Indholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2018 i Cruising World

ANNA’S Time Wet snow fell as I drove north from Boston on Interstate 95 and crossed the New Hampshire line on my way to Thomaston, Maine. It was April 2, and I wondered briefly if Mother Nature had for some reason extended her April foolery by a day. I was headed, after all, to a boat-launch party, which surely should have heralded the arrival of spring. Right? Maine winters are long, and it’s been my observation that the natives get mighty restless by the time mud season comes along. So I wasn’t all that surprised to come up the hill to find the parking lots at Lyman-Morse already filled with pickups and cars, and more pulling in. The snow had ceased just north of Portland, and though the sun was…

1. KTI SYSTEMS KEENAN FILTER • $1,000 AND UP • KEENANFILTERS.COM Nothing puts a damper on a great day of sailing more than having the engine quit due to clogged fuel filters as you are entering a busy harbor. The Keenan filter system puts an end to that. It provides fuel polishing, filter switching, servicing, clogged-filter and water-detection warnings and a backup fuel pump all in one compact package. 2. WINEGARD MARINE CONNECT WF-200M • $479 • WINEGARD.COM For better or worse, staying connected is a big part of our lives these days — even on the water. The Connect WF-200M combines a long-range, high-performance Wi-Fi signal extender with built-in 4G LTE cellular capability. And, perfect for cruisers, the company offers a range of affordable prepaid cellular data packages. 3.…

1 7- to 8-ounce bag tortilla chips1 jar prepared salsa (11 to 16 ounces)1-2 cups cheddar or Jack cheese, grated coarsely Mild jarred or canned jalapeños or green chili peppers, sliced or diced (to taste)1½ cups cooked chicken breast, shredded (fresh or canned) (optional)1 cup romaine lettuce leaves, sliced into thin strips1 – 2 small tomatoes, chopped1 cup sour cream (or to taste) Very lightly oil a large saute/frying pan. Spread chips in even layers in bottom of pan, overlapping to ensure coverage. Drizzle salsa evenly over chips, then spread chicken over chips. Add peppers, a bit of shredded lettuce and diced tomato. Top all with grated cheese. Cover and heat over medium to medium-low heat until cheese begins to melt. Turn off heat. Leave pan covered until cheese is…

NEW LESSONS from the OLD WORLD Overhead the sky still swirled with torn gray clouds, while below, a decaying leftover chop lapped at the hull as our three-cylinder diesel ticked over another hour on the meter. The wind died with the sunrise, and by midmorning we were finally closing in. Moroccan highlands stretched off to the south, and the bold ranges of the Iberian Peninsula formed an imposing sight straight ahead. We slowly passed a handful of small fishing boats long accustomed to working here, one of the world’s most celebrated waterways. But my wife, Clare, and I were all butterflies and photographs. After 10 days of lonely sea aboard Champagne, our Dufour 35, we suddenly found ourselves feeling pinched between the masses of two continents. We joined the marching…

SEAMANSHIP It was about midnight, and we were barreling along on a close reach through boisterous seas in a gusty 20-knot breeze. I was on watch aboard a Saba 50 catamaran, and while checking the sail trim, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the forces at play — particularly on the massive mainsail. It’s impressive. With these forces, the sails aboard a modern cruising cat need to be up to snuff. If you’re in the market for new sails, what are the details that you should be looking for? I checked in with sailmakers who specialize in multihulls to find out what they would recommend for a midsize production cruising cat, such as a Leopard 44 or Lagoon 42. Let’s start with the main. The mainsail is the…

MONTHLY MAINTENANCE Unlike that of an automobile, via a closed cooling system and a heat exchanger, your boat’s diesel engine transfers its waste heat from coolant to seawater, rather than air. The heat exchanger is the radiator of your auxiliary. While there are several different designs, the most common on cruising-boat auxiliaries are the tubular variety. The external shell looks a bit like a pipe; housed within it is a series of tubes that resemble drinking straws, which are surrounded by coolant. Seawater passes through the tubes, absorbing heat from the coolant. It’s a simple arrangement that allows engines to be filled with coolant rather than seawater, thereby reducing corrosion and increasing efficiency. Engines that are cooled directly by seawater must operate at a lower, and therefore less efficient, temperature…

At a press event during the Miami International Boat Show last winter, the Lagoon 50 was described by a company spokeswoman as being “the most open-minded catamaran on the market.” That’s a statement that could be taken in a number of ways. First, there are the multiple social areas encompassed by the boat’s 48-foot-5-inch LOA and 26-foot-7-inch beam. There are dining tables indoors and out, lounge areas astern and forward. Overhead, the flybridge offers more room to gather or get away. The crew could sunbathe on cushions that store in a locker built into the Bimini, or take a seat by the wheel and help out with the sailing, though, to be honest, with autopilot, a self-tacking jib and electric winches at your fingertips, it’s possible to keep things simple.…

