Okay. Here's another one from IBEX...a grrrreattttttt one. And my colleagues and I on the judging panel gave it an innovation award, too, mostly because it adds safety to a boat without adding a whole lot of extra cost and also because it obviously has developed from, in not just my opinion, a veritable stroke of genius.

The idea's pretty simple really. Groco, the outfit that's been around for years selling valves, sea strainers, sea cocks, MSDs and a host of related products, is offering a series of bronze monitors with paddlewheels (similar to those on boat speedos) installed inside. A monitor can be te-ed into any inlet waterline (downstream of the strainer typically) that feeds sea water to a temperature- and/or flow-sensitive piece of machinery, like a main engine or engines, a generator, an air-conditioner, or a cold-plate refrigeration unit.

Shortly after installation of however many monitors seem necessary, a black-box computer that's part of the system calibrates normal water flow through each monitor and makes an electronic record of it. Should the flow in any given monitor drop below normal once calibration is complete, the black-box computer sends a signal to a dashboard panel that produces both an audible and a visual (light) warning for the operator. The paddlewheels themselves can be cleared by pulling a lock-in plug from the bronze tee fitting, after closing the related sea ***, of course. And the paddlewheel can be removed entirely in the event it should become obstructive in an emergency.

Why is all this so darn groovy? Well, now and again, especially when Mr. Murphy is in a real zero-tolerance mood, a main engine or a genset will catastrophically overheat well before the full extent of the catastrophe has materialized on the dashboard gauges. Hey, it happens! A gizmo that signals a decrease in inlet cooling water well before the water even gets to the engine, on the other hand, is likely to give boat owners much timelier warnings than they are going to get from their engine gauges. Moreover, air-conditioners and refrigerator units seldom, if ever, have gauges that signal a water-flow problem. So being able to carefully monitor the water flow coming out of  their related sea strainers is going to save somebody some moolah somewhere along the line. Probably big moolah!

But how does the main-engine monitor take into account all rpm settings, you may ask. The thing is simply interfaced with a tachometer (either bridge-mounted or engine-mounted) and then calibrated via the black box for an extensive variety of throttle settings, thus allowing the monitor to pick up on trouble no matter how fast or slow the boat is going.

Groco's calling the new system the SSA (Strainer Service Advice) and offering bronze paddlewheel-equipped fittings in hose sizes that range from 3/4 inch to 6 inches. A black-box computer, a dashboard panel customized for the number of monitors an owner requires, and an ample amount of wiring harness completes the package. I am not absolutely sure SSA is actually on the market yet but will find out within a day or so from Groco. I'll include pricing as well if I get it. And some drawings and pictures.

 

 

 

I've just returned from the IBEX Show in Miami, where new products to the marine scene are showcased. While there as an Innovation Awards Judge, I came across several innovative gizmos that are likely to make our lives as boat people safer, easier, or simply more fun in the future. They were all great, of course, and I may brag on them a little in upcoming posts.

When I got back home, however, I discovered something maybe even a tad greater--a rather bulky and mysterious package that had been dropped upon my front door step, courtesy of the U.S. Mails. I LOVE mysterious packages. And when I opened mine it contained an unusual product that is most assuredly not ready for IBEX next year. But on the other hand,  I continue to be so intrigued with the darn thing that I feel compelled to share it with the entire blog-O-sphere.

Called the Flea-P-S by its inventor (and I don't think he'll mind if I use his name here) Don Grant, it utilizes a technology Grant says the Vikings employed to get to American long before Columbus had even begun toying with the concept. But before we go any further into this fascinating technology of the Nordskis, let me give you a photo of an entirely critical component, in fact THE most critical component of the Flea-P-S: The flea...and, more to the point, the source of the flea:

 

A word of caution here. That's Pymander right up there, a cat who calls my home his own. Do I mean to imply that Py has fleas here. Certainly not. I am simply using him, or rather his photo, as an illustration of the type of source we are talking about or, to be more precise, that Grant is talking about. Dogs will work as well as cats for getting fleas, by the way, and, let's face it, even an especially scruffy crew member may fill the bill in a pinch.

