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A Gale Warning is in effect for parts of the southwestern North Atlantic due to a stationary front creating strong gale-force winds and high seas. Rough conditions are also impacing parts of the Bahamas and SE US coast.
A stationary front extends from 31N 65W to 24N 79W. West of the front string to near gale winds (20–30 knots) with frequent gale-force gusts are causing rough to very rough seas and swells ranging from 4.0 to 5.5 meters (13-18 feet) (outside the Bahamas). Conditions are expected to continue for another 12-24 hours.
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The guy who was the kiss of death for Catalina Yachts—now back in business—was a financial mess, according to his personal bankruptcy filing. Michael Alexander Reardon filed for Chapter 7 liquidation late last month, declaring $3.28 million in unsecured liabilities against assets worth $574,000.
According to the September 30 petition, Reardon’s personal debt includes $866,953 in combined credit card and merchant cash advance (MCA) obligations, including related revenue-based financing and personal guarantees.
MCA debt is an obligation a business incurs after receiving an upfront lump-sum cash advance in exchange for a percentage of future sales. Legally, an MCA is structured as a purchase of future receivables rather than a traditional loan. That structure allows MCAs to bypass conventional banking regulations and state usury laws.
The largest individual creditor on the list is Catalina Yachts Inc., with a claim of $1.78 million representing about 54 percent of all reported unsecured debt. In April 2025 Reardon entered into a purchase agreement with the California parent company of Catalina Yachts in Largo Florida which required him to make regular payments.
In July, a state court in Pinellas County Florida awarded that amount to California Catalina in what was framed as a landlord-tenant lawsuit. Defendant Reardon was a no-show.
Reardon reported 100 percent ownership interests in five boatbuilding entities, each assigned a value of zero dollars in his personal bankruptcy schedules. Besides Catalina, the most familiar of these was Tartan Yachts, which Reardon acquired in September 2025. The factory reportedly had to shut down for a brief period.
In January, after Reardon had presided over the demise of Catalina, the owner of Tartan’s rigging partner, Great Lakes Rigging and Supply, came to the rescue and acquired Tartan, which continues to build boats at its Ohio factory.
The remaining three entitities center around Group Holdings, which spent a few years building a single carbon fiber at a factory in Edenton, North Carolina. Daedalus shut down operations in August 2025, as Reardon’s business partner and buyer for the only boat ever begun, had the unfinished hull shipped to Europe for completion and put the factory building up for sale.
Reardon also reported a declining income as the above events were transpiring—$186,000 in 2024, $124,000 in 2025 and $74,000 so far this year.
Reardon’s petition listed two personal boats as assets and priced for liquidation. One is Little One, a 1969 Chesapeake Bay wooden crabber valued at $2,500. The other is a 1966 83-foot steel boat designed by Goudy & Stevens and valued at $7,000.
He is listed as owing $8,000 to Edenton Marina. Reardon also owes more than $15,000 to a couple who worked for him at Catalina. David and Madeline Cayce had obtained a court judgement against him for unpaid wages with the help of the Pinellas County Office of Human Rights.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Sometimes he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
The other two, well, I’m intimately familiar, as are most of us. The other two knocked my feet out from under me this week—my wonderful PA took a skin biopsy which turned out to be positive for what we didn’t want, as so often happens. I carry the BRCA2 genetic mutation which indicates a stunning array of cancer, predominantly breast and ovarian. (Not looking for sympathy here, since we’re all friends I’m just sharing my world.)
She referred me to a local general surgeon, who offered on-the-spot surgical removal at my consultation. No caution required! Hey, what’s a couple more inches of scar on this girl? Doesn’t matter in the least. Surgeon and lovely Nurse Practitioner efficiently removed said cancer. One hour consult-surgery combo. Boom. Caution? None. I say get rid of that stuff just as fast as you can! If you don’t already know, I opted for immediate preventive double mastectomy and hysterectomy as soon as I discovered that gene. Brutal legacy on my maternal side. Maybe that is caution. Or fear.
I came home, laid down with my new stitches and just the beginnings of a little cold. Boom, this body said, reset and simply took me down and out. Never experienced anything quite like it, honestly. I’ve been worthless for three days, melted into the mattress in such a way that I can hardly move, must less function. Have you felt that? Whoa.
