Instrument Panel Photo of Cruise Ship Carnival Pride during Hurricane Irene -- Photo courtesy of Bill Band

A fascinating blog entry yesterday on the Kadey-Krogen Yachts website recounts the Hurricane Irene experience of Chesapeake ship pilot Bill Band, father of Shannon Band, KKY’s marketing manager.  Band was one of two pilots who took the 960-foot Carnival Pride out of the Port of Baltimore and into the Bay to ride out the hurricane.  Just check out the wind-speed reading on the instrument display photo above, taken by Band during the storm.  Yikes.

It’s a fascinating story about modern ship handling and heavy weather strategy that should interest any captain who has wondered how he or she would fare at sea in a tropical cyclone.  The scale of everything in this story is larger than what most of us deal with every day, but many of the experiences hold similar in principle.

Have a look at the blog entry from Pilot Band on the Kadey-Krogen website.  There are some other impressive photos there, too.

If you were at sea during Irene, or any other major storm, we’d love to hear about your own experiences in the comments.

Copyright © 2011 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Port Quarter View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen has released the first photos of the nearly complete first Krogen 52′, which should be leaving the factory shortly by ship in time (hopefully) to make its debut at Seattle’s Lake Union Boats Afloat Show September 14.  This all-new design shows classic Krogen lines in a raised pilothouse model.  There’s no mistaking what company this yacht is from.  It’s a bluewater passagemaker and liveaboard yacht intended to meet the full-time needs of a couple or family.  Enjoy the photos and if you get to the Boats Afloat Show, let us know what you think!  Failing that, we may see hull #2 at the Fort Lauderdale Trawler Fest in early February next year.

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Port Side Forward View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Pilothouse Helm View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Flybridge Helm View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Side Deck View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Wing Station View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Office View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Office View 2 -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Office Bookshelf View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 52' First Hull Port-Side Bar-Buffet and Pantry View -- Photo: Kadey-Krogen Yachts

Kadey-Krogen 5201 Released from Hull Mold - Photo Courtesy of Kadey-Krogen

Kadey-Krogen Yachts said today that hull number one of the new Krogen 52′ line has been released from its mold.  Krogen 5201 will be a single engine vessel with hydraulic bow and stern thrusters.  The new yacht is scheduled to be delivered sometime this summer.

Bow View of Kadey-Krogen 5201 Released from Hull Mold -- Photo Courtesy of Kadey-Krogen

There’s a lot to like about this slightly smaller version of the Krogen 58′.  We have written about the new boat before here on OceanLines.  You can see all the photos at the Kadey-Krogen website here.

View of the galley and salon of the Krogen 48' AE

Kadey-Krogen Yachts said yesterday that the 50th edition of its highly successful 48′ North Sea line is the first to sport a series of now-standard modifications that significantly improve liveability aboard a boat that was already highly regarded in the liveaboard community.  The company took the opportunity to re-badge the boat as the “Krogen 48′ AE,” the AE short for “Advanced Ergonomics.”  The changes include updates to the layouts of the salon, pilothouse and flybridge, as well as the incorporation of home-sized stairs and bannisters to ease movement through the boat.

I would like to tease the good-natured Larry Polster, Kadey-Krogen’s vice president, about how “Advanced” these ergonomic changes really are, but the truth is, in the cruising world they ARE advanced.  Not surprisingly, Kadey-Krogen collected the input from its customers to focus these updates on liveability — that somewhat undefined quality of making a boat easy to live aboard.

The Krogen 48′ North Sea has always been a favorite of long-distance cruisers, passagemakers and liveaboards.  The size seems to be a particular sweet spot for couples who want to live aboard and the boat holds its value extremely well.  A quick survey of Krogen 48′ models for sale on Yachtworld has even ten-year-old boats still well over the $700K mark, which means they really haven’t lost any value at all.