Now to Grant's thesis. Apparently, says Grant, the Vikings were able to navigate sucessfully across oceans way back before anyone else primarily because they'd discovered one important thing--fleas jump or crawl in a northerly direction when given half a chance. He says he heard this bit of navigationally valuable information while listening to National Public Radio, he adds, so, for my money, it's true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Anyway, Grant's come up with a device (which he kindly mailed off to me knowing, somehow, that I would be one of the few people in the world who would properly appreciate it) that is purest genius in its savvy simplicity. It consists of little more than a square board with N, S, E, and W marked on it--you can forget about boxing this particular compass O Navigation Afficianados (but then again, why do you need to be THAT accurate with degrees and all if you're only trying to hit a whole continent)--with a recess in the center (presumably a habitable spot for an individual flea or even a family) covered by a walnut shell (or rather half a walnut shell) attatched to the board by a long piece of string. Let me give you another picture here for the sake of illustration:

Using the Flea-P-S is actually quite simple, as you'd imagine. Grant's directions go pretty much as follows:

1. Place Flea-P-S on flat surface near your helm station--I put mine on the kitchen table since I was a little worried about spreading fleas around my wondrous Grand Banks 32 Sedan trawler Betty Jane.

2. Place flea in recess in center of device--I am still looking for a flea and am contemplating discontinuing Py's Frontline treatments (for flea eradication) at least for a while, just as an experiment. I live to serve...indeed I do.

3. Place cover (walnut half) over flea and count to ten either out loud or to yourself or with boat mates in unison, Viking style--I counted aloud Viking style, in fact very aloud, in an attempt to make up for the absence of a flea and because I have blonde hair. Is blonde spelled with an e at the end?

4. Quickly remove cap and note the way the flea crawls or jumps--I removed the cap and nothing happened.

5. Turn Flea-P-S in direction of jump or crawl (N stands for North)--this didn't go real well either.

6. You will now know your compass heading--I didn't but I was standing in my kitchen afterall and really didn't give a darn.

So finally, let me give you one more picture (with the walnut half removed so the flea can jump or crawl) to solidify your understanding of what this whole thing is about. Most likely, you will not see the flea jumping or crawling but that is because I could not flnd a flea on Py. Should I be able to cultivate some livestock on him over the next few weeks I will do an update with some better data. In the meantime, however, I am guessing these photos will help you build your own Flea-P-S should you want to check out all this Viking stuff for yourself. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Lots of people tend to run fairly fast in marinas, I guess because their sense of optimism overwhelms their grasp of reality. More than a few times I've seen various vessels, from ships to runabouts, tangle with docks and/or other boats in tight spots because of too much speed combined with the unexpected obtrusion of a mechanical difficulty. Say, something like a stuck throttle, a gear jammed in the forward mode, or some other lusty trick of fate.

I've owned and worked on a whole bunch of boats during my life, some recreational and some commercial. But I've always entered marinas, shipyards, and other such places the same way--slow. Basically, this is because I believe that it is much easier to add motive power to a moving vessel than it is to subtract motive power. Inertia being the culprit, of course.

At any rate, here's how I enter my marina aboard the Betty Jane. Upon nearing the entrance (see photo above), all things being equal, I slow down by shifting into neutral, a move that allows the boat to almost drift to a stop. Then I shift back into idle-ahead while transiting much of the marina, although I might occasionally shift back into neutral again at corners or if there's a lot of traffic around. The key to this part of the plan is to simply keep moving at a steady, reasonable rate. After all, you and your crew want to get to the dock sometime!

Now for the second half of my nifty little method. Once I get into the fairway that intersects my slip, or sometimes even before, I pull Betty out of gear and let her coast again, in order to take virtually all way off. Then, to keep the ol' girl creeping along, I simply bump her gear shift into idle ahead briefly...just for a second or two. Then I pull 'er out. And I continue to bump the shift ahead/out every minute or so (see the photo above) to keep just a little, highly manageable forward momentum going. Bump. Bump. Bump. And remember...dead-idle's the deal. Keep the throttle pulled back all the way!

Once I get to my slip, I try to virtually stop the boat (usually by shifting into reverse momentarily) before making my swing to back down. Betty, like most vessels, is easier to rotate or turn when's she stopped. Otherwise, she's both going ahead (or astern or sideways or whatever) and turning at the same time, a complex lashup of anxiety-producing vectors, particularly when the going-ahead component gets out of hand.

