Innehållsförteckning för February 2024 från Soundings

Tammy Brown called me recently to introduce herself and ask if I knew about America’s Boating Club. I said it sounded vaguely familiar. She countered: “How about the United States Power Squadrons. That ring a bell?” It certainly did. When Brown explained that they are one and the same, I felt a bit sheepish. How the heck did I not know that? As it turns out, a number of us are still coming up to speed on the new name for the old Power Squadrons, the nonprofit organization that’s served recreational boat owners since 1914. Today, the group has 20,000 members throughout the U.S., organized into more than 340 chapters—or clubs—across the country, in fresh and saltwater. “We changed the name because we felt the old one was not descriptive…

Sam Devlin has been using the “stitch-and-glue” method to build wooden boats at Devlin Designing Boat Builders in Olympia, Washington, for over four decades. He’s built over 400 wooden boats from 8- to 48-feet long, and he also sells plans with instructions to those who want to build their own boat or hire a yard to handle the job. The stitch-and-glue technique relies on wire sutures to hold panels together until they can be joined by epoxy and fiberglass tape. Then, the hull is coated with fiberglass or Dynel cloth sheathing to ensure seamlessness. To make the process easier for laymen to understand, Devlin recently published the second edition of Devlin’s Boatbuilding Manual. Here, he shares details about the new book. What motivated you to release this latest book? Twenty-five…

When the Saxdor 400 GTO made its debut at the 2023 Cannes Yachting Festival in September, attendees could not be blamed for thinking that this might be another sporty model from the Finnish boat builder Axopar. That’s because both companies were founded by the same designer. However, the 400 GTO showcased some new ideas and luxury features that set it apart. The all-new 400 is the flagship of the Finnish-based Saxdor Yachts, which also builds several other boats, including the 320 and 270 that debuted with the builder’s U.S. marketing partner, MarineMax, at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. Like the 400, they are also available in multiple configurations including GTO (open hardtop), GTC (closed hardtop), or GT (no hardtop). Sakari Mattila is the founder and chief designer of Saxdor…

Every year, hundreds of boaters navigate the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICW), moving south in the fall and back north in the spring. Called “The Ditch” by many, the AICW is cobbled together from bays, sounds, canals and rivers that allow travelers to skip offshore passages when making their way. It starts at Mile Marker Zero in Norfolk, Virginia, and heads south to Key West, Florida, although some also include the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway, which starts at the Manasquan Inlet and unofficially extends the AICW through the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays. The Intracoastal Waterway is a well-worn groove in the Atlantic seaboard with over 200 years of history. Devotees of The Ditch often have five or more transits under their belts. A common dilemma for many of these snowbirds is…

When it comes to marine propulsion, a lot has changed in 60 years. Six decades ago, the sterndrive was still a new idea, a 100-hp Kiekhaefer Mercury was the most powerful outboard money could buy, and a diesel inboard often belched soot that coated a transom with an oily film. By comparison, today’s engines are cleaner, quieter, more efficient and would be unimaginably powerful to a boater in the early 1960s. Two factors have influenced the evolution of marine propulsion: intense competition between key players in the market and the government imposition of exhaust emissions regulations. In fact, the technology created to control auto emissions has enabled the development of today’s clean, easy-starting and very powerful gasoline and diesel marine engines. And in the future, the investments auto manufacturers make…

COLD FACTS I read with interest your recent article on cold molding (November 2023). My 46 years of experience with cold molding indicate that the advantages of this construction technique are significant and the fears about it are unfounded. In 1977, Sanford Boat Company, Inc. began building the 26-foot Alerion Class Sloop, a close reproduction of Nat Herreshoff’s personal sailboat. The big difference between Herreshoff’s original and our reproduction is cold molding. Our boat looked like Herreshoff’s, but the engineering was radically different and designed to take advantage of epoxy bonding. Only the tiller would be interchangeable with the historic boat. Cold molding allowed our boat 20 percent more ballast to improve performance and the expected life span seems indefinite. Of the 29 Alerion Class Sloops built, 11 were delivered…

Decatur, Indiana-based builder Formula Boats will introduce two new center console models in February—the 457 Sport and Fish models. The boats will make their public debut at the 2024 Miami International Boat Show. Known primarily for designing luxury family dayboats and bowriders, Formula re-entered the center console market after a long absence with the release of the 387 Center Console about a year ago. The series now expands with the addition of the 457, which has an LOA of 45 feet 7 inches and a 13-foot, 9-inch beam. “Unmistakably a Formula from near or afar, the 457’s bloodline is evident in its looks, performance, amenities, engineering and fit and finish,” says Scott Smith, the company’s marketing manager. “This model is destined to set itself apart from others in its class,…

Ted Hood was an innovative thinker who made his name in the sailing world, but he also felt that he could design and build a better waterjet-powered Downeast-style cruising yacht. Hood had spent a lifetime rethinking everything from sail cloth to sail and sailboat design and he’d helmed the 12 Meter Courageous in a successful defense of the 1974 America’s Cup. After 40 years of racing and building well-regarded racing and cruising sailboats, he nimbly crossed the boundary from sail to power in the 1990s. He started with an excellent base design, one created by Ray Hunt for Luhrs Marine Group that eventually became the Black Watch 30 in 1986, a sportfishing powerboat that was one of the Ted Hood Company’s model lines. According to Winn Willard, president of Ray…