Back to the changes incorporated in the Krogen 48′ AE.  Here’s a brief list:

• An option for an L- or U-shaped settee along the starboard side of the salon
• A table that both expands and raises and lowers to serve as coffee table and dining table for eight.
• A larger galley forward to starboard, with a now-standard Viking four-burner range, household size fridge/freezer, convection microwave, and room for both a trash compactor and dishwasher.
• A nearly floor-to-ceiling pantry opposite the galley, on the port side.
• New, deep and wide steps steps up to the pilothouse, with a sturdy bannister for security.
• A redesigned pilothouse that accommodates side-by-side helm chairs and a larger electronics console (hooray!!).
• New molded steps outside the portside pilothouse door up to the boat deck and flybridge.
• Boat deck will accommodate both a 13-foot tender, as well as a summer kitchen.
• The flybridge helm is now off to starboard, with an L-shape settee to port.

Kadey-Krogen is going through some of its other models just coming intro production now and making some of these same ergonomic changes, particularly to steps and stairs.  Does this kind of change exact a price in terms of space utilization? Of course. But the 48′ is big enough to handle the changes and the improvements in “liveability” are absolutely worth the price. If you’re going to live aboard one of these boats, the convenience and safety of actual human-sized stair treads and risers is more of a big deal than you might think.

For more pictures of the changes involved, check out the November blog entry of the Kadey-Krogen marketing team.  You can get a good feel for the new helm and flybridge arrangement in the pictures there.  You can check out the Krogen 48′ AE at Trawler Fest in Fort Lauderdale at the Bahia Mar January 27-29, and at the Miami International Boat Show (Sea Isle Marina location), from Febryary 17-21.

Copyright © 2011 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.

Kadey-Krogen Company Logo

Outer Reef Yachts Company Logo

Apparently Kadey-Krogen had visions of international sugar plums dancing in its corporate head this holiday season, because today they announced with Outer Reef an agreement to have OR represent Kadey-Krogen through all of OR’s “established international sales and service locations.”

I’ll probably have more information over the next few weeks, but it’s clear the companies see the venture as non-competitive because of the size range of the two product lines — Kadey-Krogen mostly below 60′ (except the 64′ Expedition, which isn’t here yet), and Outer Reef mostly above 60′ (except for the 58′ motoryacht).

Here’s the copy from the release.

“With Outer Reef offices and service centers in Sydney, Australia, and seven locations throughout Europe, Kadey-Krogen is poised to hit the ground running as we launch into the international market. Partnering with a company with an established international sales and service network made good business sense for us, but it was even more important to find a company like Outer Reef that shares our vision of customer service,” says John Gear, President of Kadey-Krogen Yachts.

“We see the representation of Kadey-Krogen Yachts as a great opportunity to offer a very high quality product to our international clientele in the under 60’ range, a size range that Outer Reef Yachts currently does not offer. Kadey-Krogen is synonymous with high quality and exceptional service, a characteristic that embodies the Outer Reef philosophy and business model,” says Jeff Druek, President and CEO of Outer Reef Yachts.

Boaters in Australia and throughout Europe can expect the same dedicated customer service and level of involvement in the design and construction of their Kadey-Krogen that owners in North America experience.

Kadey-Krogen Yachts currently builds long range Trawler Yachts from 39’ to 58’ in pilothouse and tri-deck configurations. Outer Reef Yachts builds custom long range Motor Yachts from 63’ to 118’ also in raised pilothouse and tri-deck configurations.

For more information visit www.outerreefyachts.com and www.kadeykrogen.com .”

Adapted from press materials provided by the companies.

Copyright © 2011 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.

OceanLines Video - "The Underway Engine Room Check"

The philosophy behind an hourly, or every-two-hours engine-room check is that most big problems start out as small ones. And if they’re picked up early, many if not most, can be taken care of quickly and easily. Whether it’s a problem of the liquid outside the boat coming in — as in a leaking thru-hull or shaft seal; or one of the internal fluids — like oil, fuel or hydraulic fluid — leaking out of a component and into the boat, noticing it right away is key to offshore safety.

In the engine room, then, you will mainly be looking for leaks of the kinds just mentioned.  And as Gregg Gandy, project manager for Kadey-Krogen Yachts, and longtime yacht captain, demonstrates, a ritualized inspection will ensure you don’t miss anything.

This video was filmed during an offshore delivery of a new Krogen 58′ while more than 100 nm off the east coast of the U.S. Because our boat was brand new, with just enough time on the boat to be “broken in,” Captain Gandy was comfortable with a two-hour interval for the check. Some captains check every hour and a few go longer. I would say one or two hours is probably the right interval. Many owners these days will put a thermal imaging or even plain visible light camera in the engine room, fed to one of the helm displays.