Frankly, I can't think of anything better for safely transiting seriously restricted waters than bump speed. I've used it on oil-field boats, tug boats, trawlers, cruisers, outboard skiffs...you name it. The technique works as nicely for twin engine vessels as it does for singles, by the way. Often, what works best with twins is an alteration of the bump gear, first port, then starboard, or visa versa. You can often even steer with your alternate port and starboard bumps while keeping your wheel centered.

A couple of summers ago I had to discombobulate Betty Jane's antique steering system so I could install a new Simrad autopilot. Unfortunately, there were several tight-fitting stainless-steel and bronze components of the system that were so corroded together it seemed virtually impossible to get them apart.

I am not easily deterred, however. And I tried (singly and then in unison): WD 40, several brands of penetrating oil (including the much-touted PB Blaster), a gear puller or two, a propane torch, and various mallets and ball-peen hammers, both with rags (to protect bronze surfaces) and without. Nothing worked--I mean nada!

When in doubt call up a relative, right? I called my brother--the industrial-strength industrial electrician who lives in Northern New York State--and he suggested a product called Aero Kroil. He said that he had used it many times on big machinery and that it had never failed. If there was any substance on the planet Earth that would help me get Betty's steering system apart, he added, it was Kroil!

So I bought a can at a machine shop for something like $15, as I remember. And I sprayed it into the interstices between the parts and waited a minute or so (per the instructions on the can) and presto! "The oil that creeps" crept. And with a little (and I mean a very little) help from a mallet, the components slid smoothly apart and I was able to get on with my project.

Kroil? The stuff's magic! 

 

 

So I recently shot this not-so-artistic photo while cruising in the British Virgin Islands for a story for PMY's December issue. And while some of the events of the trip went well beyond (and were perhaps even darker than) mere cruising, the sun and the palm trees shown here nevertheless declaim a certain steadfast joy.

My wife BJ and I connected with the trees while entering Cane Garden Bay (on the north coast of Tortola) onboard a 47-foot Moorings power cat.  Even as I sighted my way through the reef, the ground swell (originating Lord knows how many thousands of miles to the north) seemed just a little too hefty for comfort but I kept on easing slowly ahead, mostly because some friends of ours had told us once that we simply had to see the place, no matter what. The swell stayed hefty all night unfortunately, but there was a plus side to the constant skewering and heaving.

It's called beauty, I'd guess...or maybe poetry. See, Cane Garden Bay in September is virtually deserted due to the threat of hurricanes. But on Sunday evenings sometimes, if there are no hurricanes or threats of hurricanes, after all the little kids and families have left the beach, a couple of restaurants may stay open under the tall wavy trees.  And they often offer excellent reggae bands. And the bands play good, solid, home-made reggae music.

And it drifted out to us that night from one of those restaurants on a wood-smoke-flavored breeze. Along with the laughter of a few inspired customers who continued to sit around listening, chary of going home even though it was late. And over our heads there were stars, billions of stars, all visibile thanks to the welcome absence of civilized light. And there was the Milky Way as well, arching across the unfathomable dome of the sky.

The softness and philosophical quietude of it all was reassuring, I suppose, given the near-infinite sadness we'd bumped strangely into the day before.

 

 

 

Over the years, my trawler Betty Jane has hosted any number of friends with storied pasts. And just this weekend another came aboard--my buddy Charlie. And off we went to explore an in-no-wise-charted spot on the northern coast of the  Gulf of Mexico called Crooked Island. I'd never been there before. Certainly Charlie'd never been there before either. And, as luck would have it, Bill and Didi, my friends off the Viking in the the slip adjoining Betty's, were willing to give us a little rundown on how to get through the narrow pass.

Precisely because the lagoon at Crooked Island is so pretty I am not showing a picture of placed here. You gotta draw the line sometimes in order to protect your home waters from tourists. And getting in there didn't prove too difficult, although coming out got a tad problematic due to a totally air-headed thing I did.

While plugging along in water that was too shallow for Betty's own good I bumped the bottom, albeit gently. And I did this, believe it or not, without paying even the slightest bit of attention to the perfectly wonderful track on my Garmin GPS I'd established while entering the lagoon.

Anyway, here's a picture of Charlie (who spent many of his younger days working on shrimp boats in the Gulf...note the shark tatoo on the right shoulder) so you'll have his profile in mind while I muddle onward here:

So after my bumptious bump-bump episode, I got to thinking about why a smart guy like me, with seafaring credentials and experience up the ying-yang, would keep on keepin' on in dicey lookin' water, even as his depthsounder begins to pop scary numbers and his friend gets a little antsy. I mean, was I trying to save time? Was I trying to save fuel? Was I trying to do anything in particular? Was I even thinking?

