Conflicting news reports this morning have agreed on one sad fact, that the four passagemakers aboard the S/V Quest, hijacked late last week by Somali pirates, are dead. The CBS report is HERE. The pirates reportedly told Reuters that they killed the hostages after their two commanders were killed by U.S. military forces shadowing the [...]
by Guest Author Zuzana Prochazka Editor’s Note — Zuzana Prochazka is an award-winning writer and editor and currently serves as the president of the Boating Writers International association. Her website, TalkoftheDock, is “the boater resource for gear, boat reviews and other topics related to cruising and general loafing about on the water. “ Oh yeah, [...]
Northern Lights is basking in the southern sunshine this weekend at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show (FLIBS) with a new skinny genny and a NMEA 2000-certified digital monitoring system called WaveNet. The newly shrunk generator, the M773LW3, is a 9kW model and is almost 30% smaller than its predecessor. “The overall size of smaller [...]
As I write this, I’m on my way back home from the “IBEX” international Boatbuilders Exhibition in Louisville, Kentucky, where I served as one of the judges in a panel that gave out a series of awards to recognize innovation in new products. IBEX is a unique, trade-only show where the people who make everything [...]
Pacific Asian Enterprises, the company that builds the Nordhavn line of passagemaking boats, has spent some of the less-pressured time of the economic recession to finish work on a couple of new designs. Among them reportedly are a larger version of the 75 Expedition Yacht Fisher, a megayacht even bigger than the Nordhavn 120 currently [...]
by Christine Kling (Editor’s Note — Chris Kling is a sailor with with more than 30 years of experience on the oceans of the world. She’s also an English professor at Broward College, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the published author of the Seychelle Sullivan series of mysteries, including SURFACE TENSION (2002), CROSS [...]
If you could have the perfect outboard for your dinghy or tender, what would it be? A diesel perhaps, because you’re already carrying hundreds or thousands of gallons of that fuel and because looking for and storing gasoline is such a pain in the neck, not to mention dangerous? I’ve long thought, for example, that [...]
Actually, it brings ultrasonic weather data to your helm. Are we straight with that now? Okay. The basic ultrasonic instrument has been around for several years — the most recent version, still available, is the PB150, a NMEA 0183-compatible unit – but the WS200 is a significant upgrade, both in sensors and networking. It’s also a little [...]
Renting an EPIRB from BoatU.S. for the occasional offshore passage might just save your life; like it did for these three sailors off the coast of northern California. Check out the video for the dramatic Coast Guard rescue.
The 100-footer Maxi Speedbird beats all the other boats to Bermuda in the 2010 Newport Bermuda Race. We’ve got a nice video tour of Speedboat.
The 2010 Newport Bermuda Race is underway and we’ve got some fascinating video and live tracking links for you.
The 47th edition of the Newport to Bermuda race is now three days away from its June 18 start in Newport, Rhode Island. Follow with the iTrack service.
The sail training barque Picton Castle, a square-rigger registered in the Cook Islands and based in Lunenburg Harbor, Nova Scotia, is about to depart its mooring and head off on its fifth circumnavigation. The 14-month, westbound trip will sail through the tropics under the command of its first and only captain, Daniel Moreland. Some 44 [...]
Okay, so it’s not quite as memorable (yet?) as “Riders on the Storm,” the 1971 hit by The Doors, but a new blog by writers Christine Kling and Mike Jastrzebski called Write on the Water, is a place to talk about the intersection of writing and living and working on the water. I was the guest [...]
By way of introducing this new video series, let me re-state what will become obvious to you: I am a writer. And writers may have great ideas for video but viewers will likely suffer a bit while the writer learns to be a filmmaker. And with that ugly excuse for the quality of our first [...]
Last year’s “Baja Ha Ha,” the fleet cruise from San Diego to Mexico, provides yet another impetus for all ocean cruisers to reconsider their liferaft situation. You DO have one, right? And it HAS been maintained, inspected and re-certified, right? And you actually know what’s stored in it and how to use it, right? And [...]
