THE WORLD’S COOLEST BOATS
COOL RATING PIERCINGLY COLD
The biggest obstacle to high-speed offshore boating is the topography. Conventional wisdom suggests that the route to high speed is to use hydrodynamic lift to skim the boat across the surface; the planing hull. And it works well – a flat-bottomed boat on flat water skates effortlessly across the top like a skimming stone. Unfortunately, it also delivers a back-breaking ride if there is anything more than a ripple on that surface – and there usually is!
To combat this, naval architects bend that flat surface into a vee, helping it cut into the bumpy stuff, and broadly speaking, the deeper the vee, the better it cuts, although inevitably the deeper it gets, the less lift there is and therefore the more drag. But what if you ignored the need to compromise and made the hull so sharp and pointy that instead of cutting into the waves as it goes over them, it simply slices straight through them? Well, this was the thinking of experienced mariners Richard and Mary Reddyhoff when they commissioned MarySlim.
Adrian Thompson came up with the hull design, Nic Bailey the styling, and she was built by Multimarine Composites in Millbrook, Plymouth, and launched in 2007. Although 73ft long, she is just 13ft 9in wide, and an astonishing 8ft 9in at the waterline. A 72ft Princess at 18ft wide rather puts those numbers into perspective.
Of course the accommodation isn’t quite at Princess levels, but that’s not the point – the point is demonstrated best by the wheelhouse glazing. The windscreens are 17.5mm thick and designed to withstand a pressure of 284kg per square foot! Because if you plan to travel straight through a wave rathe