Hmmmmmm...not really. 

So I cogitated upon all this dreary stuff for quite some while as we wended our way back to Panama City that evening, Charlie and I. And here's the only thing that tends to make sense about the whole deal. Charlie put his finger on it while he was talkin' about returning to port on a fantastically slow, fully-loaded shrimp boat, with the delights of civilization hanging on the far-distant misty horizon, seemingly unreachable and tantalizing as hell.

"Maybe you were just in a hurry to get home, Bill," he laughed.  

Many years ago, on a dark and stormy night, I was running an oilfield boat of some description west-bound through a rather hairy stretch of the southern segment of the ICW. The stretch was either in or near Houma, Louisiana or New Orleans, I think, although I disremember which. Anyway, I was chuggin' along, approaching a bottlenecky curve, when here comes a big, east-bound towboat pushing umpteen barges at a pretty good clip. Nothing unusual here, of course.

But what soon got my undivided, totally-flabbergasted attention was this. After the umpteen barges had passed me by, along came the tug's wheelhouse, which was on a par with my own wheelhouse elevation-wise. And, by George,  it was lit up like somebody's living room, with a TV set on the steering console, and Perry Mason playing on the TV in living black-and-white. Moreover, the skipper was kicked back in his helm seat, manipulating one of the steering sticks with his foot, and gabbin' on the VHF while watching Perry go after the bad guys. Whaaaaaaaaa! The scene was so dang incongruous that I had to swing around in my own helm chair and take another look just to prove to myself that my eyes hadn't played a trick on me.

The enormity of it all began to sink in shortly. Here was a big pushboat, a fair-sized tow, operating in poor visibility due to rain and wisps of fog, with lots of traffic going both east and west and a narrow channel to contend with. And this joker was watching TV and blabbing on his radio while supposedly navigating at the same time. One of the original, or near original, multi-taskers!

Why bring up such a gloomy piece of reminiscence here?

Believe it or not, just about a month ago, I came across a TV-set-equipped helm station on a big strapping cruiser I was sea trialing for a boat test feature. And, upon seeing the darn thing for the first time, I was, of course, constrained to do a double-take very much like the one I did long ago, while looking at the TV-watching skipper back in Louisiana. Check it out for yourself:

Now don't get me wrong. The vessel's helm station was great otherwise, with a logical easy-to-read layout and excellent visibility everywhere, even astern thanks to clear sightlines through the galley and the saloon. But a TV hanging down from the overhead at or near the helm station? Even though the manufacturer might argue that it had been angled for viewing primarily from the dinette area on the port side of the wheelhouse? Or that it was fitted for at-anchor or dockside viewing only?

In my opinion, given the many duties and responsibilities entailed in safely navigating a vessel, particularly during certain high-stress periods, distractions at the helm should be kept to a minimum.

Yeah, a stereo playing after dark in the wheelhouse is nice. And so's a little companionable conversation? But a TV hangin' down? At the helm? So a multi-tasker or semi-multi-tasker can try to simultaneously steer, keep tabs on the road ahead as well as his engine gauges, operate the radio, and navigate, all while watching a favorite program or a movie? You gotta be kiddin' me.

 

   

 

So check out the brass cabin lamp shown above--it's from the saloon of my lovely Grand Banks trawler Betty Jane. A few weeks ago I took to comparing the frowziness of this little jewel with the rest of Betty's interior and came up with a stalwart, lantern-jawed conclusion...I needed to replace the dang lamp with a brand new one so that my lighting situation might better blend with the otherwise high-endy look of my teaky and sumtuous decor. A little high-falutin' perhaps? Well yeah perhaps, but a solid seafarin' proposal all the same.

The next thing I did was check on pricing. And holy smokes folks. I mean: HOLY FREAKIN' SMOKES! These days, one brand-new brass cabin lamp costs more than Betty's yearly fuel bill and, given that the charming ol' girl has three of these lamps onboard (and you can't sport one gorgeous new lamp in your saloon and two frowzies in the forward stateroom) there was simply no way I could realistically fund a whopping, three-part, lighting-related cost overrun on the maritime budget (of approximately $1,000...whooooooeeeeeee), given the state of our nation's economy and the state of my own economy as well. I mean: my wife would get upSET! If you know what I mean.