You might consider creating and using a checklist at first. As pilots know, checklists are great for ensuring that distracting conditions don’t cause you to miss something critical. Another key, and you can see it in this video, is doing the inspection the same way every time.  Gregg likes to go to the far aft end of the engine room and work his way forward.

You can see him checking the running generator (we had two aboard the Krogen 58′) for leaks, vibration, loose belts or unusual noises. He then moves to the shafts, seals and transmissions, looking for proper cooling of the shafts, smooth, vibration-free turning of the shafts, no unexpected noise or vibration or movement from the transmissions.

While we may not have been able to get good voice quality in the engine room (remember to wear hearing protection, by the way), we will do so in future segments. Let us know in the comments what else you’d like to see.  I promise that we’ll keep them short and as interesting as possible.

Special thanks, by the way, to the folks at Kadey-Krogen Yachts — Larry Polster, Gregg Gandy and Greg Kaufman — who made this trip, and this video possible.

Copyright © 2010 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.

The magic of sunset at sea while aboard a trawler. . .

One of my favorite things about being at sea is “The Big Sky.” No, not the state of Montana or the great 1952 lubberly movie with Kirk Douglas — THIS big sky over me. Growing up in the hilly country of New England, the celestial vault never took up much more than half of the view above the horizon. Here, far off the coast of Georgia, a fairly calm sea permits a 180-degree perspective on the heavens. The sights and sounds of this big sky, both during the day and at night are highlights of a trip offshore.

A view of our position courtesy of Fugawi Marine ENC running NOAA ENC charts. Note the speed.

Gregg and Greg are both standing at the helm, examining the chartplotting laptop as dawn arrives on our second day at sea. It’s still mostly dark, but a faint tangerine swath on the eastern horizon suggests where the sun will rise. As Greg Kaufman takes his watch, we agree things are running smoothly. Our speed over the ground (SOG) has risen to well over 10 knots, as the wind and swell have veered into the southeast, and the ride has smoothed dramatically. The engines are still only burning about 6.3 gallons per hour, combined, and the faint hum we hear from them in the pilothouse is accompanied by the sounds of the rushing water along the hull; a rhythm that shifts quietly and constantly with the set of the waves and wind. 

The tangerine deepens at its heart and bleeds a rose stain farther along the horizon and up into the sky and then, abruptly, the orb of the sun rises from the sea. It happens quickly, and the drowsy pilothouse is suddenly flooded in warm, yellow sun. Gregg has been drinking coffee on his 2-6 watch, but a fresh pot brewing in the galley awakens my breakfast appetite and soon enough I’ve got a bowl of cereal and some fruit in hand. The ride is so smooth now I fling caution to the wind and climb the steps back up into the pilothouse without “keeping one hand for myself and one for the boat.” Apparently, Poseidon was still asleep, because I make it to the settee in the pilothouse without spilling anything. 

After breakfast, we check the decks for flying fish who had one-way tickets. There are none today, which is a little surprising, given that we could see and hear them during the night, occasionally running into the hull. It’s probably just as well that we didn’t find any; flying fish sushi at this hour seems less than appealing. Gregg uses the freshwater washdown on the foredeck to rinse the Portuguese bridge and pilothouse windows of their salt crust from yesterday’s bash. I’m taking some time to wander around the yacht, taking pictures and making notes for a more detailed article about the Krogen 58′, which I’ll write up when I get home. 

The wind continues to veer and by midday is mostly from the southwest. We’re also in the core of the Gulf Stream and our SOG has risen above 12 knots — quite a fantastic speed for a trawler running at an economical cruise setting of 1,850 rpm.  Gregg managed to download the latest GRIB files before we were over the horizon, so we spend some time in the morning looking at the forecasted winds overlaid on the chartplotting software on his Mac laptop. It looks like a good day, with the winds behind us, at least until sometime early tomorrow morning. 

While today’s cruisers do not HAVE to be completely disconnected from the rest of the world, with Internet phone, TV and data services available by satellite, we don’t have any of those resources so my cell phone is silent and my laptop is without any connections. My brain eventually also catches up to this reality and it’s then that I really begin to notice little details — like how I can see the differencein direction of the wind waves and ocean swells. I look more closely at the old radar set we have and I realize I can see that difference in the “sea clutter” returns on the screen, too. That will be handy at night when I can’t see the waves visually. 

