The museum ship USS The Sullivans (DD-537) experienced flooding on her starboard side and took on a heavy list overnight Wednesday, according to her caretaker, the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park.

Images from the scene show the WWII-era warship listing heavily towards the pier and settling by the stern, her starboard rail underwater.

The park’s staff realized that the ship was taking on water at about 2200 hours, according to the Buffalo News, and they called a salvage and repair company to attempt an emergency patch. The breach is located aft on the starboard side, the park’s director told media. Dive inspections and emergency dewatering efforts were under way on Thursday afternoon, with assistance from local fire and rescue agencies…

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The trickle-down effect is supposed to happen slowly but this time its pace is very fast indeed. Just five months after the end of the 36th America’s Cup, Persico Marine launched a fully engineered concept for a 40ft foiling monohull loaded with America’s Cup technology and systems. But the Persico Fly40 isn’t a leading-edge one-off, it’s a one design class for owner-drivers with a fully managed regatta circuit – and the price, and ongoing cost of ownership, is a lot lower than what TP52 owners, for example, are currently paying. It’s a compelling idea and one that Persico is in a uniquely strong position to deliver.

‘We built two boats for Luna Rossa which took a couple of years and we built the one design arms for all the teams,’ says Mark Somerville, general manager at Persico Marine. ‘That’s when the concept was developed. We put in place the technology and tried to capture as much as we could within the AC period to have that trickle-down effect happen as quickly as possible so we can bring this new technology of foiling boats to the public…

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This beauty is a classic. $60k. More here.

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An ex-Vendée Globe racer is an unusual choice as a world cruiser, so why was it ours? Although we already both owned a pair of production boats, my partner, Timo, and I were searching for something to spice up our cruising life. We toyed with the idea of a classic schooner, but weren’t sure we could handle all the varnishing. Another option was to maybe find some kind of an old raceboat. That would certainly make for some exciting sailing! In the end location—or was it destiny?—played as big a role in our final destination as anything else, as we found ourselves anchored just a few boats away from just such a vessel, the Open 60 NV, in Opua, New Zealand.

After doing a little digging, we were fascinated and humbled by what we learned about NV’s history. Designed and built in 1989 by Hungarian sailor Nándor Fa, she took part in four singlehanded around-the-world races in the first decade of her life. Perhaps the highlight of her career was a fifth-place finish in the 1992-93 Vendée Globe with Nándor at the helm, making him the first non-French skipper ever to finish. She entered the Vendée Globe again in 2000, skippered by Russian adventurer Fedor Knovukhov, who sadly abandoned both the race and the boat in Sydney, Australia, due to technical problems. In Australia, the boat underwent further modifications, including having an extra 6ft added to her stern, after which she became a regular competitor in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s (CYCA) many offshore races, including the Rolex Sydney Hobart, in which she came in 8th in 2002…

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The new Beneteau First 36 has finally taken its first tacks in Slovenian waters. Its architect Sam Manuard, explains to us how it revives the spirit of the old First with a mixed program for regattas and cruising and a spacious and intelligent interior. Read on thanks to bateaux.com

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Nowhere is this more the case than in the constantly evolving world of superyacht racing but the Superyacht Cup in Palma maintains its position as Europe’s most successful and longest-running superyacht event of all

Superyacht Cup Palma (SYC) has always prided itself on being nimble and responsive in adapting itself to the ever-changing nature of the superyacht world, anticipating the expectations of owners, captains, and crews, and responding promptly to requests or suggestions. And so it is with the 2022 edition of Europe’s longest-running superyacht regatta which late last year – soon after celebrating its 25th anniversary – agreed to move the event to run from June 29 to July 2, a change of just a week from the original June 22-25 dates…

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When Jonathan Mckee is on your boat, you tend to win. Here he is on Fujin, the Bieker 53 racing in Offshore Multihull finished first in class, and showing fine form in the BVI Spring Regatta.

