Índex per October 2022 a PassageMaker

While the traditional, handsome Down East vessels that Sabre Yachts builds are inspired by the working boats that ply the waters around the Maine shipyard, the new 43 Salon Express is the builder’s first model smaller than 58 feet length overall to be a “full network” boat, giving owners an entirely new level of accessibility. The 43 replaces the 42-foot Salon Express in the current model line, which also includes boats from 38 to 58 feet length overall. With the networking feature, owners can check critical functions and control any circuit on the boat from the helm multifunction displays or a tablet. When owners are away from their vessel, they can remotely access a wealth of data—inclduing GPS monitoring, geofencing, trip-logging and NMEA 2000-connected devices (think bilge alarms and batteries)…

Leaving sight of land raises the self-reliance stakes substantially. Getting your boat ready is an exercise in finding the potential weak spots, and then building a plan to cope with any failures. Prepping a boat for bluewater travel is an order of magnitude more challenging than typical weekend boating or even coastal cruising. It is an inconvenience if you have an engine failure a few miles from a marina and have to call for a tow. It is a dramatically different scenario if you’re three days out of the Chesapeake Bay on the way to Bermuda. The conversation about prepping a boat for bluewater travel traditionally focuses on repairs at sea, and on having the tools and spare parts to accomplish those repairs. But these days, many boat systems are…

The wood throughout is African cherry, all sourced from a single tree for book-matched consistency throughout the whole yacht, including the crew quarters. Seattle’s Lake Union was calm under the Pacific Northwest’s slate-gray skies when I hopped aboard Hampton Yacht Group’s new Endurance line flagship, the 750. Our float plan was to head to the company’s summer office at Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, with Managing Partner Robert Fiala at the helm. I had boarded the 750 via the wide swim platform, which gave me a good view of walkways to port and starboard that lead to the covered cockpit’s bench and table seating. I was also near the crew quarters, and the watertight-door access to the engine room, so I took a moment to do a little exploring. Her…

My early years spent boating in Michigan and, later, in the Chesapeake Bay taught me respect for the size and speed of lakers and container ships. You learned quickly to stay out of a laker’s way, and to give plenty of room to a container ship coming up the bay. This level of attention has become even more important lately, as ports around the world are seeing a record volume of ships and goods being offloaded. Ships are often waiting at anchor days or even weeks for a berth at the quay. The rules of the road apply to all vessels large and small, but handling your boat around large commercial vessels requires more attentiveness than just following the rules. The sheer size of commercial vessels, and their inability to…

Capt. Jack (not his real name) and his brother and first mate, Dan, were on Capt. Jack’s first multiday cruise aboard his 30-foot trawler. Capt. Jack’s experience docking the trawler was limited to his home marina and slip. The second day, they cruised to the La Conner Marina & RV Park near Anacortes, Washington. The town of La Conner has water access thanks to the Swinomish Channel that runs roughly north-south. At the time, Capt. Jack was unfamiliar with the strong currents in the channel. He approached the lengthy guest dock and anticipated a portside docking, with lines and fenders configured accordingly. With a 30-degree angle of the boat toward the dock, he figured that when the bow reached the dock, Dan would comfortably step off and secure the bow…

I hate head seas. But there we were in a single-engine boat, headed straight into one, making a rather salty crossing of the Florida Straits and infamous Gulf Stream. There was repeated pitching into the close, steep waves, with the bow moving up, then smacking down. What captain, faced with those conditions, wouldn’t wonder whether all of that motion might stir up junk in the fuel tanks? It was as if the thought made it happen: The engine started to lose rpm. I throttled down and checked the fuel filter vacuum gauge. Even at idle, it showed high vacuum pressure, which most often means a clogged filter. Fortunately, the boat was equipped with twin primary filters, and I moved the valve over to feed the fuel through the second filter.…

The inspiration for the Dunlin 22 came to me about 15 or so years back. It was a cold but calm November morning, and the night before, we had experienced a lively storm with lots of wind and rain. I had my little yard tugboat Godzilli and a high tide awaiting me. Quite often following these early winter storms, one can find good cedar logs (full tree’s branches and all). They are almost always free for the taking, as most landowners would have to pay day labor charges to have them removed from their waterfront homes. I gathered up my son Mackenzie, who was 21 at the time, and we set out to see what might be ours for the taking. Godzilli is a 16-foot boat with a shallow draft,…

During a recent cruise on Georgian Bay, in the Canadian part of Lake Huron, I was intent on exploring the clear blue waters surrounding the Thirty Thousand Islands. My plans took a detour when a cruising friend’s generator went down. I climbed into his engine room to begin troubleshooting, and found the problem: The raw-water strainer was clogged with weeds and the remains of a small walleye that had managed to wedge itself into the stainless-steel basket. I emptied the basket, relit the genset and had it running perfectly. Fortunately, the sensor on the generator had worked properly and shut down the overheating engine before any damage could occur, but I suggested that my friend check the thru-hull fitting for the generator at his next haul out. While enjoying my…