ASTRÉA 42 French catamaran builder Fountaine Pajot has settled on a name for its new Berret Racoupeau-designed 42-footer. The sharp-looking cat will be called the Astréa 42, named after the star maiden in Greek mythology. “Astréa, both a mythological goddess and a constellation, beautifully symbolized this new innovative and bright cruising catamaran,” the company said in announcing the name. All seven models in the Fountaine Pajot range have unusual titles, rather than simply the company’s name and a number denoting size. The catamaran will be introduced here in North America at the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, next fall. The Astréa will be available in a three-, four- or five-cabin layout. It features padded lounging areas on the foredeck and Bimini, a raised helm station, U-shaped galley and large…

SHAKEDOWN to COLÓN I confess to having the wrong perspective when it comes to the city of Colón, Panama, at the Caribbean mouth of the Panama Canal. I see it as the last barrier, the last stand, if you will, of bureaucratic dirt dwellers attempting to prevent me from reaching the comparative paradise of the Pacific. I know that this is so geographically unfair. The port of Colón is more than a den of greedy thieves intent on robbing you with a fountain pen — or, so they say. But my own personal prejudice is revealed in the first factoid I tell people about Colón: It is pronounced like the perfume but smells like the body part. Oh, the stories I could tell about the old Panama Canal Yacht Club…

SO, what do you guys want to listen to?” asked our new friend, Cuban artist Solé. “I don’t know, maybe something local?” replied Mark. “How about Simply Red?” was Solé’s reply. “Do you guys like Simply Red?” This might be the last thing I expected him to say, but at this point, nothing really could surprise me. And so he popped in a Simply Red CD while the group of us sat around the living room, sipping strong Cuban coffee in the tiny Havana apartment he shared with his wife, Mary, and her family. All I could do was look around me and smile at the unexpectedness of it all. We were midway through our time in the island nation during the 2017 Cruising World Expedition and Rally to Cuba,…

The South Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean. For most sailors and nonsailors, these two place names conjure nothing more than spots that can be pointed to on a globe. But one mention of the South Pacific, and even a farmer in Nebraska who’s spent his entire life in the American Midwest will conjure a ready knowledge of white-sand beaches, topless native women and cannibals. The farmer might even mention the Southern Cross, Tahiti and tattoos, or Polynesia, grass skirts and whale-bone carvings. South Pacific lore was born over a century ago, about the time that men began leaving ports by choice to sail very small boats across oceans. Upon returning, a few of them, with thick fingers calloused by salt and rope, began writing. For hundreds of pages,…

If Goldilocks were in the market for a cruising catamaran, I’d advise her to check out the new Seawind 1260. At 41 feet length overall, it’s big enough for a couple with kids or occasional friends aboard, small enough to be easily handled and maintained by a shorthanded crew — and it can sail, which to my mind makes it “just right,” as the storybook gal is known to say. On a boisterous morning last winter after the Miami International Boat Show, I jumped aboard for a short sea trial on Biscayne Bay, just before the boat was due to cross the Gulf Stream to winter over in the Bahamas. In the protected waters of the bay, a northeast wind gusted to 20 and higher and sent the Seawind surging…

If you truly loved catamarans, if money were no object, if you wanted high performance but also wished for a boat that you could actually sail as a couple, if state-of-the-art carbon-fiber construction were something you could really understand and appreciate, what would you buy? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the HH55. Built in China to exacting standards, and created by the renowned multihull designers and partners Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin, the HH55 looks and feels like something conceived and launched in a future time and place, and deposited here in 2018 as if by time machine. Tellingly, the naval architects, Morrelli and Melvin, and one of the principal boatbuilders, New Zealander Paul Hakes, were all involved in the development and evolution of the original Gunboat brand.…

DOWNED Stream Crossing the Gulf Stream is a rite of passage for many East Coast offshore sailors. I’ll never forget my first time. The Stream seems to generate its own weather, and the precipitous clouds on the horizon ahead were the initial clue that we were approaching. Then there was the sudden spike in the temperature of the ocean, up into the high 70s, as confirmed by the boat’s seawater thermometer. The water itself shifted to a darker shade of blue, flecked with yellow patches of sargassum. And with a slight northerly breeze (thank God it was slight) leaning into the northward flowing current, the waves stood up into a progression of steep but reasonable, negotiable hills, the boat rising and falling with their flow. It was all very memorable.…

