Arrived at the marina at 1100hrs, murky and a bit windless. Craig of Wessex Yacht Sales greeted us, and re-introduced us to the boat. She is a Grand Surprise called "Magic Roundabout", owned by the owner of WYS. As we were talking the sky seemed to clear a little and a light breeze was felt. Lines were readied and Craig started the little Nanni.
- First thought, the engine is a bit noisy. However this could be easily rectified by the addition of some sound insulation in the engine bay, where there is plenty of room to do so.
Once out of the marina, I was handed the tiller and I put on a few more revs on the engine, when it got somewhat quieter, and pushed us along at six and a bit knots. After some U-Boat avoidance style random helming, I got the hang of her very responsive tiller and we came into a little bay. I pointed the boat head to wind and Claire and Craig made light work of hoisting the Kemps Carbon laminate main and No.1 Genoa. Claire noted how much heavier than our own sails they were, however the Harken 40's were on hand to help. 2 speed winches! Luxury!!
I bore away slightly and Claire trimmed the No1, while Craig took the Main. More on that later... What I need to tell you now is "WOW!" In about 11knots of wind, we, easily and without fuss accelerated to 7.1-7.5Knots with the wind at about 40ish degrees true off the port bow. She can go closer, but for the minute we were just going. Another 10 degrees off and we busted 8 knots without breaking a sweat. The following wake to leeward getting louder and louder and the boat "humming" to herself. Apparently, when you've got the Grand Surprise "in the groove" she develops this harmonic vibration caused by her "short" foils. It can be reduced by some offset V's on the trailing edges of the foils, but I rather liked it!
Her heeling angles didn't get to the extreme, and she certainly felt much stiffer and more confident in the water than Neraida. Even with the mainsheet un trimmed (deliberate), when a gust came through, she heeled a little more (say 5 degrees) and developed a smidgen of weather helm. As she has a balanced rudder, this is a relief, as if she developed the kind of weather helm a FC8 does, the rudder would stall quickly and you'd have to quickly snap back to midships and start again! The only comment on heeling was the added beam made you fell a long way up over the large cockpit. Claire also has a little difficulty finding a bracing point for her legs as the cockpit is pretty wide.
The mainsheet is a neat system. Large Lewmar track across the cockpit floor, 5:1 coarse adjustment and a 16:1 fine tune which is accessible from both sides of the cockpit (double ended). The mainsheet trimmer sits just fwd of the helm, and has his or her own sissy (foot) bars to keep them planted. I suspect this is where Claire would sit!
As we cleared into open sea (where there be sea monsters) the wind picked up a little to about 15 knots. Ideally, we would have changed down to the number 2 genny, but we couldn't be arsed, de-powered the main a little so she sat up a bit more. We tacked a couple of times to see how she turned. Do it slowly and she kept a good proportion of her way on and back up to 7+ before you really had to think about it. We were exchanging glances by now, mouthing "fookin farst" to each other with silly grins!
After a while we were a few miles off shore and the Grand Surprise was taking the sea well, with the obligatory "slam" over the chop from time to time. To be expected really with a light displacement boat with the hull form that she has. Even so, up with in a "4" in open sea with a dry cockpit and only a damp prow is a lot better than we are used to! No "THUNK" from the keel either!
We bore away to put her on a broad reach, she speeded up nicely, just touching 10 knots on a surf down the low swell. Craig was a little nervous about getting the asymmetric kite up, but we convinced him it was a good idea and he set off fiddling with string and a big bag. We opted for the easy option and binned the genoa and stuffed it down the hatch out of harms way. Craig and Claire seemed happy enough trotting round the deck in the little rolling we were doing. Again, a good stable boat, with friendly big decks and plenty to hang on to.
I turned her dead down wind and eased the mainsheet ready for the hoist. Out popped the pole, Claire hauled tack so the foot was 18" from the end, and then she hauled away on the halyard. Big Kite! 77sq metres in fact. Strolled away at about 9 knots on a dead run until we gybed and bought her up as the wind was dropping off. 11.1 knots was our top speed and easily done. We both would have quite liked another 5-8 knots of wind to see what she could really do, but we were impressed enough with what we saw!
We dropped the kite without much fuss and I pressed the "on" then the "start" button on the Nanni and it started! No faffing around with outboards! :) We dropped and flaked the main and I asked if it was ok to take her all the way back to the berth, Craig seemed happy enough to let me do this, and I was very keen to see how she handled in close quarters.
I needn't have worried, berthing her is easy. Plenty of engine power, and she turns "on a sixpence". So no panic or bumps ensued. Victory!
Conclusion:
The Grand Surprise is all we could have hoped for and probably more. She is very fast, and easy to handle, for what is, essentially, a racing boat. We were taken aback a bit by the weight of the sheets and halyards initially, but looking at the numbers, she's got a big rig, and we'd just have to learn to use the hardware. After all the Mainsail is 1.8x the size of Neraida's, the Genoa we used was twice the size of our normal blade and the kite was just monstrous compared to our piddly 34sq m!
The GS's light and responsive helm was a joy, and well within the capabilities of a good autopilot. We'd want a roller jib and slides on the main for sail handling, but they are all pretty standard "wants".
The cockpit would take a little getting used to, but she is a very well designed boat. I would expect we'd adjust pretty quickly.
Great Boat. Top of the List!
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