Passing through Miami or Fort Lauderdale and need fuel? How about having it delivered to you at anchor by Peterson Fuel Delivery. They’ve been doing it for almost ten years but I didn’t know about it until Jeff and Karen Siegel took advantage of the service and wrote it up in their cruise blog, TakingPaws. [...]
Sometimes I guess you can just have too much of a good thing. The case in point here is Interlux’s new Compass varnish, introduced last fall, which incorporated a new, fast-drying chemistry. Unfortunately, it seems to be just a little bit too fast-drying. An OceanLines reader in North Carolina noticed cans of the varnish being [...]
Our recent piece by Jeff Siegel of ActiveCaptain about a novel dinghy anchoring technique stimulated quite a bit of discussion from readers and we even heard about another, possibly even better, technique from John Marshall, owner of the Nordhavn 55 Serendipity. Marshall discovered a particular product that makes the process of anchoring the dinghy off [...]
Editor’s Note — Victoria Allman is the chef aboard a 143-foot megayacht and the author of the recently released “Sea Fare: A Chef’s Journey Across the Ocean.” This is the third in a series of periodic columns here on OceanLines featuring her irresistible recipes. Best of all for OceanLines readers, who are travelers of the [...]
Mobile Mariner LLC has announced the official launch of the Mobile Mariner™ for the Blackberry® smartphone, which will provide NOAA marine weather forecasts, tide information and life weather conditions for the coastal United States, including the Great Lakes. More upcoming releases will expand the application to other smartphone platforms and cover more international areas. Mobile [...]
KVH Industries said today that it will offer rebates up to $200 through the end of April on its TracVision M1 and M3 satellite TV systems. The M1 and M3 systems are typically used on smaller boats, although the M3DX unit, with its HDTV capability could easily serve as the workhorse on almost any size [...]
Sea Sense, the St. Petersburg, Florida-based sailing and powerboating school for women, is offering a new international class on Ireland’s Shannon River and canals. Every year, the company offers a different international course, with previous locations including various Caribbean locales, as well as Italy, Greece, France and Tahiti. The 2010 course will be aboard a [...]
By Jeffrey Siegel (ActiveCaptain); Videography by Karen Siegel Here’s a great technique for anchoring the dinghy off the beach. Our dinghy weighs about 800 pounds. She’s a rigid inflatable with a 40 HP engine. It’s our family car when we’re cruising and we put a lot of demands on her. So I was telling Larry [...]
Simrad Yachting said customers purchasing certain new marine electronics products from authorized dealers are entitled to rebates up to $200. While the program runs til the end of June, customers who purchased eligible products beginning February 8, 2010 are also eligible for the rebates. That’s a nice touch. Here’s a list provided by Simrad of [...]
KVH Industries said today that current TracVision satellite TV customers can upgrade to the latest HD7 system and get a rebate of up to $2,000, depending on which system they are upgrading. The promotion runs through June 30, 2010. The deal requires the customer to return to KVH the old system’s circuit boards via an [...]
Parker Hannifin has a remarkable new fuel polishing system that has been designed specifically to run nonstop, using extremely small amounts of electricity and with a design that makes it seem nearly immortal when compared to conventional pumps. The new FPM-050 Fuel Polishing Module (click on the photo above for a larger view) consists of [...]
It is one of the most prestigious of all open-ocean sailing races, yet it is also, for many, a rite of passage(making). The 635-mile 2010 Newport Bermuda Race will begin on June 18, 2010 off Castle Head, Newport, Rhode Island. The race is held every two years and is organized by the Cruising Club of [...]
The following is from the official blog of the U.S. Coast Guard, The Coast Guard Compass. It describes the annual video contest the service holds and this year’s collection of videos are as dramatic as ever. I’ve picked my favorite. Now it’s your turn. Have a look at the compilation below and then visit the [...]