There’s more life out here than first meets the eye, too.  We’re regularly visited by bottlenose dolphins; big, gray athletes running across our course who suddenly change course to check out our pitiful bow wave and then, unimpressed, move on. There are large patches of Sargassum seaweed; orphans snatched from the great Sargasso Sea by eddies of the Gulf Stream — each a haven for entire food chains floating underneath them in the water column. 

What looks like an Audubon’s Shearwater swings lazily by, evidently concluding we are not edible and then darting off to check out a suspicious surface swirl off our port beam. These birds periodically pass us and I wonder how they manage so far from land. The Gulf Stream this time of year is beginning to fill with the pelagic birds as they begin northward migrations. North Carolina, incidentally, is a great place to take some offshore pelagic bird trips. Check out this website of Brian Patteson’s. 

Traffic is pretty light and we seem to have the sea to ourselves for the day. The southwest winds persist and we make great time, racing along in the middle of the Gulf Stream.  It’s clear from the forecast and our progress that it’s going to be a race to the North Carolina coast for us. Our hope is to get as close as possible to North Carolina before the wind quickly shifts to the northeast, courtesy of a fast-moving cold front coming from the mid-west. By day’s end, we’re fairly certain there will be more head-bashing before we get where we’re going. 

Atlantic Ocean Sunset From a Trawler

After an early sailor’s dinner, Gregg heads below to get some sleep. The other Greg and I enjoy a spectacular sunset. The wind has picked up but it’s still calm enough for me to wander around the side decks experimenting with my camera. There are enough clouds around that the sunset has some canvas to paint on and it gets better and better as each moment passes. And then, as suddenly as it rose 13 or so hours earlier, the sun sets and a gray haze mutes the colors. 

Our ship sails steadily northward through the descending night. The pilothouse is darkened; all the lights and screens dimmed as far as possible to preserve night vision. I periodically step out onto the sidedeck to look at the stars. Low in the west, Orion poses majestically in full hunter glory. The dark skies of the moonless night pull the stars into three-dimensional relief and the constellations now truly resemble their ancient namesakes. I can even see the Orion Nebula, M42, with my naked eyes. Overhead a cloud stretches to the eastern horizon in a broad belt. As my eyes continue to adapt, I realize I’m looking at the Milky Way — an edge-on view into the heart of our very own galaxy, with its dense “cloud” of stars and gas paving my own sky. 

Later, on watch, stars rising from the ocean play tricks on my eyes and I think they are ships hull-down at the horizon. I have to watch them steadily to reassure myself they are indeed off-world and not the approaching range lights of some container-carrying leviathan. I have to move my gaze constantly to pick up faint lights with my more sensitive peripheral vision. Thankfully, the radar faithfully confirms or denies each apparition. I would be significantly less comfortable without this modern aid. 

Gregg comes up to the pilothouse shortly before his 2 a.m. watch and does an engine room check. We each check it at the beginning of our watch and once at mid-watch, which means someone has eyes on all the running equipment every two hours while we’re underway. We look for leaks in the shaft seals, hoses and thru-hulls; loose belts or pulleys; signs of oil or fuel anywhere, and finally check the sight gauges on the fuel tanks. We know to a small fraction of a gallon how much fuel we’re using, thanks to the digital information buss on the John Deere engines, but it’s nice to be reassured by a logical level in the sight glass. 

As I handover the watch to Gregg is the wind is picking up and beginning to complete it’s veering circle of the last 36 hours. By dawn we are once again bucking a stiff headwind and sea. Despite the pitching of the boat, I have no trouble getting some sleep in the forward stateroom, although eventually something in the anchor locker forward of my stateroom bulkhead decides to knock against the bulkhead in rhythm with the waves. 

This time we only have to endure the bashing for a couple of hours and then we begin to feel the lee effect of North Carolina. By mid-morning on Sunday (I think it’s Sunday; you lose track of the time and the day of the week quickly out here…) we are approaching the entrance to the Cape Fear River south of Wilmington. We follow a tug towing a barge up to the city, but duck out of the river and across to the Intracoastal again and head for our marina at Wrightsville Beach. 

