Trawler Lifestyle | PassageMaker Magazine & Events

The best time to visit Alaska's Prince William Sound is early May, everyone had promised, and we were believers as our small charter yacht, Faithfully, turned Point Doran into Harriman Fjord with the afternoon sun lingering in a cloudless sky. The air temperature was near 60 degrees.

The fjord opens into a panorama of sea, glaciers and 7,000-foot snow-clad Chugach Mountains rising from the shore, all indescribably dramatic against a flawless blue sky. Each time the 40-foot Nordhavn swung a few degrees to a new course, another glacier or mountain came into view. Rows of icebergs heading for sea on the ebb were off to port, and snow neared the highwater mark on shore.

Those who say their boats don't roll are liars...or they never leave the marina. Rolling is a fact of cruising life, especially on offshore passages.

And when a boat measures 88 feet LOA, with a 20-foot beam and a draft of 6 feet, and has a wheelhouse 21 feet above the waterline, then you just know she's going to be lively enough to roll the legs off a centipede.