For boaters who prefer to cruise in US waters, a Great Loop itinerary is ideal. After a first leg northward along the East Coast, the route turns inward toward the Great Lakes and American heartland.

“For people who are used to international cruising and looking for a US option right now, this is it,” says Kim Russo, executive director of the America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association.

Cruisers continuing along a Great Loop itinerary from the Erie Canal will go through Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, in that order. These lakes are called great for a reason and require skippers with some boating experience. Lake Erie alone is home to more than 1,000 shipwrecks. Lake Huron, with 30,000 islands, has the most shoreline among all the Great Lakes, while Lake Michigan is so big that it touches four states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. When weather descends on bodies of water this big, yachtsmen need to know how to stay safe.

And, of course, during the good cruising days, some of America’s best-known cities are here to be explored. Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago can all be part of a Great Loop itinerary, along with visits to some of their top attractions: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Henry Ford Museum, the Harley-Davidson Museum and Wrigley Field. (Go, Cubs, go!)

From Chicago, Loopers have a choice of how they want to cruise south to the Gulf of Mexico. The Illinois River is one option. Another is to join the mighty Mississippi farther to the north (the part that Mark Twain liked the best). And cruisers can take the

Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway all the way to Alabama. The ultimate destination on this leg is the Gulf of Mexico, putting the boat in position for a final leg back to Florida or the East Coast.

Making the choices is part of the Great Loop fun. As Russo says, “People have really discovered there’s as many different ways to do this as there are types of boats.”

The Great Lakes

If the first leg of a Great Loop cruise includes the Erie Canal, then Lake Erie is the first of the Great Lakes on the second leg. The Lake Erie Islands are an area the locals call “Vacationland.” Put-In Bay on Lake Erie’s South Bass Island has beach attractions, wineries and pubs, hiking trails and more. Lake Huron will be next, with one possible stop being Mackinac Island. If you go ashore, you must go by foot, bicycle or horse-drawn carriage. Lake Michigan awaits after that, with a western shoreline that has cities to explore. The two biggest are Milwaukee and Chicago, with museums, sports teams and five-star restaurants.

Chicago

Boaters looking to head ashore for an authentic meal and cultural experience have many choices in Chicago. Paseo Boricua is a Puerto Rican enclave where restaurants serve pasteles (pork tamales) and arroz con gandules (rice, pigeon peas and pork). Greektown, as the name suggests, is the neighborhood to visit for dolmades (rice and ground beef in grape leaves), moussaka (kind of like eggplant and beef lasagna) and spanakopita (spinach and feta in phyllo dough). Little Italy serves up all kinds of pasta, bruschetta and gnocchi, while Chinatown is all about spicy rabbit, made-to-order dumplings and dim sum (served, of course, with tea).

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The swish of cardboard costumes. The clang of cowbells. The thrumming of goatskin drums. These sounds of the Junkanoo make Arlene Nash-Ferguson’s heart soar. This musical masquerade parade is so beloved in the Bahamas that it not only dances through the streets of Nassau on Boxing Day, as is the tradition, but it’s also celebrated during the Junkanoo Summer Festival in July and August.

Nash-Ferguson is the grand dame of Junkanoo in the Bahamas. She’s the founding co-host of the weekly Junkanoo 242 radio show and author of I Come to Get Me: An Inside Look at the Junkanoo Festival. For 20 years, she has provided the world with an inside look at the festival through her organization Educulture Bahamas.

The Educulture Junkanoo Museum, located in Nassau, includes not only sponge costumes from decades past but also the requisite ramshackle “shack,” where contemporary cardboard-and-paper costumes are painstakingly pieced together. “You can’t buy a Junkanoo costume,” she says. “When you make your costume, it is part of this tremendous expression of community spirit, camaraderie and pride. That’s what makes Junkanoo such a unique experience.”

What distinguishes Junkanoo in the Bahamas? We create our own music; we don’t dance to taped music. Our musicians play the drums and bells and horns in costume and parade with us.

How old were you when you first participated in Junkanoo? I was 4. Back then, if you were from a “good” family, you didn’t participate—especially the women. But my Uncle Ivern had helped get Junkanoo reinstated in 1948. So a few years later, when I asked to Junkanoo, they thought, ‘How nice, she takes after her uncle,’ and let me join in.”

