PassageMakerOctober 2024的目錄

I located our test steed at a packed South Florida marina. This was a number of years ago, but I still remember feeling excited. The big multihull gleamed under the morning light with her passerelle extended to the pier, welcoming me aboard. In short order, I met the broker and asked if I could go through the boat to get my bearings before we headed offshore. He agreed with a nod, never taking the mobile phone from his ear. Just behind me, our photographer set up his equipment before the sun got too high in the sky. The boat was a new 60-something-footer from an overseas shipyard looking to make a splash stateside. She was gorgeous, with miles of teak on her decks, Carrara marble in the galley and heads,…

Some boats are good to begin with, but when Jeanneau decided to make a new version of its NC 895, the builder nailed it. The new NC 895 Series 2 is a very impressive design, especially on the inside. Jeanneau still offers the original 895, which started out in 2012 as the Merry Fisher 855. In the ensuing decade-plus, almost 2,000 855s and 895s have been built. They are perfectly good boats, but for the NC 895 Series 2, the French builder completely rethought everything. Instead of dressing up the old hull, it completely redesigned the Series 2 with a new hull, deck, interior layout and propulsion. All too often nowadays, boat designers try to pack a two-stateroom, one-head home and all the amenities into a 30-foot hull, which frequently…

It is not possible to talk about handling a boat on the ocean without the topic of seasickness working its way into the conversation. Mal de mer is a wicked spirit, haunting those of us who love the sea. It’s been known to make grown men crawl into a fetal position and cry for their mothers. This insidious condition is not limited to the rolling of the ocean. It can come from many forms of motion, be it the back seat of a car, a turbulent airplane flight or a ride at a summer carnival. Seasickness is, however, the oldest known form of motion sickness. It was well documented by the Greeks and Romans. The very word “nausea” comes from the Greek word naus, an ancient type of sailing…

Gelcoat is much tougher than paint. It can last for decades, if it’s properly maintained. And unlike some other coatings, neglected and abused gelcoat can often be brought back to life. The story of gelcoat begins in the mid-1800s, with the invention of plastics. Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius discovered that tartaric acid (found in grapes, bananas and other fruits) reacted with glycerol (from soybeans, palm or tallow) to create a sticky resin. German chemist Daniel Vorländer developed an early unsaturated polyester, and then, in 1936, Carlton Ellis of DuPont was awarded a U.S. patent for polyester resin. This resin is the basis for modern gelcoat. By the early 1940s, glass fiber saturated with plastic resins was being used to produce boat and airplane parts. California chemist John Wills then…

As a legal liveaboard in the San Francisco Bay area, I often feel like someone has handed me a rare gold coin. I wake up every morning to the gentle rocking of my boat with the salt air filling my lungs as I view the distant Golden Gate Bridge, often shrouded in fog. Living here is far cheaper than renting an apartment in the city, but what I really love are the sea and PoTolo, my 36-foot Sundowner tug. San Francisco Bay is home to an unusual community of liveaboards. This lifestyle, while not for everyone, combines elements of minimalism, adventure and closeness to nature. Heidi Mark is in her 60s and a 10-year liveaboard at Emeryville’s Safe Harbor marina in the East Bay. She met her husband, John, while…

JOHN JOHNSON THE ROAMER WRITER John Johnson first stepped foot on a boat when he was 7 years old. He served for six years in the Royal Navy on frigates and an aircraft carrier, and for two years with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Based in the U.K., he runs the YouTube channel @YachtBuoy, which is dedicated to explorer, expedition and trawler yachts. It garners around 1 million views each month. STEPHENIE HOLLYMAN LIVING BY THE DOCK ON THE BAY WRITER/PHOTOGRAPHER A former New York Harbor tugboat cook and Fulbright scholar, Stephenie Hollyman lives on her 36-foot Sundowner trawler, PoTolo, in Berkeley, Calif. She is the author of three books and has worked as a video journalist for CNN, ABC and other venues. She also teaches and holds a Merchant…

During the course of its more than six decades in business, Grand Banks has created multiple yacht models that many cruising enthusiasts consider to be classics. While the Asia-based builder has discontinued a number of its smaller models along the way, including the iconic 36, in recent years it has seen a rejuvenation and reinvention of its lines. In 1995, the company moved its production to an everexpanding factory in Malaysia, where it builds Grand Banks models in 54, 60 and 85 feet, its Eastbay models in 44 and 60 feet, and its growing line of fast-cruising designs under the Palm Beach Motor Yachts brand. On the horizon is the latest entry in the builder’s fleet: the GB62. The GB62 is an evolution of the GB60, of which 26 hulls…

