The desire to build boats and explore distant horizons is one of humanity’s oldest pursuits, and the drive to innovate increasingly better craft and technologies has an equally time-honored heritage. Each year, Yachting celebrates trailblazers who have made significant impacts on the boating world. Please join us in raising a glass to the class of 2021.

Habib Dagher

When boatbuilders craft glass-reinforced plastic yachts, the work typically requires a significant investment of time to build the molds and lay down the fiberglass matting, core materials and resins. Habib Dagher of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center took a decidedly different approach to boatbuilding: He turned on a bespoke 3D printer.

Dagher and his team spent several years searching for a company that could build a 3D printer to their specs, plus the 15 preceding years developing the biofibers (derived from corn and wood) that the printer used to create 3Dirigo, their 25-foot center-console, in just 72 hours in late 2019.

This work earned the team two Guinness World Records. The first was for creating the world’s biggest 3D-printed boat, and the second was for creating the world’s biggest 3D-printed object.

The accomplishments opened several important boatbuilding doors. For starters, the head-spinning time frame to print 3Dirigo means designers and builders could eventually fast-track prototypes to satisfy market trends. Secondly, the biofibers, which are roughly 1,000 times smaller than sawdust, represent a new way to craft strong, environmentally responsible yachts. Plastic objects with biofiber reinforcement exhibit properties much like aluminum but can potentially be recycled. Finally, Dagher’s team can print recyclable molds that boatbuilders can use to craft production and custom-built yachts.

While 3Dirigo is just 25 feet length overall, the Advanced Structures and Composites Center’s 3D printer can print monocoque objects that measure up to 100 feet by 22 feet. Better still, these objects can be joined to create much larger, multi-element objects. Say, a 200-foot superyacht.

Germán Frers

Yacht design has long been a family affair in the Frers household. Germán Frers Sr. founded Frers Naval Architecture and Engineering in 1925 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By 1970, when his son, Germán Frers, took over, the company had designed almost 600 yachts.

Prior to 1970, the younger Frers, who was born in 1941, spent time working for the renowned Sparkman & Stephens design firm. Upon returning to Argentina, Frers began expanding on his father’s accomplishments. Frers-designed yachts have won almost all major international regattas, including the Admiral’s Cup, the Newport Bermuda Race, the Whitbread Round the World Race and the Louis Vuitton Cup.

In 1979, Frers joined forces with Nautor’s Swan to create the Swan 51. Some 700 Swans have since been built to Frers’ designs, ranging from the Swan 36 to the Swan 120. While their waterlines differ, these yachts share a design DNA that offers owners offshore cruising comfort, graceful style and racecourse performance.

Additionally, Frers has designed production sailboats for high-end builders including Hallberg-Rassy and Hylas, as well as custom designs that stretch into the super-maxi category. Hyperion, a 156-footer that Royal Huisman built in 1998 to a Frers design, was at the time the largest sloop ever launched.

While famous for his elegant sailboats with spacious, teak-adorned decks, Frers also has created some of the world’s most stunning mega-yachts, including the 279-foot Pacific, which Lürssen built in 2010. He also designed production motoryachts for Sirena Yachts.

Frers continues to work as CEO and principal designer of Frers Naval Architecture and Engineering, which has designed more than 1,300 yachts since 1925. His son, Germán “Mani” Frers, continues the family legacy from his studio in Milan, Italy.

Meade and Jan Gougeon

Brothers Meade and Jan Gougeon faced a tough decision in 1974. While their iceboat-building business had become the biggest in the country, their real interest was in creating epoxy systems for building light, strong and fast wood-composite boats, sans fasteners. As such, they made the tough call to shutter the iceboat business and focus on their groundbreaking epoxy business.

An early break came thanks to geography: The brothers opened a shop near the Dow Chemical Company, and they turned Herbert Dow, grandson of the company’s founder, on to iceboating. Herb gave the Gougeons access to the chemical company’s engineers, who helped the brothers develop revolutionary boatbuilding resins and hardeners.

Thanks to a well-timed capital investment from their middle brother, Joel, the brothers began packaging and selling their West System epoxy in 1971. As word of their company’s products spread, the brothers continued to build one-off and production sailboats—and sail and race (and win) extensively—while publishing newsletters, technical manuals and the biannual Epoxyworks magazine. In their spare time, they accepted projects such as building laminated wood samples for NASA and 65-foot-long composite wind-turbine blades for Westinghouse.

In the 1980s, the company introduced small, self-contained repair kits—dubbed Handy and Maxi packs—and supporting literature that helped DIYers and professionals repair fiberglass boats. In 1993, the brothers ceased commercial boatbuilding to focus entirely on their epoxy business. Other products followed, including adhesives, laminating epoxies and fairing fillers, but the brothers never lost their love for iceboating.

