the boat was attracting a lot of attention from hotel guests. That wasn’t surprising, considering its sleek black hull, double row of forward-facing cockpit seats and quad outboards.…

LOA: 32’ Beam: 11’3” Draft: 4’ Displ.: 24,000 lbs. Power: (1) 575-hp CAT C-9 diesel Fuel: 202 gals. Water: 100 gals. Bo and Kara Delaney are smitten with their boat. Their ice blue Swan has all the classic characteristics of boats built along the mid-Atlantic coast, including a sharp entry forward, classic big-water flare at the bow, a clean foredeck cambered for instant runoff, a beautiful sheer and a roomy cockpit. The boat was designed to thrive in the open waters around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The Delaneys have been boating out of Marstons Mills, Massachusetts, on the south side of Cape Cod since 1996. They’ve cruised the coast and ventured to the nearby islands hundreds of times on a 21-foot Contender that’s still in the family, passed down from…

In 1822, French scientist Augustin-Jean Fresnel developed a new kind of lens. He made it with specially arranged glass pieces that could beam light miles farther than had ever been possible. Fresnel lenses were then mounted within tall lighthouses, revolutionizing maritime navigation all around the world. More recently, three of these lenses were housed for display inside Hooper Strait Lighthouse, which dates to 1879, and which has stood on the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s Navy Point since being moved there in 1966. These three Fresnel lenses were all different sizes, and the museum wanted to move the largest one—essentially, the equivalent of moving a chandelier built of 300 or so glass pieces arranged in panels that weigh 75 to 100 pounds each. The goal was to take this Fresnel lens…

There are plenty of reasons to set a course for Cape May, New Jersey. This historic seaside town at the southernmost tip of the state has been famous as a summer resort destination for more than 200 years. Steeped in fishing lore, it’s home to numerous offshore tournaments and top-rated marinas, where transient slips lure boaters from around the world. It’s a great place to visit in the summer high season, and there’s more than enough to see and do after Labor Day, as the crowds depart and the destination becomes easier to explore. COLONIAL ROOTS Cape May consists of a peninsula and barrier island system. Sir Henry Hudson was the first to chart the coast in 1609, although he never set foot on land here. That honor was claimed…

LOA: 40’7”  Beam: 11’4” Draft (eng. down): 3’0” Displ.: 12,345 lbs. Test power: (2) 400-hp Mercury Verados Fuel: 224 gals. Water: 36 gals. Base price w/(2) 300-hp: $414,208 I have no idea what time it is. Is it midnight? 2 a.m.? The sun has barely set and I’m floating off the Swedish coast, but I’m not floating on a boat. I’m floating in the water. The water is cold, but it’s actually quite comfortable. Nimbus Brand Manager Jonas Göthberg is floating nearby. The sun is scudding right below the horizon. We can see its glow. No, our boat hasn’t sunk. It’s the summer solstice in Sweden. We’re celebrating the longest day of the year with a midsummer night party, Sweden’s biggest holiday, and we’re taking a cold-water dip after a…

Alvah Goldsmith was a foreman at an auto dealership in Southold, Long Island, in 1923 when he ponied up the money to buy a 4-hp Evinrude outboard for his personal use. He liked the motor so much that he wrote the manufacturer to say so. To his surprise, company founder Ole Evinrude wrote back and said that if Goldsmith liked the motor that much, maybe he’d like to become a dealer. The process was simple, he wrote, requiring the purchase of one more engine to sell. Goldsmith was intrigued by the idea and ran it by his father, who was instantly skeptical. “I don’t know who would buy the cussed things,” he told his son. Goldsmith bought the engine anyway, and the decision took his life in a new direction.…

Here’s a dramatic perspective on the Golden Age of Sailing. In the book On the Water: A Century of Iconic Maritime Photography from the Rosenfeld Collection, readers get an eyeful of images by Morris Rosenfeld and his sons, who defined maritime photography in the first half of the 20th century. There are racing sailboats, vintage wooden runabouts, handsome motoryachts and more, including the 1929 Sea Lyon runabout, shown above with its occupants having some pretty radical (and dangerous) fun. Written by Nick Voulgaris and produced in collaboration with the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut—stewards of the Rosenfeld archive since 1984—the book features a curated selection of images that highlight the glamour and history of a bygone maritime era, including photos that have never been published before. Born in 1885, Morris…