Tabla de contenidos para September 2025 en PassageMaker

The 2013 Seattle Boat Show was a transformative experience for Brian Krantz. A towing and salvage captain by trade, Krantz was looking to hang a shingle as a boat broker. He saw some promising models at the show, but it was the event’s sole European offering, the Sargo 28, that really got his attention. Krantz liked the protected, walkaround decks, enclosed pilothouse and accommodations package on the 28. The boat reminded him of the rugged workboats he ran as a professional captain. A few months later, he inked a deal to become Sargo’s North America dealer. He founded Inside Passage Yacht Sales in Anacortes, Wash., to handle sales and service. Until now, Sargo has matched its boats, which run from 28 to 45 feet, with Volvo Penta diesels. The Sargo…

For seasoned boaters, knowledge and experience certainly increase safety. But after boating for a decade or more and traversing thousands of miles, never needing an EPIRB or life raft, complacency might creep in. This can be especially true today. Annual life-raft service used to be common, prompting yearly mental tune-ups. Now, technology extends most raft service out to three years, and the newest EPIRB batteries last a decade. That’s a long time not to think about key emergency equipment. To ensure that safety gear does its job, and that you remember how to use it, give this gear regular consideration, long before prescribed maintenance. Then double down on that attention whenever service is due. TIMELY SERVICE Most recreational-boat life rafts with three-year service intervals are packed within a vacuum-sealed waterproof…

Keith Richards had ambitions when he purchased his 53-foot powercat, Kekada. He wanted to cruise the Caribbean and Mediterranean. He just had to get Kekada across the Atlantic Ocean first. His Leopard 53 PC was built in Cape Town, South Africa, by Robertson and Caine, a global powerhouse that ships boats worldwide. It seemed to Keith that moving the boat on its own bottom would be a practical, cost-saving choice. He was also inspired by his parents, Don and Anja Richards, who had taken him and his sister, Katherine, across the world on a Catalina 42 Mk II back in 1998, when Keith was 13. “I got two years off of school, went from Australia to Turkey, and then my parents took another two years to finish it off,” Keith…

It was just another boat test, this time on a 50ish-foot trawler from the proud builders who were aboard to make sure I got my story right. I’d been up in the pilothouse sharing ex-Coastie stories with the captain, a grizzled former U.S. Coast Guard chief. I decided to go aft as we headed out of the inlet. I was partly across the salon, which was carpeted by a plush and, I assumed, expensive carpet, when I noticed something odd: My Top-Siders were making the same sort of squirk sound as when I’d accidentally stepped on a Twinkie. Just as I realized the carpet was melting, I heard one engine stumble. Everything at the helm went off: lights, alarms and, judging by the speed with which the skipper spun the…

DAVID BERSON STAR POWER WRITER David Berson has served as crew, relief captain and celestial navigation instructor aboard several vessels, including the research boat Petrel and schooners Pioneer, Ocean Star and Harvey Gamage. For more than 20 years, his celestial navigation columns appeared in Ocean Navigator. Since 1999, the 200-ton captain has run public tours and private cruises on Glory, a solar-charged electric fantail launch out of Greenport, N.Y. LINDSAY GIMPLE GLOBAL AMBITIONS WRITER Lindsay Gimple is an offshore and Olympic-class sailor campaigning for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics in the Mixed Multihull (Nacra17) event. Trained in engineering and sports leadership, Lindsay has accumulated 10,000 nautical miles offshore and placed second in the U.S. Mixed Multihull Selection Trials for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. She writes about the LA28 campaign trail at…

Most boaters are boating in denial. When all your trips go according to plan, your flares and life jackets are of no use to you. Your EPIRB and life raft just take up space aboard the boat. Life has a way of diverting from the plan, so prudence tells us the emergency equipment is worth carrying. Even so, when most boaters free their lines and head for open water, they go with an innocent but dangerous unwillingness to acknowledge that something could go wrong. They may believe they are a safe boater, but planning for a safe day and planning to survive the unexpected are two vastly different things. An emergency plan must be more than just having the latest safety equipment. It is a state of mind, a willingness…