In 2015, three years after Jan’s death, they were inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame. Today, with Meade also having died, West System products live on. They are used worldwide on vessels ranging from dinghies to superyachts.

Rod Johnstone

When Rod Johnstone designed Ragtime in 1974, two key measurements were already locked: the boat’s beam, at 8 feet, 11 inches, and its length overall, at 24 feet. This was because he planned to build it in one of the bays of his three-car garage in Stonington, Connecticut, where the space measured 28-by-9 feet. When he pulled the boat out in May 1976, its rails rubbed the garage’s sides. A hull-raising party followed with friends, relatives and neighbors helping him to lift Ragtime onto its keel in the driveway. The boat immediately proved Johnstone’s yacht-design acumen.

Ragtime competed in 21 races in summer 1976, winning 19 and settling for second- and fourth-place finishes in the others. People started noticing. Johnstone reached out to his brother, Bob, a competitive sailor and marketing whiz who had recently entered the marine industry. After hearing his kid brother decline to sell Ragtime at the end of that summer, Bob pushed Rod to consider selling copies.

Enter Everett Pearson of the Tillotson Pearson boatbuilding factory. Pearson agreed to start producing J/24s. By 1977, Bob had left his day job and joined Rod to form J/Boats. More than 5,500 J/24s have since been built, and they are sailed and raced in almost 40 countries, making the J/24 the world’s most popular One Design keelboat.

Other designs followed, ranging from the J/22 to the J/65, as well as innovations such as the retractable sprit pole, which arrived in 1991 aboard the 34-foot J/105. While now common, sprit poles simplified spinnaker-handling for racing crews and daysailors.

Today, virtually all great sailors have raced aboard J/24s and other Rod Johnstone designs, and J/Boats continues to create popular One Designs.

Arent Kits van Heyningen

The cliché goes that father knows best, but sometimes it’s a son’s confidence in his dad that influences an industry. Such was the case with Martin Kits van Heyningen and his father, Arent Kits van Heyningen.

During the run-up to the 1980 America’s Cup, the French syndicate needed a tactical sailing computer. By chance, the team’s skipper met Martin, a Yale University undergrad who was working a summer job at a Newport, Rhode Island, boatyard. After learning that Martin’s father built computers, the skipper asked if Arent could help the team. Martin assured the skipper that his father could make anything.

Arent delivered the world’s first sailing computer, which he built in his basement. The problem, however, was that the French team’s analog fluxgate compasses weren’t compatible with it. So, Arent returned to his basement and built the world’s first self-calibrating digital fluxgate compass.

In 1982, Arent began building digital compasses with his sons, Martin and Robert, under the Sailcomp name. The family-owned business became KVH in 1985 and, in 1997, acquired the assets of a Chicago-based company that developed fiber-optic technologies. This acquisition let KVH become a player in the markets for inertial navigation and fiber optic gyroscopes.

In 1994, KVH introduced its first satellite-TV service for mariners. In 1998, the now publicly owned company began reselling satellite-communications airtime and equipment. In 2007, KVH introduced the TracPhone V7 stabilized satcom antenna, which operates on KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband network.

Other ideas and products followed, and as the years unfurled, Arent, Martin and Robert remained active sailors. In 2010, at 94, Arent became the oldest sailor to complete the epic 635-nautical-mile Newport Bermuda Race.

The post Yachting Innovators appeared first on Yachting.

A combination of factors has created a burst of two-person and small-family voyaging on boats as big as 60 or 70 feet length overall.

First, there’s the COVID-19 pandemic, which has all kinds of boaters looking to get on the water for socially distanced fun with few or no crew. Next are newer yacht designs that improve accessibility and features for small crews, making short-handed cruising easier. Third is the rapid growth of technology and equipment supporting short-handers: Bow and stern thrusters can “pin” a yacht to the dock while lines are put ashore; warping winches can turn the average boaters into Olympic weightlifters when it comes to hauling dock lines; and a second set of helm controls or remote controls can give a skipper full command of the boat from pretty much anywhere aboard.

But having the right boat and equipment is just the start of creating a great short-handed cruising experience. A short-handed crew needs to be prepared before tossing off the dock lines—and the best way to prepare is to take baby steps. Start small. An overnight trip to a nearby island, or even practicing getting into and out of a home slip in various conditions, will give a short-handed crew the confidence to venture farther afield.

As those plans evolve and a cruising plan takes shape, preparation is key. Coil down dock lines that will be needed. Have a breast line or spring line ready to go because it can save even the most skilled skipper during a sketchy docking scenario. Check out unfamiliar docks before tying up at them, and hang plenty of fenders, both horizontally and vertically, for full vessel protection.

