I made it up to St. Augustine and met Steve Pettengill, Director of Destructive Testing for Hunter Marine, at his R&D shed at 7:30 sharp yesterday morning. He had a brand new Hunter 18 fresh off the production line and we at once set about commissioning it for a test sail. The forecast was for...
I'm still up to my eyeballs in Miami. I've sailed three boats here over the past two days, and tomorrow I'm driving five hours to sail two more up in St. Augustine. But in between boats I have been following the news and thought I better throw in my two cents on the latest...
Confession first: I did not locate the folding EzyBoat here at the Miami boat show. It is a very large show! But I did find this crazy amphibious Russian thing made out of aluminum, the Tupelov N007, designed by Aleksei Tupelov at the behest of the Russian military. As the owner of an aluminum boat,...
Though it's not the greatest venue for sailboats, the Miami International Boat Show is normally my favorite show to attend simply because it offers a fantastic excuse to visit Miami Beach in February. It's also the only show I go to regularly that exposes me to the mainstream boating market. It's always useful to get...
Looks like we're going to have open up a Rape & Murder category here on WaveTrain. This time it's a breaking story: Javier Martin, a Spanish national, is the top suspect in two sailing murders committed recently in Panama, and as I type he is the subject of an international manhunt. The body of one...
This just blows my mind. Check out the difference in size between one of Christopher Columbus' ships and a Chinese treasure ship commanded by Zheng He many years prior to Columbus' famous voyage in 1492. It certainly makes you think about the ebb and flow of history. The Chinese, I am sure, are thinking about...
Kevin Knight at Scape Yachts in South Africa just dropped me a line to let me know they've recently launched their biggest boat yet, a new 51-footer. This is a big sister to their Scape 39, a boat I delivered across the South Atlantic a few years back. Like most boats built by Scape, hull...
I'm just back from a jaunt aboard the new Beneteau Sense 50, which is still on the boat-show circuit and is currently en route from St. Petersburg to Miami under the command of Wayne Burdick, President of Beneteau USA. Wayne and his lovely bride, Joyce Harvey, are using this between-shows delivery as an excuse to...
At last, here's some serious recognition for my man Alessandro di Benedetto, who set a world record back in July for smallest boat used in a non-stop solo circumnavigation. Setting the record was one thing, but you'll recall what was truly remarkable about Alessandro's voyage was that he sailed the last three months on his...