After all these years, how does it feel for you to take part in Junkanoo? It is so natural to me, as natural as breathing.

Arlene’s Nassau A-list

Debbie’s (Grant’s Town): The cracked conch at this takeaway counter is absolutely delicious.

Fish Fry (aka Arawak Cay): There is a whole slew of local eateries there that fix conch in so many different ways. I especially love the conch salad.

Old Nassau: The area is so full of history, with many beautiful historic buildings. It has such warm memories for me from my childhood.

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Look at the CL Yachts CLB88 in profile, and you’ll notice a combination of key design elements.

There’s the fine entry and high freeboard forward, and the form transitions into a straight sheerline gently descending in height as it stretches aft, resolving at the cockpit. The subtle drop helps create a relatively aggressive profile. It’s a look that the CLB88′s raked windows forward enhance, and that the lean-forward look of the hardtop and flybridge supports. The yacht’s amalgam of shapes creates a singular, salty aesthetic.

Beneath the seafaring look is function. The yacht has a resin-infused build in a combination of fiberglass and carbon fiber, reducing weight and maintaining strength. The hull form is reinforced by a 3,000-gallon integral fuel tank, essentially creating a double-hull bottom.

The CLB88′s interior is “floated” too, meaning interior elements are not directly tied into the yacht’s support structure, resulting in reduced vibration and what should be a quiet ride.

This motoryacht’s ride could be spirited as well. Twin 1,600 hp Caterpillar C32 Acerts reportedly push it to a 25-knot top hop.

This yacht has four staterooms, plus two crew cabins. There are five guest heads and one crew head. The master stateroom is full-beam amidships.

A lower helm and country kitchen are forward on the main deck, with the dinette across from the helm. The CLB88′s flybridge is set up for alfresco meals with L-shaped seating and a table to port, as well as a bar with five stools to starboard. Forward on centerline is the helm station, and to port is companion seating. Far aft is room for chaise-style chairs and a davit.

The CLB88 is for yachtsmen ready to transition to a crewed vessel. It has room for a cruising family, offers solid performance, has an open floor plan, and is a bluewater build with a high level of customization.

Take the next step: clyachts.com

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U-boat Worx’s Nemo is the world’s first production-built submersible vehicle. Power is a lithium-ion battery, and steering is via a thruster system, delivering speeds up to 3 knots. The two-person sub can dive to 330 feet, and it employs air scrubbers for eight hours of run time. Nemo weighs 5,510 pounds and requires less on-deck space than two personal watercraft. It comes with a single-point hoisting system and can be stored on flat surfaces sans cradle.

“Creating a submersible that is truly pilot-oriented was the hardest part,” says Roy Heijdra, U-Boat Worx’s marketing manager. “We created a short list of features and technologies we really wanted to incorporate in this design to have it meet our standards.” Still, Heijdra says, creating a production model was “one of the more difficult submersibles we’ve designed to date.” U-Boat Worx overcame the challenges by leveraging its extensive knowledge of building bespoke subs.

Nemo submersibles are meant to be owner-operated. They employ U-Boat Worx’s Manta controller and pilot-assistance functions (such as auto-heading and auto-depth). Purchase price includes a 12-day training course for owners or captains at U-Boat Worx’s Sub Center Curaçao.

Take the next step: nemo-submarine.com

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Whether it’s tossing bikes and kayaks on the hardtop for weekend jaunts, or day-tripping and cooking alfresco at the cockpit island grill, the Tiara Yachts Q44 was penned for active yachtsmen.

Tiara worked with bike-rack-makers Yakima and Thule to design the roof rack. There’s an on-deck island with an electric grill, fridge and freezer, as well as a galley belowdecks. A scissor berth belowdecks converts to a lounge. The Q44 also has a glass-helm system.

At press time, there were six Tiara Q44s for sale, ranging from $549,000 to $649,000.

