Inhoudsopgave van July/August 2025 - PassageMaker

When Marlow Yachts announced a surprise debut at this year’s Palm Beach International Boat Show, the boating cognoscenti expected an expansion of the Explorer or Voyager lines. Either would have been welcome, but instead, what we got was even more interesting. The Marlow 65 Avalon is the first boat in a new model line for the Palmetto, Fla.-based builder. The 73-footer, designed by founder David Marlow as his personal steed, has a number of features that set her apart. This yacht also holds fast to the brand’s core mission: building capable cruisers that go fast and far in comfort and safety. The starting point for the Avalon is Marlow’s fast-displacement hull form, a true, tried and tested platform. Her cored hull is finished in a process called Full Stack Infusion,…

Years ago, I was a guest on a 147-foot motoryacht on a charter in the Caribbean. Hopping off the yacht’s tender, I followed the steward to my stateroom and made my first stop in the head. Much to my embarrassment, when I flushed, I was greeted with silence. The mate said my head had been problematic on their last charter. He had a quick solution, although it meant removing a marble slab in the companionway to reach the plumbing. We both had a laugh about my predicament before the other guests arrived. I recalled a time when I was running charters that a similar situation occurred. Fortunately, my head malfunction had been discovered and corrected before my own charter guests had arrived. Most boats are a compilation of things that…

It takes an optimistic nature to rebuild a boat and then embark on a 2,900-mile test run from Hobe Sound, Fla., to New York’s Long Island Sound and back. Signing on for such challenges signals deeper currents at work. On its face, it was the test run of a boat, but of course, it was more. I had replaced or refurbished nearly every operating system (read “Making Her Mine” at passagemaker.com) on my 2009 Grand Banks 47 Classic, GiGi, yet she had only run long enough to qualify for the warranties on her new Cummins 8.3 QSC engines. Less than a week later, at the end of June, the forecast was for two consecutive days under 10 knots. Without hesitation, my wife, Giselle, and I headed out Florida’s St. Lucie…

Ivividly remember one winter night when I was 7 or 8 years old, sitting at the dining room table with my grandfather and a saltstained chart spread before us. With dividers, parallel rules, a pencil and imagination, we plotted a course around the North Atlantic. Listening to seven decades of sailing stories, I imagined myself cruising far and wide as my pencil traced ports and islands, foreign and familiar. In the years since, as I have plotted my own real courses, the nautical chart became more than a navigational tool. It is a symbol of the places we have been, and the places we wish to visit. I grew up on Casco Bay in Maine, and my waterproof chart was my best friend. In sailing school, it lived stuffed into…

BOB ARRINGTON BOAT HANDLING COLUMNIST Diagnosed early in life as an incurable “aquaphile,” Bob Arrington finds most of his happiness on, in or under the water. A teacher and storyteller at heart, Arrington shares his love of the water as a writer, marine industry consultant, boat training captain and scuba instructor. He and his photographer wife cruise extensively aboard their trawler, looking for the next story to tell. KENNY WOOTON SPACE CRAFT WRITER Passagemaker consulting editor Kenny Wooton does double duty as editor-in-chief of Yachts International. Wooton has served in full-time editorial roles in marine publishing for nearly four decades, including stints at Soundings, Boating, Yachting and the Superyacht Report. In addition to his lifelong love of boats and boating of all flavors, he’s an avid hunter, fly fisherman, skier…

The Vicem 65 Classic is the perfect oxymoron. “New classic” is as contradictory as “jumbo shrimp.” But that’s also an apt description of the Vicem 65, which also might be called a “big 65-footer.” And the hull construction is another oxymoron: wooden fiberglass. The Turkey-based builder has carved its reputation since 1991 on several pillars. First, Vicem offers fully customized production yachts, yet another oxymoron. Owners start with a blank sheet of paper—more staterooms or less, galley up or down, 10 choices of wood and a choice of power plants. Second, Vicem’s proprietary construction combines traditional wood with the latest e-glass and carbon fiber. The starting point is a cold-molded mahogany and epoxy laminate, reinforced at stress points with modern synthetic materials and fully encapsulated in and out. The result…

I once knew a guy who spent a New England winter living in a marina aboard a 24-foot sailboat. At the time, that sounded sort of romantic to me. But the reality likely was, he suffered. No measure of introspective solitude, intimate contact with the marine environment, or independence from lawnmowers and mortgage payments could overcome the cold, damp, cramped quarters or the lack of basic amenities such as heat, hot water or the ability to share the space with a friend—even a cat. Such trifles would not be a problem on the new Krogen 60 Open. Despite having similar length and beam dimensions as its raised pilothouse sister, the Krogen 58 EB, which sat in the adjacent slip at the Palm Beach International Boat Show this past spring, the…

I genuinely like used boats. I love browsing the brokerage listings, imagining where these boats have been, what they’ve seen and where I could go. But the real treat is whatever the previous owners have left me. Stepping aboard a boat that’s only new to me is like opening that one box under the Christmas tree that no one admits to leaving. And, even better than that Christmas present, the boat is a gift that goes on giving as you settle aboard. As just one example, I am addicted to mysteries and spy tales. Many years ago, I realized the solution to searching for books to take on trips was to open a mystery-book store. This was back in the day when there were small, privately owned bookstores that weren’t…

SPLASHED: NORTHWEST 55 Yacht designer Steve Seaton has teamed with Seattle Yachts to relaunch Northwest Yachts as a series of semidisplacement power cruisers from 52 to 58 feet. The first model to land stateside from an Asia-based yard is a 55 that was recently delivered to the builder’s headquarters in Anacortes, Wash., for final commissioning. Northwest bases each model on a 17-foot, 2-inch beam and offers a semicustom build process with a choice of two or three staterooms, interior finishes and John Deere power plants in single or twin configurations up to 750 hp apiece. Expanded tankage from the standard 1,200-gallon fuel capacity is another option. Commonalities on all models are wide, walkaround side decks, a dedicated pilothouse with a Portuguese bridge, a roomy flybridge and a boat deck with…

Nobody likes things that go bump in the night, especially when you’re well offshore. The fear of being underway in the ocean at night is not unnatural. We are vulnerable in multiple ways, but overcoming that fear opens the door to an expanded and rewarding way of cruising, not to mention an efficient way to cover ground at displacement speeds. Making overnight passages is one of my favorite activities aboard the boat. It is also quite the dichotomy for your senses. My wife, Dori, describes it as a serene adrenaline rush. It is the peacefulness of a sunset and vibrancy of a starry night, overlaid with an extreme, heightened sense of awareness. If you’ve never made an overnight passage but have an interest in planning one aboard your own boat,…

The Strait of Malacca was filled with more commercial ships than I have ever seen at one time. Many were anchored and awaiting assignment, but a good number were jockeying for entry into Singapore. It was a scene that epitomized the vitality of this port in world trade—the place where GB Marine Group now has nearly 700,000 square feet of manufacturing space to become an even bigger player. After nearly two years and 2 million work-hours, the 143,000-square-foot expansion means the GB Marine Group now has full control of all stages of production in one location. Production lines can be expanded, and, according to the GB Marine team, the composite cure time can be cut from 10 days to a remarkable three hours. “Don’t try to keep up with me,”…