Was it the stress of the C word? (not the shocking one, the terrifying one). Yep. Absolutely. My third time with Squamous Cell Carcinoma, hoping it’s a charm. In a good way. I’ve had enough; it’s what took my Grandma Pearl after a long tough fight. So many have battled! We can’t cure the common cold, or even make it much less miserable, so, while I know there are advances in treatment, I hesitate to see how we’ll stop cancer; and let’s not get into the awful conspiracy theories that involve greed.
And that’s enough of that!
The proceeding paragraphs are my (reasonable, lengthy) excuse for offering up two pieces from the archives rather than fresh, fabulous reading material this week. Here are a couple SPARRING stories that I truly hope you’ll enjoy. Settle in.
“His expression told me, very clearly, that I hadn’t learned enough respect, yet. With a distinctive sense of something forever altered, I understood and gazed disappointedly after the dark, descending loggerhead. Was it caution that I had gained in addition to understanding?” READ ON….
Osprey nesting platform silhouetted at sunrise Cambridge, Maryland, By author
A STORY OF OTHER ENDANGERED THINGS, and how we eventually lose them.
“In all the time STEADFAST has been here, no birds of prey have chosen our spreaders. That fact hadn’t dawned on me until the osprey appeared and that chapter of my life was re-opened. I stopped at the bottom of the ladder, glancing up to confirm the unexpected silhouette. It was gone.” READ ON…
Until next week, thanks for staying aboard through the crests and troughs of life! ~J
It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month here in the US. I wrote my first self-published book about choosing preventive surgeries. Just for fun, I call my rebuilt breasts “The New Girls”, and that is the title of the Memoir.
I did not pose for this cover; my brother and I were hiking, the background is a fog bank off Silver Lake trail, Adirondacks, it was surreal. 2017 by John Wheeler
Fred Pickhardt’s Substack is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Fred Pickhardt’s Substack that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments.
Dangerous marine and coastal conditions are impacting the Southwest North Atlantic, the Bahamas, and the southeast U.S. coast due to a combination of strong high pressure to the north and a stationary front.
Strong to gale-force northeast-to-east winds are causing hazardous seas up to 20 feet along and north of the front, which stretches from 31N 56W through the northwest Bahamas and into the Florida Straits.
Gale Warnings are active for all Georgia and Florida Atlantic waters due to northeast winds of 25 to 35 knots, gusts up to 40 knots, and 9-to-15-foot seas. In addition, there are Coastal Flood Warnings for moderate to major tidal flooding worsened by seasonal King Tides, a High Surf Advisory for 7-to-11-foot breaking waves and severe beach erosion, and a high risk of life-threatening rip currents.
Fresh to strong winds and heavy northeast swells are forecast to persist through mid-week.
Fred Pickhardt’s Substack is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Fred Pickhardt’s Substack that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments.
The Nor’ Easter that has been slowly moving N-NE off the US East Coast transitioned into a “Subtropical Storm” late yesterday and was named Josephine and is forecast to rapidly transition back into an extratropical storm later oday as the center moves northeast at 10 knots. This will be the 4th named system this year to last 36 hours or less, likely due to the adverse effects of the strong El Nino.
Currently Josephine is centered near 39.2N, 67.3W with maximum sustained winds of 55 knots (65 mph) and gusts up to 65 knots. 50 knot or higher winds extend outward up to 110 nm to the northwest and Gale Force winds up to 360 nautical miles to the northeast and 240 nautical miles to the northwest. Maximum significant wave heights estimated at 6-7 meters (20-23 feet).
Forecast
Josephine is forecast to become a fully extratropical storm low tonight with max winds increasing through Friday up to 65 knots with significant wave heights building to 8-10 meters (26-33 feet) within 60 nm west of the center before weakening Saturday.
Elizabeth City sits at the southern terminus of the Dismal Swamp Canal and has the well-earned reputation of being a transient-friendly town with free dockage for 72 hours.
The Coast Guard just made a U-turn, lit up the blue lights and called you on the radio. Here is exactly what happens next.
Capt. Chris Caldwell walks through a Coast Guard boarding step by step, from the first hail to the receipt in your hand.
