Table of contents for April 2025 in PassageMaker

MARK TILDEN  MILESTONES WRITER The son of a career U.S. Coast Guard engineering officer, retired tech entrepreneur Mark Tilden built his first boat, an 8-foot pram, in his eighth-grade woodshop class. He has owned nine boats since then, including his current vessel, Koinonia, a Selene 60. Tilden holds a 200-ton Coast Guard master’s license and is the webmaster for the Selene Owners Association website. CHRIS CASWELL DASH OF SALT COLUMNIST Chris Caswell is an award-winning marine journalist with an ever-changing fleet, spanning both power and sail. He has written eight books on everything from basic boating to charter cruising, sailboat racing and nautical fiction. In addition to being featured on Oprah! as a boating lifestyle expert, he was the host of Marine Voyager, a weekly cable series on the Speed…

Safehaven Marine earned a sterling reputation in commercial sectors with rugged, seaworthy vessels designed to be operated in the most challenging environments. With the introduction of the T-2000 Voyager, the Ireland-based boatbuilding outfit brings its expertise to the recreational market. The 70-foot catamaran blends a striking design with serious speed and range for bluewater cruising. Founded in 1998 by Frank Kowalski, Safehaven Marine wasinfluenced by his years of experience as a commercial skipper navigating Cork Harbor’s challenging waters. His understanding of the demanding conditions vessels must endure informed every aspect of Safehaven Marine’s designs, emphasizing durability, safety and reliability. Over the years, Safehaven Marine has expanded its range of vessels to include monohulls, catamarans and wave-piercing, high-speed military interceptors. In 2017, its XSV 17 wave-piercer Thunder Child set a record…

A boat making 8 knots at 2000 rpm, with a 2:1 reduction gear, completes about 7,500 propeller revolutions every mile and well over 1 million revolutions through 24 hours. For distance cruisers, it’s interesting to consider how propeller efficiencies can multiply. Beyond better fuel economy, tweaking your boat’s propeller might also increase optimal cruising speed, improve engine health and even facilitate better boathandling. We turned to two propeller experts for advice about how to wring better performance from that bronze interface between the ocean and your boat’s engine. ANALYZING PROPELLERS Most prop shops evaluate propeller performance free of charge, says Randy Hale, owner of Hale Propeller in Old Saybrook, Conn. and Beaufort, N.C. That process starts with performance numbers for your boat’s current props, which ideally will include speed and fuel…

A WISH MAN ONCE SAID, “Experience is what you get right after you needed it.” Nowhere is this truer than in cruising. How audacious would it be for a couple who have never owned a boat to dream of exploring the world in a recreational trawler? My close friends John and Kathy Youngblood recently completed 13 years of full-time cruising, covering 62,000 miles around the Ring of Fire, Central America and the Caribbean on their first boat, Mystic Moon, a Selene 53. The Youngbloods’ boating story actually begins years earlier. Neither John nor Kathy grew up in boating families. They were introduced to the cruising lifestyle by experienced boating friends when they chartered a sailboat together. During the next eight years, the hook was set as this group of friends…

There has been a rash of cruising yachts being abandoned not because they had lost their steerage, were actively sinking or were on fire, but because the crew just wasn’t happy. Most had been dealing with weather conditions for which they were totally unprepared. Take the 53-footer that was CE Category A Ocean-rated, which is the toughest category for yachts, capable of seas up to 23 feet and winds of 41 to 47 knots. The inexperienced crew had been dealing with winds of 40 knots and 10-foot seas. Their reason for sending a mayday? They were sick and tired. And, after all, the yacht was insured. So, who cares? Another crew departed from a 36-footer in the Atlantic because of “high winds and huge seas” but, once they’d been plucked…

The forecast was perfect. A high-pressure system was going to remain stationary just north of the Greater Antilles for the next 48 hours, giving us ample time to make the 500-mile run from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands. My friends Josh and Caitlin had looked forward to this trip for months. After purchasing their 45-foot Symbol trawler in St. Thomas, they were finally ready to bring it back to their home in North Carolina. As a stoutly built, semi-displacement boat, the trawler carried 750 gallons of fuel in two outboard tanks, monitored with easy-to-read and accurate sight gauges. The boat burned precisely 9 gallons per hour at 9 knots—1 nautical mile per gallon. Josh figured the math was simple; on…

I have always believed that if you prostrate on your back and eyeball the bottom of the boat, your view mirrors what a flounder must see in its day-to-day life. But where the flat fish has the good fortune to swim away, you’ll probably be applying a fresh coat of antifoulant paint. Each time I paint a bottom, I convince myself that I’ll never do it again, only to repeat the process whenever marine growth tries to enjoy a free ride at my expense. I recall old salts in the boatyard telling me about wooden hulls that were launched with soft bottom paint still wet or tacky to promote season-long protection. Today’s antifoulant paints have evolved into various concoctions that deliver yearly and longer protection with prices that match their…

Where did all these boats come from? That’s what Mike Miner asked himself while on a salmon fishing trip off Vancouver Island in 2005. Fishing and cruising boats zipped hither and yon. It was a stark contrast to what he would see from his home on California’s central coast, where he’d spot an occasional oceangoing tug or commercial ship, but virtually no pleasure boats. His observation would ultimately lead him to log thousands of miles at sea over two decades. He went back to Vancouver and chartered a boat with his wife, Susie—a 32-footer that he says “looked like the Queen Mary to us”—and then chartered more boats before purchasing a few of their own, including a Selene 50. What it came time to move on to another vessel, they…

JUST SPLASHED The steel Doggersbank 67 Heritage recently launched at Altena shipyard in the Netherlands. Her owner is keeping her interior private, but standard deck plans show a midship galley abaft the pilothouse, and a lower deck that includes three staterooms, two of which are full-beam. The vessel’s exterior styling also shines. The 67-footer is defined by Doggersbank’s characteristic high bow, wide side decks, Portuguese bridge and boat deck, which in this case can accommodate a tender up to 16 feet. A hardtop protects the flybridge, which can be fully enclosed with isinglass for four-season alfresco cruising. Designed to be run by an owner-operator, the 67 has a reported cruise speed of 7½ knots with a range of 2,500 nautical miles. Her top speed is just under 11 knots. doggersbank.com…

As part of my winter maintenance chores, I was replacing the engine room lights. A shout broke the silence: “Come quickly! We’ve got a bloody mess up here!” Indeed, blood was gushing everywhere. A member of my yacht club had sliced open a hand while repairing a sail. I grabbed my onboard emergency medical kit, assessed the wound and provided medical care. The situation was a reminder that having a proper kit is key for managing most wounds and injuries you may encounter while on avoyage, on the dock or while exploring a destination. Here are the types of wounds that are common when boating, and how to assess and treat them. MECHANISM OF INJURY A simple cut through the skin by a sharp object may cause minimal damage to…

Tim Armand made one thing crystal clear as we cruised aboard his new Fleming 85 Enclosed Bridge off Greenport, New York: St. Somewhere is his ultimate boat, but not necessarily his last. “Never say final,” he says with a chuckle. His boating background makes that much evident. The first boat he registered was a 1967 Shell Lake, which he describes as “the classic little red runabout with the plastic windshield and a 35 Johnson.” Then, he owned a number of sailboats before buying a 36-foot Carver, 44-foot Sea Ray, 48-foot Sea Ray motor yacht, 57-foot McKenna, 65-foot Outer Reef and 75-foot Viking Motor Yacht. His 85 is the first Fleming that’s ever been built with an enclosed bridge, and is quite a bit bigger than the first Fleming he became…

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