Don’t wait until entering an unfamiliar harbor to look at charts—study them in advance. Like a racecar driver memorizing the turns on a track, know the destination, understand where to anchor or dock, and note potential hazards. Longtime short-handers will fill a notebook for each destination, to have tips at the ready for the next arrival. Having a printed marina map will help when the harbor master radios instructions to take slip F7.

Before going into an unfamiliar anchorage, wise short-handers stop and drift for a few moments to assess how the wind and current are going to affect the approach. Helmsmen can’t always pick slack water and calm winds when docking, so don’t wing it. Have a clear understanding of how the conditions may require a change of plans in boat handling.

Another key to short-handing is talking through every possible scenario. For example, which is the key dock line to secure first? What happens if the husband misses picking up a buoy while the wife is at the helm? How do you handle an anchor that drags? When there are just two people aboard, everyone should be clear on the tasks at hand to avoid “I thought you were doing that” moments.

Ideally, noise-canceling headsets and mics can help here, as can hand signals practiced beforehand.

And speaking of equipment, most short-handers also have a basic rule: Never leave the cabin without wearing a life jacket. If the weather is the least bit rough, it should be a life jacket with a harness to snap into a jackline running along the deck for added safety.

Special precautions should also be taken while running short-handed at night. First, decide on a watch system and stick to it. Some crew prefer three and three (three hours on, three hours off) all night, while others (especially in rough weather) like two and two. Racing yachts sometimes use four-four-four at night then six and six during the day when it’s easier to stay alert.

Whatever the choice, the second person aboard should always be available. A pilot berth tucked abaft the helm can be great, allowing the off-watch person to be roused quickly, if needed.

On the other hand, if the off-watch person gets to sleep soundly, the change of watch must include a debrief of the current situation. This includes talking about the boat’s course, the weather conditions and anything unusual, such as a shipping freighter in the distance. Odd lights on the horizon. VHF radio chatter. All of it.

Also, take care to preserve everyone’s night vision. Low lighting around the helm must be maintained because full night vision can take hours to return. Use spotlights or flashlights as a last resort. One short-handed skipper I know would wear a pirate-style patch over one eye, using only the other eye when he went into a lighted cabin for coffee or whatever and then removing the patch when he was back in the dark to keep night vision in one eye.

Heading to the galley also requires some different thinking while cruising short-handed. Don’t plan on spending hours cooking meals in the galley underway; instead, prepare meals beforehand and make them easy to eat. Sandwiches are a one-handed food, as are soups or stews poured from a thermos next to the helm into a warming mug.

Snacks will get short-handers through the night, but stay away from sugar with all the highs it creates. Think fruit bars, bowls of nuts or even quartered sandwiches.

During the day, there is more galley time, but have vacuum-bagged, precooked meals prepared at home (or in an anchorage) that can be microwaved or immersed in hot water for a quick warmup.

However, if conditions permit, the smell of coffee brewing and bacon sizzling can be the perfect end to a long night watch and the great start to a morning in a lovely anchorage with precious few other people around.

Equipment as an Extra Hand

Nearly every short-handed skipper can make use of bow and stern thrusters when docking. “We use Glendinning proportional hydraulic thrusters,” says Jeff Druek, president of Outer Reef Yachts, “so we can nail the boat alongside the dock while you get the lines on. They’re a huge, huge plus.”

Beyond hydraulics, look for thruster joysticks that can be locked in the “on” position while the skipper leaves the helm to handle lines.

Docking Tips

One single-hander I know always has a “messenger line” with a monkey fist on the end, ready to throw. With practice, anyone can lob this setup 40 feet or more, allowing the crew to get a line ashore to save an awkward situation.

If would-be helpers are on the dock, discourage those who look like they lack line-handling experience. Even better, throw the loop end of a dock line and just have them drop it on a cleat.

Choose the Right Boat

California yacht broker Jeff Merrill of Merrill Yacht Sales tells clients, “Choose the smallest boat that is big enough to accomplish your cruising goals.” There’s no need for a yacht with transoceanic range if your destinations are nearby offshore islands.

Look for wide side decks to move fore and aft easily while docking, as well as pilothouse doors to port and starboard for quick deck access. Remote helm controls (or walk-around plugged or cordless controls) can simplify everything from Med-style mooring to anchoring.

Listen Up

Every boater has witnessed couples shrieking at each other while docking, but today’s communications technology can solve that problem. Several manufacturers, such as Eartec and Sena, offer headsets with a single earphone (allowing regular hearing through the other ear) and a microphone for all-weather communications. Vokkero makes headsets for sports coaches and is now providing headsets for sailors on America’s Cup yachts.