From the Archive

“We ran the boat on a blustery day in 3-foot seas on Lake Michigan. The builder says it connects Volvo Penta’s 435 hp engines via jack shaft to IPS pod drives to lessen vibration and give the Q44 excellent maneuverability. It works. Our test boat hit a top speed of 33 knots at 3,600 rpm. Joystick steering makes it a fun ride, even in tight turns.” — Yachting, January 2016

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It’s a common scenario on my home waters: A cargo ship heads south on Puget Sound, its bow aimed for the Port of Seattle’s always-hungry cranes, as a ferry steams west from Edmonds for Kingston and the Kitsap Peninsula. Compounding the situation is Seattle’s notorious rain and fog. While the ships are situationally aware thanks to robust commercial-grade radar and Class A AIS systems, the same isn’t always true of the recreational yachts with older radars. To the yachtsmen, the ship and ferry could appear as a single onscreen blob…provided that the radar can even penetrate the rain.

Fortunately, today’s high-powered solid-state radars can mitigate this potentially confusing situation.

Radar systems have long employed cavity magnetrons to transmit radio-frequency energy in extremely short, high-powered bursts. While effective, radar technology didn’t fundamentally change for recreational mariners until 2016, when multiple manufacturers released fully digital radars that replaced magnetrons with solid-state transistors. These radars broadcast lower-powered bursts of RF energy over significantly longer intervals using pulse-compression technology (think chirp sonar). Critically, solid-state transistors transmit highly predictable frequencies that enable Doppler processing, allowing these systems to color-code targets based on their threat levels (red means danger).

While these radars work well, next-generation solid-state radars are offering higher power and new software features.

Furuno’s first-generation solid-state radar—the radome-enclosed DRS4D-NXT—offered 25 watts of power and Target Analyzer, which delivered color-coded Doppler processing. Furuno’s newest offerings, the open-array DRS12ANXT ($7,430 to $8,275) and the DRS25ANXT ($9,430 to $10,275), offer 100 and 200 watts of power, respectively. Both radars are available with 41-inch, 4-foot or 6-foot arrays transmitting narrow wedges of RF energy in horizontal beam widths of 2.3, 1.9 and 1.35 degrees, respectively. Like many other Ethernet-enabled sensors, these radars pack their smarts and processing power into the unit’s pedestal and use networked Furuno NavNet TZtouch multi-function displays.

Garmin uses similar architecture and Ethernet connectivity with its radars. Garmin’s first-generation solid-state radars, the GMR Fantom 4 and GMR Fantom 6, employed 4-foot and 6-foot open arrays to deliver 40 watts of power and MotionScope Doppler processing. Additional GMR Fantom radars followed, and Garmin’s latest open-array radars, which are expected to hit the market by the end of this year, will each deliver 250 watts of power and beam widths of 1.8 and 1.25 degrees (depending on antenna).

The transmitted power of Furuno’s and Garmin’s solid-state radars is significantly less than the peak outputs of magnetron units, but Eric Kunz, Furuno’s senior product manager, says magnetron radars are rated for their peak power transmission, while solid-state radars are rated for their average power output.

“The [total] power transmission between solid-state and magnetron radars is the same, and they both use the same frequency spectrum,” Kunz says. “It’s a different way of creating transmissions, but the result is the same.”

Dave Dunn, Garmin’s director of sales and marketing for marine, agrees. “A 120-watt solid-state radar delivers the same total energy as a 15 kW magnetron-based radar,” Dunn says, explaining that the conversion between solid-state and magnetron radars is (roughly) a factor of 10 and change. “Solid-state radars get better information at greater distances because the RF energy stays on the target longer,” he adds.

Overall, Furuno’s and Garmin’s solid-state radars now deliver the same (or greater) overall power as each company’s highest-end, recreational-level magnetron radars, which offer 25 kW of peak power.

“The overall performance is equal to or better than magnetron-based radars,” Kunz says, adding that while cavity magnetrons need to be replaced after 3,000 to 5,000 hours of use, solid-state transistors typically outlast the radar pedestal’s motor drives.

Both experts also say that narrower beam widths enable higher-resolution imagery.

“I use the analogy of a wide-tip Sharpie marker,” Dunn says. “You can’t draw the picture you can with a narrow-tipped Sharpie.” In radar parlance, this means that beam width is the difference between having a general idea about targets and having a specific picture.

