Traditional Tool
CRAFTSMANSHIP
CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014 85While the SW partnership mainly concentrates on sailing yachts
they have designed a number of motorboats and Bob was keen
to show us Pandl, a 26ft 3in (8m) tender which is used to ferry
crew to and from their 50ft (15.2m) 2003 creation, Hoi An.
But the boat is also a result of a design needing to cater for
specific needs, and so, for instance she has an open transom to
make it easy for owners to swim from her. Local experience of
the area being littered with lobster pots also led to her being
designed with a jet engine – so there’s no propellor to get caught
up in a lobster buoy line, plus it makes swimming off the back
easier too. To be able to access local beaches she has a very
shallow draught – of just 14 inches (355mm).
“I drew this boat while I was still employed at the Brooklin
Boatyard,” says Bob. “She’s very much a one-off and partly
designed for the owner’s wife to be able to visit her mother on
a local island offshore here. It would be 60 miles by road but
only ten by sea. So she has a 240hp Yanmar four-cylinder turbo
diesel that powers her along at 31 knots with a Hamilton Jet.” Tel: +1 207 338 6636, stephenswaring.comBob takes me out in Pandl to let me get the feel of the boat.
She’s partly influenced by the local lobster boats which are so
common in these waters... but you’d have to look twice to really
see the provenance. It’s more in her lines than her steering and
deck arrangement. She weighs just 5,200lbs (2,358 kg) which
gives her a feeling of stability without seeming heavy. The jet is
like a bucket which directs water. It takes a while to get used to
but makes the boat very manoeuvrable. And an emergency stop
just turns the bucket mouth from aft-facing to forward and you
come to a halt in the water in a couple of boat lengths. We don’t
try this at speed because of the open transom!
Bob says there was a plan to put a gate across the stern but
so far there has been no need to do that. We power up and in
my notes I read that at 29.5 knots she “tracks like a witch, with
no sense of waver, and you can walk around the deck without
having to hang on”. But do note the calm waters we were in.Jet boat which acts as superyacht tender
Above: toys on the
varnished engine
console include a
chart plotter and
GPS. There are
seats for ten or 12
people either sideCB323 Stphns_Wrng.indd 85 24/03/2015 18:46