Final Tips

Safety First, Always—Never leave the cabin without wearing a life jacket. If the weather is the least bit rough, it should be a life jacket with a harness to snap into a jackline running along the deck for added safety.

Seeing Through the Dark—Take care to preserve everyone’s night vision. Low lighting around the helm must be maintained because full night vision can take hours to return.

Know Before you Go—Don’t wait until entering an unfamiliar harbor to look at the charts—study them in advance. Like a racecar driver memorizing the turns on a track, know the destination.

Push Pause, then Proceed—Before going into an unfamiliar anchorage, wise short-handers stop and drift to assess how the wind and current are going to affect the approach.

The post Cruising Shorthanded appeared first on Yachting.

In December 2018, Susie Goodall and DHL Starlight, her Rustler 36, pitchpoled and dismasted. The boat was in 60-knot winds and massive seas some 2,000 nautical miles west of Cape Horn, Chile, during the singlehanded, nonstop, around-the-world Golden Globe Race. Goodall was thrown across the cabin and knocked unconscious.

When she came to, Goodall activated her EPIRB and made satellite-phone contact with race organizers, who called the telemedicine service Medical Support Offshore. MSOS then began monitoring her situation and providing direct medical advice until Goodall was rescued by a cargo ship.

Her story exemplifies the unvarnished reality that when maritime calamities strike, telemedicine is often the only way of getting care. Provided, of course, that one has the technology and service.

Telemedicine’s history parallels the rise of telecommunications. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell employed his early telephone to get help after he accidentally spilled acid on his pants, and in 1879, The Lancet reported that a doctor accurately diagnosed a child during a middle-of-the-night phone call. Mariners had to wait considerably longer for real-time telemedicine capabilities, but once satellite communications evolved, the services appeared on board.

Modern telemedicine services leverage Voice-over-Internet-Protocol voice calls, videoconferencing, data compression and encryption, and (sometimes) diagnostic tools that stream real-time and stored data. Collectively, these tools have created a telemedicine ecosystem giving mariners 24/7/365 access to help.

Telemedicine comes in several forms, starting with telemedicine subscription services. These services connect mariners to an attending physician who can talk to the patient (or the captain or crew) to provide a diagnosis and treatment advice. These services typically involve a prepackaged onboard medical kit with over-the-counter and prescription drugs, sutures, and diagnostic tools. Service providers typically keep records of the kit’s contents and usually provide onshore (or online) training.

Higher-end systems include technology that gives a physician additional data-driven diagnostic capabilities. “We virtually bring the doctor to the patient as long as there’s internet connectivity,” says Michael Dunleavy, DigiGone’s founder and owner.

DigiGone’s Five Plus telemedicine kit (under $20,000) includes a built-in Wi-Fi router, as well as a custom-built 10-inch Windows quad-core tablet with a webcam and the ability to use any internet connection to run the company’s Doctor Consult app, with end-to-end encryption for all communications. Minimum connection speeds are 9 kilobits per second for device streaming and audio and 25 Kbps for video streaming; Dunleavy says ideal connection speeds are 70 to 90 Kbps.

When a user launches the Doctor Consult app, an alert goes to a physician at George Washington University’s Maritime Medical Access, or to a customer’s preferred telemedicine provider. The physician then signs into the app and can control the kit remotely. If needed, multiple doctors and specialists can view the kit’s streamed data, voice and video communications.

DigiGone’s Five Plus kit includes FDA-approved and off-the-shelf devices such as a digital blood-pressure cuff, a glucose meter, a digital thermometer, an electrocardiogram, a pulse oximeter, an electronic stethoscope, a USB macro camera, a USB otoscope and disposable headsets. These tools stream data onto the digiMed Consult dashboard, which physicians can access.

DigiGone systems use data compression to minimize bandwidth requirements, and all communications are sent and received using 256-bit advanced encryption standard technology. DigiGone users can select their image quality (from 320-by-240 to 1280-by-720) and bandwidth (up to 500 Kbps) to best match available connectivity.

Additionally, DigiGone recently partnered with RealWear, which builds rugged, wearable, hands-free Android computers. “You’re watching the doctor demonstrate how to sew up a laceration, and [the doctor] is watching you do the work,” Dunleavy says, adding that—if necessary—the doctor can call in prescriptions to a pharmacy at the yacht’s next port.

While DigiGone kits are designed to be user-friendly, users still need to complete DigiGone’s online DigiSchool training each year and pass an annual competency test.

