PMY - Power&Motoryacht

Former ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus (far left) is developing a large, new marina in Sweden. If it’s a success, maybe Florida should ask Barry Gibb to help solve its dock shortage.

A beloved Rhode Island yacht club was destroyed by a fire in January. Although investigators do not know what caused the 102-year-old Edgewood Yacht Club in Cranston to go up in flames during a blizzard, they do not believe it was foul play. The building stood on pilings overlooking Narragansett Bay, which made the blaze difficult to fight from land, so fireboats battled the flames from the water. The club’s building, which was built in 1908 after the former building burnt down, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Word on the docks is that Tiger Woods is looking to unload his 155-foot Christensen named, ironically, Privacy. The Palm Beach Post has reported that the golfer is searching out a broker for the deal after his ex-wife Elin decided that the reported $2 million dollars of upkeep per year was not worth the price tag and turned ownership of the yacht down.

Designing new boats on computers is now so common, it's hardly worth mentioning. But while everyone seems to be doing it, a few boatbuilders have discovered—some the hard way—that CAD is not perfect. Indeed, they're learning that despite the wonders of this new technology, nothing can substitute for actually walking through a full-scale mockup to determine if all the proportions and dimensions really work.

According to a report in Soundings Trade Only this week, gyro stablizer manufacturer Seakeeper will offer to pay the entry fees for one of two major East Coast billfish tournaments this summer to customers who purchase one of its gyros.

I just returned from an IYC-organized trip to the Exuma islands of the Bahamas. The trip gathered five megayachts into a flotilla and set off to cruise the clear blue water of the lands. Included in the flotilla were Tuscan Sun, Big City (with their tender Small Town), At Last (tender: At Least), Hooter Patrol 4, and Independence.

Bealls Department Stores has donated more than $200,000 to the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation for oil spill-related research. The Bradenton, Florida-based retail chain raised the funds following the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The store solicited donations from customers and raised funds through “Save Our Gulf” branded merchandise. “Last year’s oil spill is an ongoing issue that needs serious research and resolve in the immediate short-term,” said Mary Beth Fox, vice president of marketing for Bealls.

Audiences eager to see Capt. Jack Sparrow return to the big screen next month in Pirates of the Caribbean IV should check out a new discovery left behind by the real-life pirate of all pirates: Blackbeard.

What makes a boat a yacht? If I had a dime for every time someone asked me that, I could afford to buy one. Unfortunately, there’s no agreed-upon definition. Webster’s “any of various relatively small vessels for pleasure,” is hardly helpful, and Wikipedia’s “a high-end recreational boat” is absurdly all-encompassing. Little wonder that the term has evolved into an honorific that anyone can bestow on his boat.