Table of contents for September 2018 in Soundings

In this instance, the two primary suspects have names that most of us don’t know, and if we saw them on a label, we wouldn’t bother trying to pronounce them. First is oxybenzone, which is also known as benzonephenone-3. It’s a bigger part of our lives than most of us realize, used in everything from nail polish to perfumes to hairspray. Second is octinoxate, which is sometimes called octyl methoxycinnamate. It, too, shows up in a lot of places that most of us fail to notice, including lipstick, shampoo and hair coloring products. The thing that’s most important for boaters to know about these chemical compounds is that they absorb the sun’s ultraviolet rays and then dissipate them as heat. It’s a quality that, over the years, has made them…

It’s a common dream among cruising boaters: packing up and slipping the dock lines to explore the vast waters that make up more than 70 percent of our planet. Maybe you’ll stick to coastal waters and visit intriguing ports along the way. Or possibly your goals are far-ranging, and an ocean crossing to a remote, tropical island chain is your idea of adventure. Wherever you plot your waypoints, you’ll need the right vessel to suit your voyage. Trawlers come in versions that are slower and faster, displacement and semi-displacement, large and small, stout and sleek, with attributes that allow everything from Intracoastal cruising to globe-trotting expeditions. The following passage-making vessels were introduced in the past year and are 60 feet in length or smaller, able to suit many types of…

Don Demers’ oil painting “Rescuers from the Deep; USS Scamp” tells a dramatic tale. It’s February 24, 1987. A ferocious winter storm is bringing blinding snow and 70-foot waves to the North Atlantic. At 6:45 a.m., Balsa 24, a 345-foot Philippine freighter, sends a message: “Taking on water … in need of immediate assistance.” Canadian and United States Coast Guard planes set out from Newfoundland and North Carolina. The ship is sighted, decks awash in heavy seas whipped by hurricane-force winds. The planes get a message: “All hope is lost, abandoning ship.” One plane drops a canopied life raft. Eight of the 19 Balsa crew scramble aboard. There’s little more that can be done without a surface ship. But there is a submarine nearby. Cmdr. David Duma aboard the USS…

The presidency used to come with a yacht. This is one of the early ones, Mayflower, pictured at the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York harbor. The 1909 event commemorated Henry Hudson’s first voyage (in 1609) up the river that would bear his name and the 100th anniversary of Robert Fulton’s first steamboat. Travel in early America was often easiest by water, and the first chief executives used naval vessels when the need arose. Abraham Lincoln held conferences aboard a steamer named River Queen. Later, the U.S. Navy supplied a trio of more official vessels. Grover Cleveland viewed the 1886 dedication of the Statue of Liberty from the USS Despatch. By the turn of the 20th century, the presidency had acquired a real yacht. Mayflower was a 273-foot steamer formerly owned…

Jim Moores has restored more than 100 antique and classic boats over the past 35 years, including the 1930 93-foot Defoe-designed Presidential yacht Honey Fitz. He is a classic boat refit professional — some might say fanatic — who has a warehouse half full of antique boat parts salvaged from derelict craft. Jim’s office space at Moores Marine in Beaufort, North Carolina, is a deckhouse that was salvaged from the 1912 Trumpy Ibis when the rest of her could not be saved. Moores is a Trumpy refit expert — it’s something he came to after building commercial fishing boats and dories in Lubec, Maine, where he owned R.S. Colson Boat Works. In 1986 he launched Moores Marine in Riviera Beach, Florida, opened a North Carolina facility in 2007 and subsequently…

The most important ship restoration project in America at this moment is attracting big crowds. No surprise: The star of the show is Mayflower, one of the most famous ships in the world. Normally she is the center of attention at Plimoth Plantation, the recreated Pilgrim village and Wampanoag homesite in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims landed in 1620. For the next year or so, however, Mayflower will be in the preservation shipyard at Mystic Seaport Museum, where her three-year refit has been taking place. It’s worth a visit. At the shipyard, the rich scents of newly worked white oak and longleaf yellow pine waft through the air, mixed with whiffs of linseed oil. Caulkers’ mallets ring, the ship-saw whines and, occasionally, an adze thunks in the background. In her…