MSOS is a medical provider to mariners and to events such as the America’s Cup, Golden Globe Race and Volvo Ocean Race. Its standard telemedicine support ($2,245 to $3,500 per year) connects mariners with a doctor-staffed, Southampton,

England-based central call center and can be scaled up to include specialist training courses and custom-made medical kits with prescription and off-the-shelf medications (MSOS has its own pharmacy). Owners with offshore itineraries can select the company’s Distant Ocean medical kit, while owners with coastal-cruising plans can select the Near Ocean medical kit.

The next level of support is the MSOS Themis TCP ($22,000) with a tablet-based telecommunications platform. “It’s a self-contained medical device with peripheral medical devices,” says Rebecca Castellano, a registered nurse who is the Americas and Caribbean sales manager for MSOS. The peripheral devices include temperature, blood-pressure, EKG, lung-function and diabetic-monitoring equipment.

“The platform allows for full case management,” she says. “Themis streams video and photos from the tablet’s front and rear cameras using the vessel’s internet connection to doctors at land-based facilities so that they can constantly monitor a patient’s vitals and offer medical advice. Support is never broken off until the patient is in medical hands shoreside or until the doctor deems the patient is in the monitoring stage.”

The Themis system leverages data compression so that its bandwidth requirements are less than 50 Kbps, and it employs medical-grade encryption. Imagery is queued for transmission, with priority given to the system’s peripheral-device data; if connectivity doesn’t exist, Themis locally stores peripheral-device data and uploads the information when connectivity resumes.

DigiGone and MSOS want clients to use their telemedicine services liberally so small issues don’t mushroom into emergencies. Clients, Dunleavy says, can “use it as a walk-in clinic” for everything from hangnails to slight coughs.

While Goodall didn’t have crewmates to help her recover from her Southern Ocean concussion, she did have a team of doctors who monitored her condition and provided peace of mind. And this, both Castellano and Dunleavy say, is a key point of telemedicine technology.

The post Telemedicine At Sea appeared first on Yachting.

ElectroSea’s Clearline system integrates directly into a yacht’s raw-water intake circuit, keeping it free of line-clogging marine growth using a patent-pending electrochlorination system. The system prevents growth in raw-water supply lines for air conditioners, chillers and refrigerators. Installation consists of a control unit, functioning as the system’s brains, and a ClearCell module, producing chlorine using low-voltage electrodes and raw seawater. The control unit monitors water intake and cell conditions to determine the amount of chlorine to produce in the ClearCell. Owners get free-flowing raw-water lines, maximum flow rates and reduced strainer maintenance.

The company did extensive research to integrate Clearline’s critical design and operating details. First, the system had to be dynamic, low-maintenance, user-friendly and mostly autonomous. It also had to be electrically isolated to prevent electrolysis and small enough to fit in engine rooms. Most important, “the electrodes needed special rare-earth coatings to efficiently catalyze the conversion of sodium chloride in the seawater to chlorine,” says Allison Reis, ElectroSea’s marketing director.

Reis stresses that the system is also environmentally conscious. “Clearline generates very low levels of chlorine,” she says. “Chlorine has a very short half-life in seawater, with two-thirds of it decomposing in less than one minute.”

Take the next step: electrosea.com

The post Maintaining Raw-Water Flow appeared first on Yachting.

Most yachts are designed for a specific purpose, be it long-distance cruising, sport fishing or entertaining. In this regard, Riviera’s 64 Sports Motor Yacht is something of an anomaly. It can do all those things at once.

For owners who want to make their way from Maine to Miami, pulling back the throttles to 6.6 knots will nearly double the range needed. The marlin are biting? The Riviera 64 I got aboard had hydraulic outriggers, a transom livewell and a cockpit large enough for a half-dozen anglers to fight fish at the same time. Cocktail hour has arrived? When I was aboard with eight people, it seemed as if there were a mere skeleton crew.

As for fit and finish, there is five-coat, high-gloss-varnished, book-matched walnut woodwork. Foldout sections of the salon’s dinette are book-matched on one side and crafted with a starburst pattern on the other. Decking is old-growth teak, sourced for renewability. The enclosed bridge, accessed via an interior staircase, has a wet bar, L-shaped settee and forward lounge in addition to the helm and mate seats. In the galley are a wine chiller, dishwasher and full-size refrigerator with freezer drawers. These are capped off behind more glossy walnut and are secured shut with beefy locking latches.

The thoughtful design elements continue outside. The 64′s open bridge aft, for instance, has an L-shaped settee and a set of controls including a multifunction display.

Belowdecks are three guest staterooms: a queen berth forward, Pullman berths to starboard, and a pair of twin berths that slide together into a double to port. The full-beam master is on this deck amidships. Every stateroom is peaceful and quiet, a function of having real bulkheads as opposed to thin veneer partitions. The quiet- ness is particularly surprising in the master, which is closest to the engine room. The stateroom’s watertight bulkhead door was closed when I approached it, and I could barely hear a sound, but when I swung it open, I discovered that both gensets were running behind all the sound-deadening material.