So, like a bilge rat eyeballin' a trap, I sought a thinking-rat's escape. I decided to call the manufacturer of my brass cabin lamps and see if  I couldn't find a way to get a little rehab action going on. And the discussion I had with the Danish guy in Denmark (where else?) took me back to two spots in my very own biography that, at least the first time around, did not impress me all that much.

The first occurred during my military days when Drill Sergeant Sapp expected us raw recruits to shine our belt buckles with such enthusiasm that all vestiges of protective lacquer would be worn away to expose a virgin brass surface that needed polishing with a vengeance every damn day. The second percolated up from my stint as a Merchant Marine cadet when I was expected to "shine the brass" (a long and thankless job that included the railings of the steering stand, the giant binnacle, and a few other odds and sods) of the MV Roger Blough, an ore-carrier which still quite proudly (and without a doubt, quite brassily) sails the Great Lakes. In both cases, the memory was highlighted by a product called, descriptively enough, Brasso!

 

Anyway, just a few days ago, I bought myself some Brasso, which interestingly enough now seems to be sold in plastic bottles rather than metal cans. And with the Dane's advice still ringing in my ears and surprising amounts of brass-burnishing expertise returning to me like a bad dream, I went to work with an old rag and plenty of elbow grease.

If I was going to add anything to what the Dane told me (and the directions on the bottle), I guess it'd be this: Apply your Brasso to whatever you happen to be working on (be it lamp, barometer case, bell, or whatever) and let it sit for a minute or so before you begin polishing with the rag. After all, if Brasso will do part of the job, why not let it? And bear in mind that using Brasso on brass nautical paraphernalia will indeed remove the lacquer that's there to ward off corrosion. Don't pour on the Brasso and the elbow grease until you've totally given up on the lacquer. Once the lacquer's gone, however, maintaining the burnished look of the brass will go much easier and faster.  

 

And one last thing. Just in case you get tired of the whole deal, as you probably will if you're like me, it helps to turn soothing music on while you're polishing. And, just as importantly, quit thinking about ever finishing the task during the years alloted to you here on earth. Polishing stuff up with Brasso is not about the destination...it's about the journey.

But hey! The destination ain't bad when you eventually get there. The way I got it figured, I was able to do all three of Betty's cabin lamps in about three hours. Which is not bad considering the sorry shape they were in to begin with. And the fact that they now look spectacular!

 

Yeah, a picture says a thousand words but hey! Sometimes pictures can say things words simply can’t. Take the images that accompany this entry, for example. Certainly, one of Viking’s strong points is engineering but attempting to convey the extent to which this is true is often difficult, at least in a magazine story with space constraints. So here are a few extra photos and some explanatory text. With any luck, they’ll synergize just a tad and more clearly emphasize the high level of  engineering I found on the 57:

 

1. This general engine room shot shows, among other things, two of Viking’s biggies—redundant duplex fuel/water separators (which the company was installing on its vessels well before many other builders began doing it) and Viking’s so-called “Billy Beams” or steel-beam-type engine bearers named after Bill Healey, who started Viking with a background in the steel biz. The first feature promotes safety and maintenance ease, of course, and the second mechanical solidity and seaworthiness.

2. Viking’s been installing shorepower cord hangers on its boats for several years now—keeps the cord or cords from laying in the cockpit underfoot while dockside. Also gives the cockpit a clean, neat look, something that’s valued by true seafarers, clutter-haters mostly.

 

3. Continuing with the true-searfaring-clutter-hating theme, a hatch over the various shoreside connection paraphernalia also keeps the cockpit looking clean and neat.

4. Steering hydraulics on the 57 are big, beefy, and installed with industrial-strength bolts and other hardware. Moreover, there are quick-connect fitting T-ed into the hydraulic lines (see the barbed fittings emanating from the lines?) to add/remove fluid. This saves considerable time when maintenance issues arise.

 

5. Check it out. Not only is there plenty of room outboard of the main engines, there’s ready-made seating. Personally, I find it exceptionally tiring and difficult to do engine maintenance and other chores while on my knees on a walkway—being able to sit down helps me concentrate and makes the project more relaxed and enjoyable, no matter how tough it is.