Back when I was a fishing charter skipper, I did a lot of overnight trips to the submarine canyons 75 miles or more from my home port in Brielle, N.J. We’d steam to the deep, trolling for tuna and marlin until dusk, and then shut off the Cummins diesels to drop rigged squid baits for swordfish and tuna through the night. An hour before first light, I would fire up the engines and begin trolling again, putting in a few more hours before pulling the lines and heading back to port. Turning off the engines at twilight, with the nearest land a mile below the keel, never bothered me. I had no concern that they would restart on command. Even though I’m not a seasoned mechanic, I am familiar with…

WE OPENED THE ELECTRIC ROOF ABOVE THE HELM. THAT, PLUS THE SIDE WINDOWS, OPEN REAR GLASS AND WIDE SLIDING DOOR NEXT TO THE HELM STATION MADE THE PILOTHOUSE FEEL OPEN AND AIRY. We stood shoulder to shoulder in a semicircle just outside the barn doors of the brightly colored fish shack. Our small group chatted as we downed lagers and prosecco underneath the early evening Scandinavian sun, still high in the mid-June sky. I sipped an ice-cold Carlsberg, a bit nervous about disappointing my hosts if I didn’t join in on what was about to happen next. My mantra in this place: Be like a Swede. I had told myself this a few times since arriving in Sweden two days before. It began with the cuisine. I’m one who generally…

In the aircraft world (I’m a pilot as well as a boaty), when the wing or a cabin door falls off, the event is called an unscheduled disassembly. Many years back. I was halfway through a Transpac yacht race from Los Angeles to Honolulu when the top half of our spinnaker departed from the lower half in an unscheduled disassembly. After retrieving half the spinnaker from the top of our mast, we spread it out in a cabin. My mother had taught me how to sew a loose button, so I was selected to be the repairman. I broke out the sail repair kit: a bag filled with straight and curved needles, several spools of thread, a cake of beeswax (to lube the needles) and a sailmaker’s palm that was…

The design process for the GlobeMaster 50 LRX was a meticulous journey for founder Erik Leander. Raised by the sea on Sweden’s Falsterbo Peninsula, Leander’s lifelong connection to the ocean inspired him to create a vessel that could support longrange exploration and sustainable living. Leander worked on this boat with Netherlands-based Willem Nieland Design, the same naval architecture firm that drew the Deep Water Korvet50CLR that appeared in the May/June 2024 Passagemaker article “Style and Substance.” Similar to that boat, the GlobeMaster 50 LRX (which stands for “long-range explorer”) meets the CE Class A standard, with 7-mm aluminum for the hull and superstructure. There are three watertight bulkheads, double emergency crash pumps and the ability to carry two tenders (on the boat deck and on chocks) as well as a…

Elevate your onboard dining experience with crab salad on corn blini, a recipe that combines coastal flavors and culinary finesse. This dish is perfect for leisurely lunches or elegant appetizers on deck. The salad blends tender crabmeat with vibrant accents of red bell pepper, chives and a hint of Dijon mustard. The creamy avocado purée adds a luxurious touch, complemented by the subtle heat of jalapeño slices. With its delicate texture and golden hue, the corn blini serves as the perfect vessel for the succulent crab salad. Each bite evokes the essence of coastal living. For five months a year, LADONNA GUNDERSEN lives aboard a 32-foot fishing boat in Alaska with her commercial-fisherman husband, Ole, preparing meals in the boat’s 4-by-5-foot galley. Find more great galley recipes from her six Alaskan-themed…

Closing on a trawler purchase is a logistical choreography that requires organized communication and timely responses. The deadline to complete the sale is agreed to in the signed contract and addenda. Your paperwork and banking must be ready before the closing date. There are many parties involved; buyers, sellers, brokers, bankers, insurance, attorneys, closing agent and documentation service. An experienced broker can explain who is responsible for what. Think of your broker as a mediator: He or she can nudge the parties along and help manage the flow of information. Your broker should verify that all vendors involved with the survey process have been paid, while the seller’s broker needs to confirm that the seller will provide clear title. Final accounting must be calculated and summarized into the closing…

Over the past half century or so, Sam Devlin has designed and built a lot of boats. By his own count, he’s built 434 boats. He estimates that another thousand or so have been constructed to his designs by others, and he’s written two books about the stitch-and-glue method he uses to assemble his boats. But at 70, Devlin is trying something new. He’s trying to learn how to slow down. Although, by his own admission, he’s not so sure he can. “This is going to be an interesting experiment,” Devlin tells me by phone from his shop in Olympia, Wash., a couple of months before I join him aboard Puffin, the 1966 wooden trawler he purchased for a summer trip to Alaska. “I’m not sure if I know how…