Kunz agrees, adding that target separation is improved: “We’re taking energy and squeezing it into a narrower area. This improves onscreen resolution and puts more-effective radiated power onto the target.”

Solid-state transistors open the door to advanced digital-signal processing, enabling Doppler processing and other features. For example, Furuno’s DRS12ANXT and DRS25ANXT radars are equipped with Furuno’s RezBoost, which can digitally decrease beam width to just 0.7 degrees; Bird Mode, which helps anglers spot birds using the radar’s gain function; and Rain Mode, which helps mariners peer into squalls.

“Signal processing can discern rain reflections from hard-target reflections,” Kunz says. “Boaters can see rain, but it doesn’t obscure targets.”

Additionally, Furuno radars have an automatic radar plotting aid that acquires and tracks an unlimited number of potentially dangerous targets.

Garmin’s newest GMR Fantom radars will be equipped with MotionScope Doppler processing and proprietary features such as scan-to-scan averaging and advanced mini-automatic radar plotting aid. Scan-to-scan averaging compares each frame of radar data with its previous radar returns to eliminate intermittent noise and clutter—say, when tracking fast-moving targets, detecting distant shorelines or searching for fish-finding birds—while advanced MARPA automatically acquires and tracks up to 10 targets sans any user input.

Another noteworthy point is that while magnetron radars have “main bang” blind spots (such as 65 feet for a 25 kW radar), solid-state radars can detect targets as close as 20 feet. Moreover, the radars discussed in this article have a 96-nautical-mile range; however, their long-range performance is limited by how far above the waterline the radar array is physically mounted. The long-range features are likely best used to detect weather systems and birds rather than distant vessels.

So, if you’ve been considering a new radar but have been waiting for the technology to mature, now could be the time to make it happen. As for yachtsmen cruising Puget Sound’s challenging waters, today’s high-power solid-state radars have no trouble color-coding and distinguishing between cargo ships and ferries at ranges that were previously the province of commercial- or military-grade hardware.

The post All Seeing: Solid-State Radars appeared first on Yachting.

Horizon Yachts has long been known for building seaworthy vessels that emphasize interior volume, entertainment spaces and customization. The builder’s sweet spot is in the 80- to 120-foot range, and it has incorporated all the lessons learned from those larger yachts into the E56, the smallest E-series model it offers. She’s a yacht that out-punches her weight.

One thing that stood out during my time on board the E56 was the number of custom elements the builder was able to include—rare for a 56-footer. There was custom cabinetry in the salon and amidships galley, both designed for longer voyages. In the after section of the salon, the owner wanted a glass-and-stainless-steel dining table. That table is serviced by a galley with some pleasing touches, including a wenge-and-sapele sole (and excellent joinery), a four-burner cooktop, a convection oven/microwave and granite countertops.

Forward of the galley is the lower helm, with a carbon-fiber dash and twin Garmin screens. I found visibility to be excellent, and the optional sunroof opened up the space nicely.

Down below, this E56 had a custom three-stateroom layout. The forepeak VIP was so large, I initially mistook it for the master stateroom. The walk-around queen berth has plenty of space on each side, thanks in part to the yacht’s 15-foot-9-inch beam that carries farther forward than beams tend to do on other yachts. That’s a design trick that Horizon uses on many of its vessels, and one that pays dividends when it comes to interior space.

Walking aft past a washer/dryer, I grabbed the door handle to the amidships master stateroom and noted how the egg-shaped knob fit perfectly in my hand—a reminder that Horizon’s design team thought as hard about the details as they did about the larger elements. I opened the door, and it was immediately apparent that Horizon had put on a clinic in how to fit extra stowage aboard a boat. The stateroom had no fewer than 23 cabinets and drawers, more than enough for owners to add an extra leg or two to a summer cruise. Sapele wood throughout, and blackout shades on the hullside windows, made the space both pleasing to the eye and secluded all at once.

The Horizon E56 carries 660 gallons of fuel and, according to the builder, has a 230-nautical-mile range at a cruising speed of 23 knots. But she’s more than a vessel that owner-operators can use simply for long weekend getaways with friends and family; she is a true midsize motoryacht whose custom detailing makes her feel like a mega-yacht.

Take the next step: horizonyacht.com

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