Yachting January 2018

I STARTED TESTING BOATS 18 years ago. At the time, all diesel engines were mechanical, so I would tap into a yacht’s fuel lines, install my fuel-flow gear and record burn rates from idle to wide-open throttle. I traveled with a super-size Pelican case filled with a fleet of fittings. And despite being weighed down like a traveling salesman, I had to make at least one hardware-store trip per test for a new fitting that this or that engine required but wasn’t in the dang case. Testing boats was also a dirty task. After leaving a yacht, I often walked diesel-scented through the airport, and more than one pair of beloved boat shoes fell victim to hot fuel spilling out during the fuel-flow-gear-removal process. From there, I plugged the vessel’s…

This issue marks 111 years of continuous publication for Yachting. Thank you all for coming along with us. It’s been an amazing journey so far. As the sport has evolved, so has the brand. Today, Yachting is a monthly print magazine; a website with 2.2 million visitors and 11 million page views per year; and a social media influencer with 280,000- plus followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. HERE’S TO THE NEXT 111 YEARS! READER FEED BACK Looking for photos and yacht news? Get social with Yachting: Visit facebook.com/yachtingmagazine By Email: letters@yachtingmagazine.com By Mail: 460 N. Orlando Ave., Suite 200, Winter Park, FL32789 On the Web: yachtingmagazine.com…

NEWS & NOTES FROM AROUND THE YACHTING WORLD WHEN TERRORISTS STRIKE or a hurricane hits, U.K.- based Excelerate helps first responders keep their communications networks open. Put simply, if a system’s backbone jams, a commander can flip a switch to use a new backbone — and transfer it from headquarters to the scene. “The guy on the street, the police officer with his walkie-talkie, he’s completely oblivious that the network he is using has failed,” says David Savage, Excelerate’s group executive chairman. “He’s seamlessly switched over to a completely resilient capability, so the device he’s using operates as usual.” ¶ Now the company is bringing that power to yacht owners and captains. It bought a 94-foot Sunseeker, Excelerate Z, packed it with the company’s tech and showed it off at…

LOA 44' MAX BEAM 21'8" THE CAT’S PAJAMAS SISTERSHIPS The MY 44 fills the gap between the MY 37 and MY 55 in Fountaine Pajot’s lineup of power catamarans. BIG BRANDING Garmin is an official partner of Fountaine Pajot, which calls itself the world’s leader in luxury catamarans. 42-YEAR LEGACY Fountaine Pajot has been building boats since 1976. Its first sailing cat launched in 1983, and its first power cat in 1998. PLENTY OF BOATBUILDERS use terms like voluminous and cavernous to describe interior accommodations, but catamaran companies — working with far wider beams than same-length monohulls allow — have long held the edge on stateroom space. Fountaine Pajot’s MY 44, which made her U.S. debut at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, is the latest example of a catamaran…

For about half the 20th century, Yachting ran a column titled Gadgets and Gilhickies. With a name like that, we couldn’t help but revisit the content and found it just as quirky as the title promised. Filling its pages are MacGyver-style inventions cooked up by readers to make their lives on the water a little easier. In this day and age, one might call these gizmos “boat hacks.” ¶ The quirkiest of these novelties, at least in the 1968 columns, might be Howard Barnes’ glasses snatcher, for those pesky times when your spectacles take a plunge into the drink. Barnes’ refrigerator-shelf (yes, refrigerator shelf) gadget was good for swiping any small object from the water, though. His first season using it earned him $200 worth of overboard items. See below…

A BOAT BELAY This temporary outhaul rig will get your boat off a beach landing in a falling tide. Drop an anchor far enough off shore to ensure deep water after the tide drops, then shackle four fathoms of chain to the anchor and, at the other end, a swivel block. Rove some line through the swivel block to make an outhaul. The swivel block and outhaul line allow crew to pull the boat to deeper waters upon departure. PUMP, PUMP, PUMP IT UP Here we have a “do-ityourself faucet for a remote pump.” With just household plumbing fittings and some chrome-plated copper tubing, boaters could make a space-adaptable, leakproof faucet for their vessel. FULL-METAL JACKET You’re on your own with avoiding pinched fingers and possible capsizing, deFontaine says, but…