I use music to set the mood in my office. One recent morning, I decided to tackle the folder on my desktop labeled “Tales from the Dark Side.” It’s a hackneyed reference to the throngs of boaters who, after decades as sailors, became trawler owners. Then, I heard The Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed croon, “Well, I’m beginning to see the light.”
About that whole dark side thing: I had a mini epiphany.
Since taking the helm chair at Passagemaker, I’ve met more than my share of sailors who spent decades shuddering at the thought of becoming power cruisers, only to become the most vocal supporters of the trawler life. I have encountered them at boat shows and on the docks at our Trawlerfest events, and have been treated to their glorious photos from ports of call around the world, showing couples and their families standing proudly in front of their little ships.
One conversation I had a few months back was with Miles Cherkasky. Miles and his wife, Laureen, spent decades sailing up and down the East Coast between Canada and the Bahamas, but they craved more adventure. Like many boaters, they found that the physical toils of running a sailboat were overshadowing their self-satisfaction with sailing. They wanted more comfort and space. “We needed to make a change,” Cherkasky told me.
He says they knew it was going to be a trawler and settled on
a semi-displacement hull. For them, Outer Reef Yachts’ semi-
custom process felt just right. They ordered an ORY 580, which they named Ariel.
Since taking delivery, the Cherkaskys have (as Lou Reed sings in another song) been set free. They “are pretty much full time on the boat,” Cherkasky told me. They started out doing the same route as with their sailboat, but, after some time, began to stretch Ariel’s long legs on offshore passages to Bermuda and with deeper explorations of the outlying Bahamian islands.
At displacement speeds, Cherkasky says, Ariel has a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles with a 10 percent reserve. This is short of the unlimited range of a sailboat, but it’s good for most passages they’ve undertaken. They have considered adding fuel bladders to extend her range, or perhaps ordering a larger vessel with more tankage, but Cherkasky says that Ariel’s length is just about the limit for the cruising couple to handle themselves. Plus, he says, “Whenever I get the itch to get a bigger boat, I wash her and realize we’re good.”
Last time I checked in, the Cherkaskys were in Maine’s Acadia National Park, bound for the fjord-laden remoteness of the Canadian Maritimes. Their itinerary happened to remind me of another Velvet Underground number: Run, Run, Run.
This article was originally published in the September 2024 issue.