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The “boundaries” of “tollable” miles, as laid out in a proposal from the City of San Francisco, which was obtained by Latitude 38.

In yet another attempt to both alleviate the Bay Area’s worsening traffic congestion and bolster public-transit alternatives, the City of San Francisco is considering imposing what is being called a “luxury driving toll” that would include all manner of nonessential, recreational activity — including people driving to go sailing. A copy of the proposal, which was obtained by Latitude 38, outlined the overarching philosophy of the plan, offered some details as to how the toll might be assessed and collected, and described a vision for expanded ferry service.

“We cannot ignore the fact that gridlocked traffic continues to worsen, and that strong measures are required to discourage driving,” the proposal read. In discouraging non-work-related trips, which were also classified as “luxury commuting,” the City of San Francisco’s Group on Traffic Congestion and Highway Authority said it can also shore up funds to increase non-road-based commuting infrastructures.

“Fees can be collected by tracking FasTrak toll tags, via GPS and other technology, to monitor driving,” the proposal read, detailing plans that would require drivers to list their work-related destinations, which would be considered essential. All nonessential or non-work-related driving would be “tollable” miles.

Perhaps the most ominous portent of the proposal was this passage toward the end of the document: “Other municipalities throughout the Bay Area have shown interest in this pilot plan, and are likely to impose some version of punitive measures on nonessential driving as populations increase, and some 50,000 cars are added to the road each year.”

The proposal said that ferry service was the most likely candidate to receive toll funds, and laid out an ambitious plan for a fleet of high-speed, high-volume ferries that would service the heart of the Bay Area’s shores. In describing the planned ferries, the proposal painted an opulent picture of what the vessels might entail, including full-service bars and grills; televisions playing sports, news, and CNN and Fox; high-end reclinable seats; massage therapists on staff (not included in the ticket price); and occasional live entertainment.

(To be fair, it sounds awesome.)

“Ferries are the most expensive form of transportation and require enormous public subsidies,” the proposal said, using a candor not often seen in government documents. “Even though there is an inherent romance associated with commuting on the water, there is an obvious need to further lure people with amenities to ensure sufficient ridership, and to justify the hefty investment in this particular public-transportation sector.”

We can only imagine that “monitored driving” and the relatively subjective application of behavior-based fees will, justifiably, stoke the ire of privacy advocates, and clearly we are headed for protracted, taxpayer-funded litigation to trudge through these issues and, in all likelihood, arrive at the same stalemate from which policy makers originally embarked…

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Yes, this was written just before the venue announcement, but it is about much more than that. ed.

OK, fair point. Having lambasted current America’s Cup rules and regulations as unhinged from the realities of the sport I should at least have the courage to propose some sensible alternatives. Challenge accepted.

First, let’s get a threshold pedantry out of the way. The “America’s Cup” is not named in honour of the Land of The Free. It is, in truth, a presumptuous invention. The cup itself – the “auld mug” – was originally the Royal Yacht Squadron £100 Cup.

But six years after the schooner America won that first challenge race around the Isle of White, the US syndicate, lead by George Lee Schuyler, donated the cup to the New York Yacht Club under a Deed of Gift, blithely re-naming it the “America’s Cup”.

That rather arrogant act of appropriation was not appreciated by the British. Forty years later their yachting magazines still insisted on naming the event the “America Cup”, with no possessive apostrophe “s” and the yacht’s name in italics. But I digress.

What is clear from the letter and spirit of the original 1857 Deed of Gift (and its subsequent amendments and additions) is that the Cup competition was meant to be a fair and balanced sporting contest that combined sailing skill with yacht design.

Easy to say, difficult to achieve. What the mid-19th Century lawyers who drafted the Deed failed to foresee was that technology would eventually come to dominate the event and relegate the sailors to a minor supporting role.

To my mind, that is the imbalance a revised America’s Cup must correct if it is to retain any relevance to the broader yachting community…

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