I found similar tranquility while standing above the engine room, where cruisers and anglers will spend a lot of time. Riviera calls this space the “back porch.” Technically, the area is a mezzanine raised above cockpit level and separated from the salon. But that term doesn’t accurately describe the space.

Walk out of the salon through the stainless-steel-framed sliding door, and—rather than enter the cockpit—you find a room very much like a screened-in porch. Parts of the sides and the back are enclosed (or not) with clear canvas. An L-shaped dinette is to starboard, and a settee is to port.

The area is sure to be the dining spot of choice when cooking up the catch of the day on the cockpit’s integrated electric grill. When someone is prepping a meal in the galley, access to the back porch is easy because a window next to the salon door swings up and open on hinges, connecting the two areas.

Owners who prefer an outdoor experience more akin to lounging on a wide-open, sun-warmed patio can walk up to the bow. There’s a full-size settee up there, plus a lounge and cocktail table.

Usually, choosing a yacht requires making some sacrifices. An owner might swap luxury for fishability, usable interior space for usable exterior space, range for speed, and so on. But the Riviera 64 Sports Motor Yacht left me scratching my head, trying to think of what someone would have to give up to own it.

I’m still thinking—and probably will be for a long time to come.

Take the next step: rivieraaustralia.com

The post Reviewed: Riviera 64 Sports Motor Yacht appeared first on Yachting.

It’s pathetic. Boaters are dumber than they used to be,” my pal Bill grumbled in disgust.

Bill was planning a trip south and had been searching online for local knowledge about South Florida’s inlets. Instead of finding that information, he’d discovered some videos starring boaters challenging Charles Darwin’s theory about the survival of the fittest.

In one video, a bowrider—an inshore design—is heading at speed out of Baker’s Haulover Inlet in Florida’s Miami-Dade County. The first wave the boat encounters knocks the people up front senseless. The second fills the bow with water, and the third rinses a young woman into the sea. The skipper slows and turns beam-to in the breaking seas, almost swamping the boat while the woman is swept away.

This video is brought to us all by a bevy of click-hungry amateur movie producers promising the top-10 worst, biggest and craziest experiences aboard boats in Haulover Inlet. According to one budding producer, the action really heats up on weekends after drinks are served at the nearby sandbar. It’s not all broken boats, bones, mayhem and maydays, though; one producer explains that people beat the hell out of their boats and guests for amusement. “It’s sorta like a roller coaster,” he says.

As a kid, I watched boats run Baker’s Haulover. It was called Haulover because that’s what people, including a fellow named Baker, did with their boats before man-made inlets were punched through the barrier islands. The boats were mostly wooden workhorses from the charter-fishing docks. They were typically 40ish feet and skippered by old salts who took it slow and easy. Exercising caution was the only sensible option.

Boatbuilder and racer Dick Bertram and designer Ray Hunt changed all that with the Bertram 31. The first Bertram 31 Convertible I saw was negotiating Haulover on a sour day in the early 1960s. Dick might have been the one putting the brilliant deep-V hull through its paces for a customer. Boatbuilder Don Aronow would follow, giving birth to multiple performance brands from his shops on nearby 188th Street. Haulover was a convenient testing ground.

Haulover is narrow and long as inlets go, a shape that fortifies its potential given the right conditions. When water pours out of Biscayne Bay and meets incoming ocean swells, seas can become steep and break. While Haulover can be challenging, nautical nabobs are more likely to vilify St. Lucie Inlet or Jupiter Inlet. I’ve been in and out of them all, and I’d give Jupiter Inlet the title for the nastiest. In my opinion, it’s not Haulover’s design that causes problems; it’s the boaters. They treat it like an amusement park.

Running an inlet is all about good timing and reading the seas, not ignoring them, punching the throttle and holding on. Or not. In the video, the young woman washed from that bowrider was lucky. The sea all but swallowed her, except for a single arm she used to wave something in the air. It took a fellow on a personal watercraft two rescue attempts to retrieve her—because he first had to save her cellphone.

Good God. If Darwin was right, we’re doomed.

The post Tell Tales: Devolution appeared first on Yachting.

The Hunt Harrier 36 has a C. Raymond Hunt-penned deep-V hull, known for slicing a seaway. Construction is an Airex-cored hull, with Airlite in the deck and superstructure, which is vacuum-bagged and oven-cured with E-glass and epoxy resins.

Base power was twin 370 hp diesels. The 36 we ran had 440 hp Yanmar diesels.

