Table of contents for January 2026 in Power & Motoryacht

I can say two things with absolute certainty about the Cannes Yachting Festival: It’s going to be sunny, and Sirena Yachts will splash a new model. The Turkey-based builder has been fairly consistent with world debuts during the annual event on the Côte d’Azur. This past September’s show was no different, with the builder introducing the Sirena 60. The 60 replaces the 58 in a five-model line that runs from 48 to 88 feet (a 118-footer is currently in build). The exterior lines, drawn by Argentinian yacht designer Germán Frers, remain. The pleasing profile is defined by a plumb bow, hullside glass and a tall pilothouse with forward-facing windows that echo her straight bow. Sirena revamped the 60’s outdoor and indoor spaces. The new model has a longer swim platform…

Most people think of Valhalla Boatworks as a builder of high-performance center consoles for anglers with a serious competitive streak. The 55 Sport Yacht is an evolution for this brand. It’s suited for skippers who are less driven to win tournaments and more interested in laid-back pursuits like entertaining and cruising. It’s also a striking build with lines that are entirely its own. Pat Healey, president and CEO of Viking Yachts, the parent company of Valhalla Boatworks, was on board for a preview of the boat in Atlantic City, New Jersey, last summer. “The Sport Yacht has generated incredible enthusiasm. It’s off the charts,” he said. “It takes the proven performance of our V-55 center console and merges it with a contemporary design that the cruising crowd will love.” The…

When you write about boats for a living, one self-evident truth of the profession is that the folks who build the boats you write about are busy people. It can take days to line up a phone call with a builder. A greater challenge is actually getting a builder out for a proper day on the water. That’s why I jumped at the chance to spend a day in Fort Pierce adventuring both inshore and offshore aboard Pursuit’s new S328 center console with Pursuit Boats President Chris Gratz. That Gratz would want to show off the boat himself shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Pursuit’s 42-year-old president is not flashy or brash. A lifelong diver, fisherman, and surfer, he possesses an easy, low-key confidence that comes from time being both…

Not to brag, but before my invitation to test the Hinckley 39 on the Chesapeake, my family was in the midst of breaking a dubious record. For five of the previous seven workdays, at least one of my boys had been home sick from daycare—for myriad reasons. Perhaps craving more time with dad, they thoughtfully alternated their sick days to keep me on my toes and scrubbing down with sanitizer. So when the opportunity arose to drive—alone, in sweet, sweet silence—to Hinckley’s Bay Bridge Marina in Maryland to test the new 39 Picnic Boat, I jumped at it. The 234-slip marina, tucked away in an idyllic Chesapeake harbor, is one of Hinckley’s newest acquisitions. The company has been on a tear in recent years, expanding its service network to 10…

Finding yourself smack dab in the middle of a tropical storm as it’s forming offshore is, well, interesting. It’s even more interesting when it’s a moonless night, lightning is snapping all around you, rain obscures the horizon, and the radar blinks out aboard the 90-year-old vessel on which you’re sharing watch. But that’s precisely the situation I found myself in about 30 miles east of Frying Pan Shoals Tower on an August night. I’d been invited aboard the Research Vessel Robert Gray for a shakedown cruise from Charleston, SC, to Wrightsville Beach, NC. If all went well, we’d return southward after a couple of days and then Gray and her crew would make for a Nova Scotia shipyard. Up to this moment, our journey had been going according to plan. But…

The waterways of Vancouver are as placid as they are exotic to a native East Coaster. Cute little seals pop their heads up for breaths right next to kayakers taking in the city skyline. Bald eagles soar overhead in numbers indicating a healthy fishery. And pods of orca are known to come in absurdly close to shore, adding a surreal ripple to the urban hustle and bustle sometimes just a few feet away. I took in all this dreamlike scenery from the USMI 36 RHIB that is currently for sale at Vancouver’s Ignition Marine. I had seen photos of the “Rigid Hull Inflatable” boat before I stepped aboard, but I realized they didn’t really do it justice as she puttered up to pick me up on a downtown dock. The…

If you’ve ever cruised between Bimini and Cat Cay, you’ve surely found yourself alongside the wreck of the SS Sapona. When I first visited the skeletal remains of this 282-foot freighter, I marveled. Despite being built in 1920 and wrecked in 1926, her bow and superstructure still stand after a century of battering by wind and waves. There’s a reason: Sapona is built of concrete. Yup, concrete. In the 1910s, American shipbuilders experimented with a lattice of steel with concrete poured around it called ferrocement. During World War I, needing steel for warships, tanks, and guns, President Woodrow Wilson approved 24 ferrocement cargo “Liberty Ships.” During World War II, Tampa’s McCloskey shipyard was commissioned to build 24 300-foot ferrocement freighters. Ferrocement hulls were lighter than steel—and more fragile. In 1920,…

Intuitive. That was the first word I wrote in my notebook after unboxing Flir’s new Ocean Scout Pro Thermal Monocular. Never one to linger on an instruction manual, I powered up the device and cycled through the various viewing modes—white hot, black hot, sepia, and heat. It was daytime during my first test of the Scout Pro, but even then, I was impressed by its near-quarter-mile range and how the different modes allowed me to easily spot a distant dinghy or buoy. At night, of course, is when the Scout Pro truly shines. It transforms from a fun gadget into a critical navigation tool and—perhaps more importantly—a potential life-saving device. The Scout Pro isn’t cheap at $2,400 (but show me a boating tool that is). Should you unexpectedly find yourself…

One of the most memorable print campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s was for Absolut Vodka. The Swedish brand entered a competitive American spirits market with a bottle shaped like an apothecary tincture. The ad agency capitalized on this oddity, featuring it on ads drawn by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, with other ads depicting swimming pools, ski slopes, and New York City traffc in the Absolut bottle’s distinctive silhouette. Sales skyrocketed. I think of these print ads during my tours aboard the boats from Absolute Yachts. The Italy-based builder seemingly came out of nowhere in the early 2010s to take on a packed segment, adding its own line of sleek flybridge models. Buyers noticed and Absolute’s presence grew, with larger displays at successive boat shows. The builder’s semi-displacement Navettas…

Believe it or not, even when you have the best job in the world like I do, it’s easy to become inured. There are only so many cocktail parties in the South of France one can attend before they start getting boring. Only so many speedboats you can wheel past South Beach before you start doing the arithmetic in your head—is this trip worth the time away from home and family? So, it is not lightly that I say when I got my most recent press-event invite from Riva that my heart skipped a beat. This was to be no ordinary work trip. I’d be attending a party at Riva’s fabled Sarnico, Italy, shipyard, flush against the shores of majestic Lake Iseo. I’d take a ride in a classic Riva…

Lots of things can ruin a day on the water, but maybe none so thoroughly as being run down by another vessel. Collisions can happen on a sunny day with unlimited visibility—they’re usually caused by poor seamanship, inattention, or just stupidity on the part of one or both crews. There’s nothing you can do about someone else’s stupidity. But you have a much better chance of being T-boned when visibility is compromised—at night, in fog or heavy rain, when sometimes the helmsman literally cannot see past the bow of his boat. In those conditions, radar is your best friend: You can see trouble coming before it arrives. If you don’t have radar already, get it; you’ll thank me someday when it helps you get home safely. Radar isn’t always the…