As a seasoned navigator, I know this basic truth: Your compass is your primary navigation instrument. When all else fails, your compass will still be there.Most people would say their chartplotter is at the top of the list for navigational tools, and they would be correct. Multifunction displays have become the go-to over the compass and paper charts. Even still, I say the trick is to use the MFD in tandem with your compass. A compass is a mechanical device that incorporates magnets attached to a rotating card, enabling it to point toward magnetic north. Most compass cards show in 5-degree increments, with headings from magnetic north, to east, to west and back to north. The key indicator is called the lubber line. It shows your present boat heading. The…

People spend years preparing to do the Great Loop. They search for a boat that’s just right. They outfit that boat just so. They plan and organize and provision every possible thing they might need before they cast off their lines and head out. I, on the other hand, started my first cruise around the Great Loop without even knowing what it was. I didn’t know how complicated it was going to be, or how many things might go wrong out there on my 22-foot C-Dory with a 90-hp Yamaha engine. Then again, I knew very few people in America, so I had no real reason to slow down or stop. I just kept going and completed the Loop in around four months. I get my spirit of adventure from…

STEEL DEBUT Turkey-based Ava Yachts has sold the first hull of its Kando 85 series, with delivery scheduled for early 2026. Like the other models in the builder’s Kando series, which runs up to 150 feet, the 85 will have a steel hull and aluminum superstructure. Five staterooms, including a main-deck master, will accommodate 10 guests in addition to crew quarters for four. Power is a pair of Volvo Penta D11s rated at 510 hp apiece. The builder reports that the 85 will reach a top speed of 12 knots. At an 8-knot cruising speed, she’s good for a 6,000-nautical-mile range. Other options on the CE Category A Ocean-certified vessel include a hot tub on her foredeck and a boat-deck capacity for a tender up to 14 feet. avayachts.com CALL…

When it comes to washing the boat, vinyl enclosures are the poster child for neglect. These enclosures can cost upward of several thousand dollars. They’re vital team players that deserve more attention than a haphazard spritz of fresh water when you come back to the dock. Regular cleaning and thorough attention will ensure that the total enclosure package—clear panels, surrounding fabric materials, zippers and snaps—will have a long service life. Clear vinyl and optically clear rigid acrylic panels on the flybridge work all season long. They are designed to protect against wind, spray, rain and cold, while providing all-weather visibility for the skipper and guests alike. When washing my boat, I view the enclosure as being just as vital as hull care and brightwork. I start with a thorough but…

It was just after 7 a.m. under streaked, iron ore skies. I stood on the dock, shielding my bespectacled eyes from the wind-driven rain at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes, Wash. I had to step back twice, right to the water’s edge on the finger pier, to take in a full view of the imposing Northwest 55. A high bow and an air draft north of 25 feet granted Hull No. 1 a pugnacious, powerful stance. She looked ready to punch a hole in Puget Sound. The John Deeres were purring, so I quickly boarded via the swim platform, headed up the molded fiberglass stairs and made my way through the cockpit into the salon. The 55 is the debut model in the revamped Northwest Yachts line from founder Peter…

We are steaming at 10 knots under clear skies on the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and Sardinia, bound for the Adriatic on our way to Kotor, Montenegro. Radio chatter has ceased. All is quiet, save the engines well below my feet. In the distance, a few fishing boats chase after tuna. I’m settled in a comfortable chair on watch aboard Relentless, anticipating our approach to the Strait of Messina, the narrow passage Odysseus took. I’ve been reading his story since I was little boy, and now here I am, at the place where he had to make the hard choice between losing his crew or his ship. We had cruised 3,000 nautical miles from Florida to Bermuda, on to the Azores, and through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Mediterranean…