Way back in 1995, Princess launched
its then-new 65. It was a very fine
boat, but the thing I remember most
about it was the television in the
midships master cabin. Press a button
by the bed and a huge (in volume
if not screen size) CRT TV would
lower itself slowly through the
ceiling: it was all very James Bond.
It’s fair to say that flatscreen
televisions were a total game changer
for boat installations when they
were introduced in the late 1990s.
Suddenly you had something that
could be hung on a bulkhead rather
than needing a cabinet with 2ft of
space behind it. The rise and fall
mechanism that allowed these
new wonders of technology to be
concealed at the back of sideboards
or behind settees even recaptured
a little of that 007 glamour.
Well, the game has changed again,
and in a way that Q would approve
of. Intelligent Glass from Videoworks
just might herald the future of
on-board screens. It works via
Smart Film, a thin membrane that
sandwiches into the middle of a pane
of glass, meaning most types of glass
can be used, including toughened.
LC molecules within a conductive
coating are arranged in a regular
manner when power is applied,
allowing light to pass through justlike any normal window. Remove the
power and the molecules become
irregular, effectively ‘frosting’ the
glass, making it opaque, blocking
98% of harmful rays and reducing
solar heat by up to 40%.
All of which, while undeniably
cunning, may make you wonder
what this has to do with televisions.Well, this is where Intelligent Glass
lives up to its name, because you
can also display moving images on to
it, effectively turning it into a screen.
Brightness and definition might not
quite be at the cutting edge of latest
LCD technology, but having seen it in
action, I can confirm that it’s perfectly
watchable.
Available in glass or as a self-
adhesive film (the former in sizes
up to 54in by 134in), it allows you
to turn any glass window or panel
(such as a shower cubicle) into
a screen, or indeed a blind.
Contact http://www.videoworksgroup.comAND YOU THOUGHT YOUR BOAT WAS SPECIAL
That’s quite ingenious. So how
many people can it carry?
Four different models cater for
anything from two to five people.And how does it attach?
It uses ‘boatbuckles’, a systemof straps that allows it to attach and
detach very quickly.What do you do with the pod when
the ski is free?
Run it on to the beach or just leave
it at anchor for family and friends torelax on while they await their turn
on the jetski.Any other tricks up its sleeve?
As well as different sizes between
4.5m and 6.5m, there are also
RIB versions with Hypalon tubes
and Pro versions designed for
commercial work.How fast will they go as boats?
They’re surprisingly nippy; some
will do up to 50 knots.What skis will they work with?
You can buy adaptor kits to make
them suitable for a range of skis
including Sea-Doo, Yamaha and
Kawasaki.I really like the idea. How much
do they cost?
Prices start at €8,999 for the new
444, not including the ski of course.Didn’t we have a speedboat/
jetski combo recently?
Yes, we did, the Vanqraft VQ16.
I’m glad you’re paying attention.
There is one very important
difference, however (two, if you
include the fact that this one
doesn’t cost nearly €100,000).Go on, what does this one add?
It’s not so much what the Sealver
Wave Boat 444 adds as what it
subtracts – a proper detachable
standalone jetski.It comes apart? Why so?
It’s the brainchild of Patrick Bardon,
CEO of Sealver, the manufacturer.
He dreamed of being able to
share his passion of jetskiing
with his family. What he needed,
he surmised, was a way of easily
transforming his ski into a proper
boat with room for the whole family.Reeds Cooking
at Sea
Handbook
By Sonja BrodieReeds Cooking at Sea
Handbook does what
it says on the tin:
it discusses a boat’s
galley, types of
cookers, and basic
stores and storage.
There’s a chapter on
pressure cooking, with others
on looking after water supplies
and things like baking your own
bread and preparing your own
fish. And then there are the
recipes. Some are so basic that
you wonder why they are there
(pasta salad?) and one or two
that sound more exciting than
they really are (pan-fried flying
fish – which are basically pan
fried sardines but you have
to cut the wings off first). But
there are some lovely breads,
and one or two interesting
one-pot wonders.
The big drawback of the
book is its size: there simply
isn’t enough room in 144 very
small pages for the advice
to be more than superficial,
or for the lists and recipes
to be more than minimal.
Adlard Coles Nautical £8.99The detachable jetski
makes the Wave Boat
a versatile leisure craftVideoworks Intelligent Glass
A new screen star is an agent for change that Q would heartily approve of
Moving images are
displayed on the
glass window91BOAT MASTER NEWTECH