6. The 57’s primary water pump is huge and powerful—This baby, in fact, is about the size of a terrier and most likely just as feisty. The pump, by the way, is imported from Italy by Viking.

7. Sure, this is a small point. But the Cruisair air-conditioning units onboard the 57 are secured with these fasteners. Note the sound-and-vibration-absorbent pad underneath the unit. Isolating components in this way and anchoring them solidly with custom-fit clamps helps keep the 57 church mouse quiet. 

I guess I'm as into reading maritime books as any man alive. I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first dove into certain salty works like Melville's Moby Dick, Raphael Sabatini's Captain Blood, London's The Sea Wolf, and Conrad's Lord Jim. Lots of times I was onboard a vessel of some description at the time, either one I owned or one I was working on, stealing a few hours away from life's routines for some yondering, as Louis L'Amour (who wrote more than a few yarns of the sea himself) once described the practice of simply drifting off someplace, for no particular reason other than to see what you might find there. Heck, I remember reading Clive Cussler’s Raise The Titanic! by candle light on an old Seabird yawl I once owned or was owned by. I was tied up at a rough-and-tumble marina in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. Right on the edge of the ICW. I can almost smell the damp, fragrant pages today, as well as the sweet perfumes of outboard-motor oil (I had a clunky old, semi-operational Evinrude for docking purposes), mildew, brackish water, and wax melting in a tin can candle holder.
   

So hey! Considering how smitten I've always been with the pure, tactile romance of books and reading, can you imagine little ol’ me  buying a freakin ' electronic reader? Well, let's just say the part of me that digs technology momentarily beat out the part that loves low-tech stuff, and presto--here I am with an Amazon Kindle in my hands.

And I gotta say, folks--what a cool little device. Recently, I decided to re-read Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and, while laying in the V-berth of the Betty Jane, on the spur of the moment, I downloaded (it took about a minute) not only Treasure Island but all of Stevenson's works for about $5 and began reading right away. Books for sale on Kindle are both fast and CHEAP!!!!!!!!!

Moreover, when I used to travel to do boat tests in the pre-Kindle days, I typically carried along a few inspirational tomes that I regularly enjoy reading each morning. Only trouble was the darn things had a tendency to weigh me down whilst I pulled my roller through airports en route to the next destination.

Now things are way different! Just about all of the books I used to lug around are in the Kindle library so I've downloaded what I could and substituted a couple of others. Wow! Instead of packing a passel of physical books around with me these days, I just drop the Kindle into the  frowzy old Filson bag I've been carrying to tests for 18 years now and I'm good to go. Figure I save myself about five pounds of extra ballast and a heck of a lot of trouble.

By the way. If you buy a Kindle of your own, remember to also buy a groovy, slip-on sock to protect it from wear. I got a frowzy one that perfectly matches my Filson. It’s padded for extra protection as well and, as I recall, I bought it off the Kindle website.

 

I’ve sea-trialed my fair share of Marlow Explorers over the years and it’s my observation that there’s at least one general aspect they all seem to share, even the comparatively techy ones like the 70E we tested recently on the Manatee River, not far from Snead Island. Well beyond the high-falutin’ construction techniques and numerous other futuristic developments, there’s always lots of traditionalism evident just about everywhere. And when you think about it, this state of affairs is probably just an natural outgrowth of the personality of the honcho and founder of Marlow Marine, David Marlow. Indeed, the guy’s building some of the most technologically sophisticated yachts on the planet these days, and there’s more technology on the way over the next few years. But hey, besides being a technophile, Marlow’s a deeply traditional person with a sailboat-racing pedigree, a biography that includes running boat yards and working on shrimp boats in Mexico, and a couple of deep, cultural taproots that hark straight back to the old-style Florida commercial fishing villages of Apalachicola and Cortez where he grew up.

So is it any wonder that poking around a Marlow Explorer tends to both push a person toward the future (from the technological standpoint) but concomitantly pull him back toward earlier, simpler, and perhaps more romantic days when boats looked like boats, inside and out, thanks to louvered-teak cabinet and locker doors, chromed reading lights crafted in Denmark, fiddles on flat surfaces to keep stuff from rolling off in a seaway, anchor windlasses with hefty wildcats and screw-type break-bands, and thick teak-planked decks reminiscent of the old, square-rigger days?

No, I don’t think so. And if you look at the pictures shown here for a minute or two, I’m guessing you’ll wholeheartedly agree.