Saildrone’s 72-foot Unmanned Surveyor Aims to Map the Uncharted Ocean With roughly 81 percent of the world’s oceans still unmapped, a California-based company is deploying an innovative approach: wind- and solar-powered unmanned sailboats. Alameda’s Saildrone has launched its first 72-foot remotely controlled vessel, the Saildrone Surveyor, into San Francisco Bay to begin advanced ocean mapping … Read more

Soundings and AIM Marine Group Secure Multiple Honors in BWI Writing Competition Last week Boating Writers International (BWI) announced the winners of its annual writing and photography competition. Titles from Active Interest Media’s (AIM) Marine Group, including Soundings, were recognized across several categories for work published in 2020. The awards are typically presented at the … Read more

Jasmine Harrison Becomes Youngest Solo Female to Row Across the Atlantic Jasmine Harrison, a 21-year-old swim instructor and bartender from North East England, has become the youngest solo female to row across the Atlantic Ocean. Taking part in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, Harrison completed the crossing from the Canary Islands to Antigua and Barbuda … Read more

The Mercury Verado 600 is nominally an outboard—because it mounts to a boat’s transom—but in every other respect it represents a major leap forward in outboard motor design. Over the last century the basic outboard layout has changed little, yet the Verado 600 combines a host of modern engineering solutions that could reshape how large … Read more

The Mercury Verado 600 is, technically, an outboard motor because it mounts to a boat’s transom. But in practice it represents a major rethink of what an outboard can be for large center consoles, dayboats and other big offshore craft. Rather than being a scaled-up conventional design, the Verado 600 combines a V12 powerhead, contra-rotating … Read more

Model Sailboat Regattas: A Brief History and Modern Revival Model sailboat skippers gather for a regatta in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in this early 20th-century image from the collections at Mystic Seaport, the maritime museum in Mystic, Connecticut. The image captures a long tradition: model yachting has roots stretching back to the 1870s in the United States … Read more

Larry Graf, founder and chief designer of Aspen Power Catamarans, has taken his boats to some of the planet’s most remote and demanding environments — from Siberia to Canada’s Northwest Territories and Alaska. Those years of hands-on cruising and engineering have culminated in the 37-foot Aspen C108, a design that prioritizes long-range efficiency, seaworthiness and … Read more

Vendée Globe Rescue: Jean Le Cam Saves Kevin Escoffier in the Southern Ocean Twenty-nine years after Queen Elizabeth II called 1992 her “annus horribilis,” and after a year marked by a global pandemic and intense political division, the closing months of 2020 delivered a rare, uplifting moment at sea. During the solo round-the-world Vendée Globe … Read more

What We’re Listening To Jeff Spira’s Beyond plans and drawings, Spira shares his hands-on knowledge through the Spotify podcast “Spira Boat Building.” The show is a rich resource for anyone interested in boat design and DIY boatbuilding. Episodes focus on practical topics such as displacement and loading, choosing and working with boatbuilding materials, modifying plans … Read more

In the early 1980s, after a 25-year career as a production engineer at Grand Banks, Tony Fleming set out to design and build his own motoryacht. The British-born, U.S.-based designer knew precisely what he wanted: a low-profile boat with a fine forward entry, a dedicated pilothouse and a twin-engine semi-displacement hull that could cruise efficiently … Read more