Gregg brings the big Krogen up the channel toward the face dock at the marina and executes a beautiful 180; the starboard side coming within inches of the dock as he completes the turn. He’s done this a few times. I step off the boat because I’ve got a plane to catch back to the other real world, but the two Greg(g)s will pick up another crewmember and continue northward on Monday. 

Our leg from Jensen Beach to Wrightsville Beach took approximately 47 hours. We traveled as far as 120 nm offshore and in the core of the Gulf Stream saw speeds as high as 12.6 knots. The engines ran at a nearly constant 1,850 rpm and the smaller of our two generators also ran the duration. We burned less than 300 gallons of diesel fuel and suffered no mechanical or systems failures. The yacht handled breaking waves in the departure inlet of greater than 10 feet and serenely traveled through both head, quartering and following seas without complaint or wander. It was a great trip on a seaworthy yacht and I won’t forget it. 

Copyright © 2010 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.

Krogen 58' Departs Fort Pierce Inlet

The video you see here was taken while departing the Fort Pierce, Florida, inlet, Friday, April 16. The tide was running out strongly and the wind and seas were running in just as strongly. The resulting washing-machine ride was rather sporty, although our Krogen 58′ handled it well.  At one point, we realize we’ve forgotten to latch the doors of the refrigerator, which has just emptied itself into the galley. You can read more about this trip here.

A larger format and more video from this recent northbound delivery will be coming shortly.

Copyright © 2010 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.

Our Krogen 58' Departs Jensen Beach and turns north up the ICW

It’s 2 p.m. on Friday and I’m stowing my camera gear carefully in the salon of this big yacht when I hear a sudden muted rumble from below decks. Our captain, Kadey-Krogen Project Manager Gregg Gandy, has started the John Deere diesels. We’re ready to depart our Jensen Beach, Florida, marina and head north to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina with this brand new Krogen 58′.

Our departure has been delayed for a couple of hours, courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service, who somehow figured out how to take four days to make an express delivery from Tampa to Stuart of our radar set. But that’s behind us now; Gregg and a local technician have the old Furuno unit hooked up and running well. This is a brand new yacht that Kadey-Krogen has been using as a company demonstrator and now they’ve decided to sell it, so it’s on its way up to the Annapolis, Maryland, office. So naturally, we don’t want to be making holes in the beautiful helm panels for this temporary gear. We’ve got it installed on a removable panel offset to the right side of the helm, along with the new Furuno autopilot and the VHF radio.

We’ve got full (1,760 gallons) fuel and water (400 gallons) tanks; the galley lockers are loaded with fruit, cereal, granola bars and microwave meals and we let go the lines and head east from the marina into the ICW, then turn north and head for the Fort Pierce Inlet. We could have turned south and gone out the St. Lucie inlet, but the tide isn’t high and Gregg “hates” backtracking, so north we go.

A bottlenose dolphin swings by while we’re in the waterway, just checking out the nice lines of the big Kadey-Krogen. I’m adjusting to steering the yacht from the flybridge. It takes a few minutes before I stop over-correcting and adopt the smaller, more anticipatory movements that keep this deep-keel boat on track. In short order we turn east into the Fort Pierce inlet and get ready to head offshore. Gregg takes the wheel, transferring command from inside the pilothouse and I head below to join him and Greg Kaufman, Kadey-Krogen’s newest sales team member, himself a long-time sailor and captain.

The Fort Pierce Inlet is deceptively calm when viewed from inside

From well inside, the inlet looks calm enough, but the aerial antics of a couple of kite surfers suggest that more is going on at the mouth of the inlet than we can see from here. The tide is still going out and a strong east wind is piling up wickedly steep waves. Gregg has a firm hand on the wheel as the bow starts to rise and fall with the increasingly short-period waves; some breaking now. The TRAC stabilizers have the roll element handled nicely but we’re pitching markedly as even our big, heavy yacht can’t defy the physics of tons of green water completely. It’s a tad dramatic and a crash from somewhere aft in the saloon reminds us that we forgot to latch the refrigerator doors. The lovely Jenn-Air has neatly emptied itself during one of our uphill climbs. Oops.

