Jeanneau NC 895 Series 2 Jeanneau NC 895 Series 2 Some boats are good to begin with, but when Jeanneau decided to make a new version of its NC 895, the builder nailed it. The new NC 895 Series 2 is a very impressive design, especially on the inside. Jeanneau still offers the original 895, which started out in 2012 as the Merry Fisher 855. In the ensuing decade-plus, almost 2,000 855s and 895s have been built. They are perfectly good boats, but for the NC 895 Series 2, the French builder completely rethought everything. Instead of dressing up the old hull, Jeanneau completely redesigned the Ser ..read more

Forward Thinking Last week, an email came in from the folks at Hinckley Yachts who told us they had big news, but we’d have to keep it a secret ‘til July 24. Well, that day has arrived, so here it is: Just in time for the 30th anniversary of its iconic Picnic Boat 39, Hinckley is unveiling its first ever 39 with a forward seating area. And man, now with three separate socializing areas, this Picnic looks to be a model of swooping, curved-surface beauty, and shallow-water capability. According to Hinckley’s General Manager Scott Bryant, development for this boat started a couple of years ago ..read more

Managing Editor of our sister publication, Sail magazine, Lydia Mullen entered her first Newport to Bermuda race to report on the event and bolster her offshore-racing resume. She quickly went from reporting on a story to being IN the story when the boat she was on collided with submerged debris and began sinking. And that’s just where her epic tale begins. Join Editor-in-Chief Dan Harding as he learns about her harrowing experience and the lessons all boaters can learn from. Listen or Watch in the players below ..read more

American engineering, craftsmanship and courage, combined with European design, is the bedrock of a new Maine-built brand. Revel 44S Launching a new boat model these days takes guts; launching a new boat brand? Now that takes something else entirely. To keep things P.G., let’s call it … courage. That’s a trait Josh St. Germain, 34, Revel’s CEO appears to possess in spades. And though considerably younger than many of his industry peers, the gregarious leader boasts a resume that gives him considerable sea-cred. A life-long boater, St. Germain graduated from the prestigious Landing School in Ma ..read more

Go Overboard Mike Smith on why you need to get some dive gear and get under your boat. Sometimes it pays to get wet. I don’t mean stand out in the rain—most of us have more sense than that. I mean put on fins, a mask and snorkel and swim under your boat to find out what’s happening below. You can check the anodes, run your fingers over the prop blades and rudders to feel any damage, scrub the slime off the bottom, and scrape off barnacles before they cause trouble. If you have scuba gear, that’s fine, but you can also free-dive this project, since mostly you’ll just be looking things over. And ..read more

From near destruction by an infamous Carolina hurricane to a trajectory that’s led to the the biggest outboard powered yacht ever built, Steve Potts has followed a fascinating and sometimes harrowing path. Listen or Watch in the players below: This episode is sponsored by Volvo Penta. Enjoy peace of mind with Volvo Penta's Assisted Docking system Dock your boat easily with the Volvo Penta Assisted Docking system, the next generation of marine automation. It simplifies docking by counteracting the dynamics of wind and current, improving your control in tight spaces, allowing for safe and easy ..read more

On the Shoulders of Giants Scarborough Boatworks' "Skin Deep" moving at a high rate of speed past Bodie Island Lighthouse. Photo: Daniel Pullen Ricky Scarborough builds boats from fiberglass and epoxy, but his secret ingredients are family and community. Prefer to listen? Listen to this article in the player below: Anyone who’s ever said that perfect is the enemy of good enough has never met Ricky Scarborough. It’s a thought that comes to mind as I wander the Scarborough Boatworks factory on a dreary spring day with Ricky and his Office and Marketing Manager Kayleigh Hatchell. The ..read more

Forever Underway Legacy stitch-and-glue artist Sam Devlin is still building boats at 70 and shows little sign of slowing down. It would be easy at first glance to not fully appreciate the boatbuilding significance of Sam Devlin’s Olympia, Washington, homestead-turned-boatshop. Rain pitter-patters through the deep green of the mossy forest. A boat transom with rudder is mounted to the flank of a venerable unpainted wood barn. A shy German shepherd approaches for a pet. Prefer to listen? Listen to this article in the player below: Perhaps most importantly of all, the quirky outbuilding dubbed ..read more

The Comeback Kid How Eastern Carolina University’s third baseman Parker Byrd survived and thrived following a near-death experience. Maybe next time,” was a common phrase 20-year-old third baseman Parker Byrd would use when a teammate would invite him and some of the other players to his family’s river house in Bath, North Carolina for a day on the water. Byrd finally agreed to dip his toes the weekend of July 22, 2022, along with a few teammates and his girlfriend at the time. Friday on the water went off without a hitch and they’d planned on heading back to their East Carolina University cam ..read more

Every time I step aboard a proper yacht for a review—in this case, the new Azimut 72 Fly—I always ask myself a counterintuitive question: How practical is this yacht? Now by their nature, most yachts aren’t what folks would typically call practical—after all, they’re yachts. What the question means more broadly is this: Someone is going to spend millions on this vessel. It’s one thing to design a beautiful yacht. It’s another to make that beautiful yacht, well, practical. Will a mechanic be able to comfortably and safely wrench on her primary systems in an emergency? Are systems intuitively an ..read more