Tucker West became president and CEO of Kadey-Krogen Group in April 2021, after serving as vice president of sales for seven years, and following jobs at Grand Banks Yachts, The Catamaran Company and Sunsail. Today, he oversees the boat brands Krogen Yachts, Summit Motoryachts and American Tugs, giving boaters a choice of displacement, planing or semi-planing hulls, respectively. His role as head of the Kadey-Krogen Group has been many years in the making, he says, with his whole lifetime spent on and around boats. “My crazy father used to work in the boating magazine business. He was with Cruising World, and he was one of the forces behind the Newport boat show,” West says. “We moved up to Rhode Island in the late ’70s. I was always around boats—driving a…

Commercial ships and clouds of smoke crowd a narrow waterway exiting the Brooklyn Navy Yard in John Whorf’s painting Brooklyn Navy Yard. Produced in 1950, Whorf created the scene with gouache and watercolor on paper, which, coupled with his outstanding skills, captures the industrious yard in all its bustling glory. Viewers are drawn to the billowing clouds of smog, an ode to the stylistic influences of Winslow Homer. Whorf’s dark strokes that make up scaffolding and cranes are just barely visible behind the clouds, giving an effect of dense smoke. Known for his seascapes, landscapes and nudes, Whorf captured the Brooklyn Navy Yard at its zenith. Founded in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was built to fit and design American commercial and war ships. The War of 1812 brought the…

Tired of seeing derelict vessels in coastal waterways where you want to cruise or anchor? Boy, does Heather Lougheed have some good news for you. Lougheed—who got her start at BoatUS 24 years ago in membership and marketing, and then rose up the ranks to become vice president of the 800,000-member-strong organization of boat owners—is now also taking on the role of president at the nonprofit BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water. Issue No. 1 on her to-do list is making good use of a $10 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to address the cleanup of derelict vessels. NOAA awarded the four-year grant to the BoatUS Foundation in September as part of the government agency’s Marine Debris Removal Program, which includes not only boats,…

I’ve had some great cruising experiences on power catamarans. Those trips introduced me to beautiful islands and were always aboard chartered boats—vessels that averaged 45 to 50 feet in length and stretched as wide as 21 feet. The beam felt tremendous to me, so much that I was relieved to give the helm over to my husband when we got into a sticky docking situation. He had the better boat-handling skills in the relationship, so the decision made sense. The truth is, those twin-hulled cruisers were intimidating and unlike the 32-foot monohull we had back home. And yet the big cats were exceptional for all the space and comfort they provided. I remembered those trips when I boarded the Four Winns TH36 in Fort Lauderdale last fall. This boat, I…

Christian Carraway is in the cockpit of the Grady-White Canyon 386, a new model that’s been given center stage in the builder’s booth at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. Carraway introduces himself as the product designer, the person responsible for the look and feel of the boat. “We have smart people on staff who figure out how to make it work—engineers and naval architects, the ones who understand math,” he deadpans. “But we work together, with a lot of negotiation and compromise.” The results of that collaboration? A boat that rises to the celebrated and salty reputation Grady-White has maintained for 65 years. The Canyon 386 has big Topsiders to fill. It replaces the builder’s 376, a fishing boat with some cruising DNA that was in the company’s line…

Johnny Savage will never forget 1998. That’s when he survived one of the earliest documented rogue waves in history, a story that the Virginia local and long-time offshore fisherman told in his book, Lost in the Stream: The Miraculous Story of Two Fishermen Lost at Sea. The then 26-year-old mate and his captain, Eric Bingham, had set off from Key West for a 350-mile daytime crossing to Cancun on the 56-foot Jim Smith boat, Anhinga. Here, Savage tells how they overcame an unthinkable challenge. On April 13, 1998, we set underway just before light to be up and running as the sun came up. At about 9 a.m, we looked in front of us and it was like nothing I’d ever seen before; it was like a hole in the…

“I’d never owned a saltwater boat before, let alone a twin-screw,” said Alex Pyle-Struzinski of Chester, Connecticut. “I had lake boats growing up but was boatless for several years before moving closer to Long Island Sound. I wasn’t looking for a boat when I bought the Egg from my friend Lars, who had purchased it from an estate. It had been sitting unattended for several years and he did little more than get it running. When he decided to buy another boat, it just kind of fell into my lap.” Struzinski bought the boat knowing it would require a lot of work, but he was up for the challenge. Today this good Egg is looking and running better than ever. Misbehavin’ III is a vintage 1989 35-foot Egg Harbor powered…

Doris was built in 1905 and launched that May by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. At 77 feet, 6 inches long, she was the largest all-wooden sailing vessel built by the yard. Doris was also the first yacht built to the then-new Universal Rule, a yacht rating regulation that changed the course of yacht design. Because of this she was given National Historic Recognition in 1984. Just one month after her launch, Doris raced against Wasp and Gloriana from Marblehead, Massachusetts, around the Isles of Shoals, off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and back to Marblehead. Throughout the day Doris managed to keep to the front of the pack, though Wasp and Gloriana stayed on her heels. Nearing the finish, the sloops dropped their spinnakers and Doris took off with over a cable’s…