The water color marks the limit of the inlet outflow

Just when the ride is getting to be a little tiresome, we approach the boundary of the inlet outflow, marked by a decidedly sharp line between the murkier water of the inlet and the blue water of the ocean. We’re still in for a bit of a head-bash as we turn north, with the long ocean swells from the northeast and an east-northeasterly wind mixing the sea surface up. Full confession — I’m a tad green around the gills by nightfall and find I need to stay topside while my inner ear, brain and stomach negotiate a settlement. I have the 10-2 watch and by my turn I’m feeling better and slip into the routine. My two shipmates decide to get some sleep and head below to the guest stateroom amidships, which has twin bunks.

The helm routine on watch is simple. Let George (the autopilot) steer, while you watch the course track on the GPS-linked laptop, monitor the VHF and watch the radar. We periodically change the radar range to ensure we don’t miss a small boat up close, but mostly we’re focused on keeping a lookout for the big stuff; large freighters, warships and cruise ships, moving a high relative speeds and sometimes seemingly oblivious to anything else in their way. Gregg is running MacENC on his Mac laptop, while I’m running the latest version of Fugawai Marine ENC on my Windows 7 laptop over on the other side of the helm. Our SPOT Messenger is velcro’d to a forward pilothouse window where it reports our position every 10 minutes. Friends and family follow our trip by checking in on a website that displays the last 50 position reports.

We keep an hourly manual log of time, position, heading, speed, engine RPM, and comments. It’s standard practice offshore and allows you to pick up a dead reckoning position should you lose your electronic fix. The paper charts we would need to do so are in the wide chart drawers to either side of the helm. We do an engine room check every two hours, looking for leaks, loose belts, odd vibrations, expected fuel levels in the sight glasses, etc. The John Deere diesels are in their element, however, and run on and on at 1,850 RPM for virtually the entire trip. These are continuous duty-rated engines that are built to be started and run forever. At that RPM, we’re getting somewhere just north of 8.5 knots of basic hull speed, but the Gulf Stream will add to that significantly once we get in the middle of it.

Toward the end of my watch, the wind and waves have both veered into the southeast, easing the ride considerably and I hand over the helm to Gregg, who has the 2-6 watch. It’s a dark night, with no moon and lots of clouds obscuring the sky. I settle back onto the comfortable settee behind the helm and close my eyes, listening to the symphonic rhythms of a boat at steady cruise — the steady thrum of the engines, the constant rush of water by the hull, the occasional splash of an errant wave. I’m tired, and it’s all very. . . sleep. . .inducing. . .

(to be continued)

Copyright © 2010 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.

My ride for the next two days -- Kadey-Krogen 5817

I’m currently aboard a new Kadey-Krogen 58′ at the Four Fish Marina in Jensen Beach, Florida, making final preparations to head north to Annapolis with the boat. It’s a unique opportunity to give the current queen of the Kadey-Krogen fleet a thorough test in her natural offshore element. As soon as a new radar unit arrives and is installed, we’ll be departing. I’ll be posting — whenever I have a cellular Internet connection — updates on the first half of the trip, to Wilmington, North Carolina.

This yacht, Krogen 5817, was delivered last fall to Seattle, where she was displayed at the Seattle Boat Show. She was then loaded aboard a freighter and taken through the Panama Canal to Florida. Our plan is to run up the IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW) to the Fort Pierce inlet, then head offshore. The winds today (Friday, April 16) are still fairly stiff out of the East, but the forecast calls for it to gradually diminish and swing to the southeast, which will make the trip up the Gulf Stream a little smoother.

It should be about a 50-hour passage to North Carolina, and the two Kadey-Krogen crew and I plan on four-hour watches each, with eight hours off. That will give me plenty of time to do some detailed photography and video of our trip and to give you a nice look at this beautiful yacht.

So stay tuned for the next post, in which I’ll introduce you to our crew, Captain Gregg Gandy, and yacht broker Greg Kaufman (also a licensed Master), and give you the details of our route and cruising specifics. In the meantime, you can get a good look at the specifications of this particular boat, which Kadey-Krogen has been using as a company demonstrator and which is now for sale, here.

Copyright © 2010 by OceanLines LLC.  All rights reserved.