Belowdecks has satin-finish cherry wood, a berth forward, a dinette to port, and a galley to starboard with a sink, fridge, microwave and cooktop. A full head is aft.

At press time, two Harrier 36 hulls were on the market, ranging from $328,500 to $335,000.

From the Archive

“The 36 busted water at 36 knots. The 36 rose, crested and landed, though, without a thud on the windshield. The 440hp Yanmar diesels missed no beats throughout the acceleration curve as we circled the inlet buoys and sampled the sea at various quarters. Slowing to a more appropriate 2,100 rpm and 25 knots, the express boat handled the following, quartering and beam-to seas with grace.” —Yachting, October 2007

The post Classic Yacht: Hunt Harrier 36 appeared first on Yachting.

When Azimut Yachts wanted to enhance its Magellano series with larger models, the Italian builder returned to UK-based designer Ken Freivokh, who was responsible for the first Magellano 74 model 10 years ago. The result is the Magellano 25 Metri, a raised pilothouse design.

Freivokh says a length overall of around 80 to 90 feet is a real sweet spot for yacht designers like him because the scale is sufficient to create proper proportions. The 25 Metri’s profile is elegant and timeless, and there’s something of the 1930s streamline moderne movement about it. The similarity could be the boldness of line, the glazing shapes, or perhaps something as simple as the horizontal stainless-steel banding that rounds off the rim of the wraparound swim platform. Maybe it’s the wooden battens on the after corners of the superstructure.

There’s a modern take on color with the exterior that Azimut displayed on Hull No. 1. Straying beyond whites, dark blues and gray metallics for hull paint is often contentious, but the hull here is a soothing blue-green metallic—what the Italians call ottanio and the English call teal. I like it.

The outdoor spaces are everything they should be. Side decks connect the foredeck terrace with a conventional cockpit aft. In that cockpit are double longitudinal sofas, a transom blind, and a step between the stern garage door and a beach terrace. Up top, the split-level flybridge is protected by the opening hardtop above and has two helm seats to port, a bar with a pair of stools, booth dining and an aft area open to interpretation—in this case, sun loungers.

The yacht’s interior concept comes from Milan-based architect Vincenzo De Cotiis, who dressed Hull No. 1 with a distinctly 1950s flavor. It sounds kitschy, but it’s uber-cool. The majority of the decor bounces off various off-white textures: laminates, fabrics, lacquer. The result is light and bright. And the yacht’s unusual hull shade influences various marble and velour upholstery choices (or perhaps the influencing was the other way around). Horizontal surfaces, such as those running down each side beneath the picture windows, are a softer, yellower faux marble. Other detailing includes brown-leather sole tiles, mottled rugs, irregularly shaped ceiling panels, faux brasswork, and lots of glass and mirrors, often distressed. De Cotiis loves the appearance of wear and tear.

There is a sightline to port from the aft deck all the way through to the windshield and beyond, an important design element from Freivokh. The stand-alone sofas and the rotating marble-topped dining table in the main salon are mostly items from De Cotiis’ own collection.

The galley is forward with white cabinetry, and with charcoal-shade work surfaces and backsplashes. Most appliances are Miele, and there’s a Mabe refrigerator. The galley is a semiformal space, open to owners and guests, but capable of being closed off by a pair of mirrored doors set at a shallow angle so as not to directly reflect the yacht’s symmetry. A banquette is adjacent to the galley and is ideal for crew, who have their own door to the portside deck for access to quarters in the bow.

A reverse-spiral staircase with a day-head beneath it climbs up to the raised pilothouse and flybridge. The helm console is to starboard in the wheelhouse with touchscreen instrumentation from Raymarine. A mini couch here tracks back and forth electrically from an inaccessible spot behind the staircase to a snug spot virtually amidships, and in doing so, it closes off the stairway, setting up a great pilot berth right next to the wheel.

Driving this yacht is all it should be. The Magellano 25 Metri is offered with twin 1,400 hp or 1,550 hp MAN V-12 diesels, which deliver quoted top speeds up to 25 knots. I got on board Hull No. 1 at the beginning of this past October off Portofino, Italy. The boat had standard engines and was over half-load with eight people aboard. With those V-12s spinning 2,300 rpm, and the Humphree electric fin stabilizers and transom blades set to autotrim, I recorded a top hop of 23.6 knots on various headings and a total fuel burn averaging around 142 gallons per hour.

At a cruise-all-day 2,000 rpm and 19 knots or so, the engines burned 101.4 gallons per hour, which, allowing for a 10 percent reserve, means a range of around 350 nautical miles. With full tanks and engines purring at 1,000 rpm, there’s a potential 1,500 nautical miles to be enjoyed at 9.5 knots.