Women’s Sailing Conference Attention, ladies! If you’re looking to learn new skills and make new friends, check out the National Women’s Sailing Conference, which takes place on June 2, 2018, in Marblehead, Massachusetts. This fun event includes workshops, both on the water and off, and plenty of networking opportunities. This year’s keynote speaker is Sheila McCurdy, a veteran of 15 Newport Bermuda Races and nine transatlantics. cruisingworld.com/1807women Cruising in Company This summer, the Salty Dawg Sailing Association is hosting two rallies on the East Coast. The Rally to Maine departs Chesapeake Bay on July 8 for Rhode Island and then on to Rockland, Maine. Heading farther north? Then stick around for the Rally to Nova Scotia, which departs Rockland on August 8 and heads to Shelburne, Halifax and the beautiful…

Cornell’s Ocean Atlas by Jimmy and Ivan Cornell (second edition, 2018; Cornell Sailing Ltd.; $80) Anyone planning an extended voyage will find a useful tool in the just-updated and rereleased second edition of Cornell’s Ocean Atlas, a book chock-full of pilot charts and tips for sailing the world’s oceans. The book is the handiwork of author and circumnavigator Jimmy Cornell and his son, Ivan, also a sailor and a computer scientist who developed a program to collect and process weather data from a number of sources, including NOAA satellite observations. The Cornells published their first collection of pilot charts in 2012, based on 20 years’ worth of satellite data. Previously, pilot charts relied mostly on shipboard weather observations. The new atlas includes 80 monthly pilot charts, showing wind speed and…

AROUND and AROUND Walking down the dock at Sydney’s Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, I nervously approached the pale-blue yacht, noting its pronounced tumblehome that harked back to another era. At first glance, Perie Banou II was a fairly ordinary-looking IOR-style design, but the logos emblazoned along its topsides and the heft of its deck gear confirmed that it was no ordinary Sparkman & Stephens 39. Its skipper, Jon Sanders, had just called into Sydney on one of the last stops of his remarkable 10th circumnavigation before crossing the Australian Bight to his home waters of Perth. As I stepped aboard, he laughed and said, “This will be my 47th crossing of the bight.” Singlehanders have a reputation for awkwardness or downright grumpiness as I remember with the late Tristan…

Monohull or multihull? Have you ever gone back and forth pondering the pros and cons of cruising on each? We certainly have, so when my husband, Paul, and I were given the chance to deliver a brand-new Bluewater 50 catamaran across the Atlantic from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands to St. Lucia in the Caribbean last winter, we jumped at the chance. Paul and I have been cruising and living aboard since 1989 and have sailed more than 100,000 nautical miles on the four boats we’ve owned over our nearly three decades of global voyage-making. The boats were all monohulls, but every time we bought a new one, we toyed with the idea of moving to a catamaran. Why? We discovered that we enjoy shallow-draft sailing, which…

In monohull sailing, when you leave too much sail up in a building breeze the signs are clear: The rail is underwater, the dishes are on the floor, Grandma is terrified. The boat is dealing with excess energy by trying to lever a 5-ton lead weight out of the water; in other words, it’s heeling, spilling breeze, slowing down and rounding up. Multihulls don’t behave that way. When you overpower a cat, it can only accelerate, dig a hole in the water or bust gear. No-heel sailing has a lot of advantages, but one drawback is the temptation to sail badly. You might easily go sailing with breakfast dishes on the table and postpone reefing until you’ve cleaned things up. In the meantime, the breeze is on, the boat’s impossible…

Conditions in Miami’s Government Cut were nearly perfect for testing the new Lagoon 40’s waterproof hatches. With a stiff onshore wind blowing straight down the channel to meet a brisk outgoing current, the cat’s bows plowed repeatedly into seriously steep waves, sending green water up and over the cabin top and raised helm, soaking Lagoon’s managing director, Yann Masselot, who happened to be at the wheel. Beneath the Bimini, though, sitting at the teak cockpit dining table and enjoying the splendid view — ahead through wraparound windows and astern across the wide-open transom — the ride was thoroughly dry and comfortable, as it should be on a catamaran capable of long-range cruising. The 40 replaces a 39-footer in the Lagoon range as well as the popular Lagoon 400, which is…

Over the years I’ve enjoyed some pretty special moments under sail: steering a big sloop downwind in the Pacific trades en route to Hawaii, crossing the Atlantic on a powerful 60-foot cat, rounding Cape Horn under spinnaker on a stout steel cutter. But nothing — and I mean nothing — quite prepared me for the pure, sheer joy of driving the exquisite HH66 on a tight reach on Chesapeake Bay. Sitting in the comfortable molded seat outboard and aft on the portside quarter (an identical helm is situated to starboard), with one hand I grasped the light, balanced tiller; at the same time, the fingertips of my other hovered over the push buttons in the armrest that controlled all the critical sailhandling and performance features. Without even moving, the traveler…