Hiding In Plain Sight More than 70 islands dot the seascape between New York Harbor and Fishers Island Sound on the New England coast. You might recognize well-known names such as Shelter Island, Fire Island and Gardiners Island, but chances are you don’t know about Money Island, Pot Island and Rats Island. Author Thomas Halaczinsky visits them all in Archipelago New York, a photographic and literary logbook that follows the route of European adventurer Adriaen Block, the first person to explore and map the area. Halaczinsky retraces the journey in his 30-foot sailboat and discovers an enchanted island world that’s been hiding in plain sight. ($30, Schiffer) Crossing The Connecticut Before there were bridges, ferries were the primary way for people and goods to cross the Connecticut River, which runs…

A FOILING FIGARO The Figaro Beneteau 3, or FB3, is the world’s first production foiling one-design monohull. Its predecessor, the Figaro 2, launched the careers of many well-known sailors, but that boat was not unique in its design. The Figaro 3, with its new, inward-facing foils is radical, and this 32-foot sailboat should be a game-changer when the first production boats start competing in the Solitaire URGO le Figaro single-handed race and other Figaro circuit races. beneteau.com/us/figaro-beneteau-3 Zodiac-Nautic in June launched its OPEN 5.5 RIB. The 17-foot, 7-inch rigid inflatable hull boat (RIB) is the first in what will be an extensive line of inflatables aimed at active recreational boaters. “With its highly stable hull and tube, the OPEN 5.5 offers comfort and plenty of cargo stowage. Its versatility and…

CLASSIC BOATS GALORE Boats. Lots of boats. Lots of beautiful, classic and antique boats will be on display at the 36th Annual Antique and Classic Boat Festival — like the 1923, 62-foot Consolidated Speedway luxury commuter Miss Asia, which was last year’s star. This year’s event will take place on Saturday, August 25 and Sunday, August 26 at Brewer Hawthorne Cove Marina in Salem, Massachusetts. For more information, or to enter your boat for the judging, go to boatfestival.org LISTENING FOR THE LIGHTHOUSE Someone once wrote that West Quoddy Head in Lubec, Maine, was the place “where they make the fog, at the End of the Earth.” And it may be true. Odds are, you’ll see fog well before you see the West Quoddy Head Light. This sunny photo is…

“Designed by a fish.” That’s how the Fortier 26 was described in issue 12 of Nautical Quarterly, back in 1980. A couple of generations of fishermen would agree. The husky, rough-and-ready, bass-style boat made its debut in 1978 and quickly won a reputation for fishing the New England tide rips in all kinds of winds and waves. Powered by a single inboard diesel, it had a wide beam, a stable hull and a big cockpit made for fishing. The Fortier 26 was the brainchild of Somerset, Massachusett, building contractor Roger Fortier. An active member of the New Bedford Yacht Club, he was an inveterate boater and fisherman. In the mid-1970s, he turned his talents as a builder and his passion for boats and boating into a personal project: He would…

In May 1940, some 385,000 Allied soldiers needed rescuing from the shores of northern France. The Germans had surrounded the French and British platoons on land and pushed them as far as they could go before they reached the sea at Dunkirk. They were penned in, doomed to be slaughtered on Adolf Hitler’s impending orders. Private Albert Dennett was among them. He survived, miraculously, as did many thousands of other Allied fighters on that beach, thanks to a flotilla that became known as the Dunkirk Little Ships. It was 850 strong, this mishmashed fleet of mostly civilian vessels that the British Ministry of Shipping called into service. They launched during a week of eerily benign weather on the English Channel, in a rescue plan dubbed Operation Dynamo. Not only did…

Hylas Yachts has launched the M44, the builder’s first foray into the U.S. powerboat market, with construction by Salthouse Boatbuilders in New Zealand. Hull number one has a two-stateroom layout and an enclosed head/shower. There’s a cherry-trimmed master stateroom in the bow with a queen-size island berth. Four stainless-steel opening ports and an overhead hatch provide ventilation and light. The guest stateroom, which has three single berths, is abaft the master and adjacent to the head. Farther aft and up a few steps is the saloon, which has the helm, a C-shaped dinette, a starboard settee and a C-shaped galley aft. Expanses of glass provide an eye-opening view, while white upholstery and wood trim create a soothing place to kick back and relax. The galley has a four-burner stove with…