We had a calm sea state and a breeze measuring slight to zero—not the harshest of conditions to see what the yacht’s dual-mode hull could do. The hull design comes from naval architect Pierluigi Ausonio and is named for a double-chine geometry that works well at displacement and semidisplacement speeds. The prop shafts spin in half tunnels on each side of a skeg keel.

I can report that the hull is light on the helm and turns precisely. The build quality also inspires confidence. While the specs suggest that the yacht is all vinylester, glass fiber and foam, in reality, the flybridge, hardtop and garage door moldings are carbon fiber, a material that helps a lot in stability versus utility trade-offs.

The lower deck, accessed from a starboard-side staircase abaft the galley, accommodates eight guests in four staterooms. The master is just abaft amidships and has hullside windows, a sofa to starboard and twin sinks to port, with a separate head-and-shower compartment. The VIP, which is forward of amidships, has a transverse berth to port, as well as an en suite head and walk-in closet to starboard. Between the master and VIP, the guest stateroom to port has a transverse double berth, and the stateroom to starboard has twin berths that convert to a double. All the staterooms come with Loro Piana bed linens, dark-grain Venetian blinds and Bose entertainment systems.

Hull numbers 2 and 3 of the Magellano 25 Metri are US-bound and will have the bigger MANs as well as upgraded 21 kW generators. At the time of this writing, five hulls had been sold. While the Magellano 25 Metri has a distinct style, it appears that it also has global appeal.

Take the next step: azimutyachts.com

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In plato’s allegory of the cave, a prisoner finds enlightenment by emerging from the darkness of a cave into the sunlight. For Abel Vale, the journey was precisely the opposite. The first time he ventured into the karst (limestone) caves of Puerto Rico’s Mona Island, Abel’s wonder and awe at their geological marvels changed the course of his life. “I had the sense that I had been in the womb of the Earth,” he recalls.

In 1994, Vale helped establish Ciudadanos del Karso, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the karst region that accounts for more than a third of the landmass of Puerto Rico’s main island. This unique terrain is critical for conserving geological and biological diversity, as well as the underlying aquifers that are a vital source of fresh water for all life, agriculture and industry on the island.

CDK successfully lobbied the government to designate 235,000 acres of the karst region as protected land. Still, Vale and fellow CDK members continue in their public-education campaign to raise awareness and appreciation of the stunning and significant natural resource that surrounds them. “When you’re in the karst region and see the amazing shapes that the rocks and trees can take,” he says, “it makes your imagination run wild.”

What makes Puerto Rico’s karst region unique? In less than three hours, you can see all the different types of karst formations: caves, sinkholes, valleys, mogotes [steep-sided hills]. You’d have to travel far greater distances in order to do the same in the US or Mexico.

Where is the best spot for visitors to see and appreciate Puerto Rico’s karst landscape? Go along Highway 2 in the northern part of Puerto Rico to Guajataca. There’s a 200-foot-high train tunnel where you can see both the sea and the karst landscape. A lot of people stop there to take photos because it is so beautiful.

Abel Vale’s A-List for San José

Ropa Vieja Grill: Their cuisine is excellent, especially its namesake dish.

Café Cuatro Sombras: They serve very good panini and their own coffee. Its name means “the four shades” and refers to the four types of shade trees that protected the coffee plants.

El Tap: It’s a good bar for people into the latest craft beers.

Castillo San Felipe Del Morro and Castillo San Cristóbal: These landmark forts in Old San Juan were both constructed from quarried karst.

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Ted Fontaine designed the Surfari 50 sport-utility tender to tackle rough waters en route to surf spots, secluded beaches or weekend getaways. The 52-foot, 11-inch boat’s hull, deck and superstructure are built using e-glass, low-viscosity resin and carbon-fiber reinforcements. Its space-saving, D-shaped sponson tubes are filled with air and foam, and its triple (or quadruple) 400 hp Mercury Verado outboards with joystick control reportedly deliver a cruising speed of 36 knots and a 50-knot top speed.

Whom It’s For: This boat is for adventurous yachtsmen who want to get to the action fast, and for racing teams that need to transfer manpower and materials quickly. Picture This: Tomorrow morning’s surf forecast looks great for New York’s Montauk Point Lighthouse, but you’re in New York City. No matter: The Friendship Surfari 50 Sport Boat’s deep-V hull, Seakeeper gyrostabilizer and air-conditioned helm will get you there comfortably for dinnertime lobster tacos at South Edison. Later, the boat’s accommodations space will help to ensure that you’re well-rested for the next day’s lineup of activities.

Take the next step: friendshipyachtcompany.com

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