In this episode of the Southern Boating podcast, training captain and Southern Boating & Yachting contributor Capt. Chris Caldwell breaks down what to expect when the U.S. Coast Guard asks to board your boat.
He covers how the boarding crew approaches, the questions they ask about passengers and firearms, why they open the engine room and lazarette first, and the paperwork and placards they expect to see, including the Navigation Rules handbook for boats 12 meters (39.4 feet) and longer.
He also explains the most common violation he sees (expired flares), why life jackets must carry U.S. Coast Guard approval, what to say and what not to say, and how a simple pre-departure checklist keeps a boarding short and friendly.
00:00 Intro 00:22 Where the Coast Guard can board you 00:55 The wave, the U-turn and the blue lights 01:53 Head count and firearms questions 02:48 Engine room, lazarette and the safety inspection 03:26 The Navigation Rules handbook (39.4 feet and up) 04:06 Pollution placards and the waste plan 04:46 Your documentation number 05:35 The boarding report and the “gold sheet” 06:18 Why they pick your boat 07:18 Big events and holiday weekends 08:10 Is there anything they cannot do? 08:23 The federal requirements booklet 08:54 Life jackets: USCG approval matters 09:43 Dewatering devices 10:20 The most common violation: expired flares 11:06 What to say and what not to say 11:30 A friendly boarding in Charleston Harbor 12:13 Your pre-departure checklist 12:52 Capt. Chris’s background 13:33 “Owning the boat” 13:55 Ask Captain Chris on YouTube
Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes that mariners with saltwater in their veins will subscribe. $7 per month or $56 for the year; you may cancel at any time.
Fox News in Orlando had a howler of a sea story on Tuesday. The story said, “A solo sailor was left terrified and shaking after a near-collision with a U.S. Navy submarine in St. Marys River. Officials ordered the woman to clear the channel while she was struggling against strong currents and low fuel.”
All that came from a video narrated by the solo sailor herself, a portion of which you can view below. Loose Cannon watched the whole thing so you don’t have to. This was only her second time singlehanding, and she was delivering the boat from Miami to Charleston. Spoiler alert: She made it.
Yes, she probably was terrified—sincerely so—but the danger was coming from her imagination not the ambient world. The real question is why the people at Fox-Orlando ever thought this was a story to begin with.
She happened to be motoring on the Intracoastal Waterway by the Fernandina Beach inlet at the same time as an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine was outbound from her base at Kings Bay, Georgia. The solo sailor’s handheld VHF was turned down, and she didn’t respond to hails from the escort RIB, so they sped over to her and told her to get out of the way.
The Fox headline was spectacularly bad, but not in the way you might be thinking. The headline writer had skipper Shay Love avoiding “a near-collision,” which, taken literally, meant that her hopes for a “near collision” had been dashed, and she had actually hit the sub, or the sub had hit her.
Alternately, you could infer something else. The likelihood of colliding with the sub had been so small, one couldn’t even call it a “near collision.” It was so far from trouble that nearness was not achieved. Avoided, you might say.
Hey Fox, pick one or the other: Either the collision was avoided, or it was a near-collision. It’s a crime against English to avoid a near-collision.
My bet is that there never really was much chance of an accident—Love’s emotional state aside. But who wants to read a story headlined, “Escort vessel asks solo sailor to get out of sub’s way, and she does?”
Love also did some things that even some experienced recreational sailors like to do. She exaggerated the strength of the current happening while these events played out. I heard her say five knots at one point. The reporter quoted her as saying 10, which would have been nonsense.
The truth is the current at this inlet probably maxes out at 3.5 knots or 3.9 at worst, which is bad enough. She was also sweating fuel, which I don’t understand because she had just passed by a couple of gas docks on the Fernandina Beach waterfront.
All of this angst might have been avoided, if our young captain has gotten a copy of an old fashioned cruising guide. Waterway Guide, my old shop, probably could have forewarned Captain Love about the submarine traffic, inlet currents and the location of Fernandina fuel docks.
Anyway, all’s well that ends that way. She’ll probably handle routine stressors such as these much better the next time. Love will find a way.
As far as the news reporting, it harkens back to the reason we print people always held TV reporters in contempt, despite their better clothes and grooming.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
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