I had a terrific day at the show yesterday, walked plently of miles.
At Nashers request I payed a visit to the Spirit berth and thought it was the best turned out boat of the show, the Spirit D130 what a beauty. Now I'm not a saily person at all, but was extremely impressed, anyone know the price?
I had a ride out in Micki Dee Bee, not once but twice. The first trip out was a sedate cruise around the official course, but the second was fantastic and had Nauti and XXXXXX from Ceasar Marine grinning like Cheshire Cats. The party trick of doing tight donuts at an incredible angle was very impressive and probably only possible on a twin setup. I recon we had greater that 45 degrees at one point. The quiteness from the Suzuki 250 outboards was deafening
Double redundancy on nearly everything too, I was very impressed. Even the front bench seats where comfortable too if a little tight for a lanky person like myself.
Then I had a ride out in Nauti's little runaround the Ceasar Thunderbolt, I had a surprise though as it had none of the characteristics that I though I might get with such a small craft and a large power unit on the back.
To start with I found the Thunderbolt a very stable platform when boarding her, the seat felt a little tight and that was using a special cushion that Richard had made special, to fit in the bottom of the bucket race seats, but I do have a rather heavy frame and figued I needed as much bracing I could get, so that wasn't a bad thing
The slow 6knott ride out to the course was a fairly dry affair with me actually getting wetter on Micki Bee Dee 15 minuits earlier. Was as noisy as I'd expected, but not unpleasantly so. When we arrived at the course Richard checked I was OK and opened her up.....First surprise, she actually seemed to get quieter on the plane, whether it was the wind in the ear syndrome or it genuinly was quieter, I don't know. The second surprise I had was the soft ride she had, none of that hard ride I thought it might have. The top speed around the course was restricted to 25 knotts but at this speed I was very impressed, the corners were taken fairly tightly but I think that Richard was being a little kind on me, none of the pitching you associate with mono hulled vessels and took the corners flat as you like. I'd like to see what this craft could do at 40knotts or above, still have a very impressive ride though. After Three circuits it was time to come back and Nauti throttled back and the noise levels seemed to go back up again. If I had some disposable income, I certainly know where it would be going.
Thanks guys for allowing me to come out with you, still smiling from my experiences.
