“Adventure awaits you with a boat like this”
Credits: Dan Jones
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
Okay, in this video, we’re going to take this Jeanneau 10.5WA for a drive straight into this choppy water around these rocks, past the breaking waves. We’ll find out the best cruise speed, then we’ll go into some flat water and see what she’s like at wide-open throttle. Dan Jones is my name, welcome to Dan’s boat life and the test, starting right now.
TEST DRIVE
So, 10.5 WA stands for walk around. The accommodation on this boat is amazing. You’ll discover that in the walk-through. That’s going to be a separate video to this, so follow the link coming up in the description if that’s of interest to you.
I’ve just brought the boat up to 17-18 knots here. I’ve got my fuel flow metre and a couple of boats getting in my way. I’ll just move… looks like they’re doing a little bit of survey work.
What do we have? We got waves of swell coming in through the heads today. We have a Northeast Breeze which has increased in power since we’ve done the Drone shoot. It’s probably sitting on about 15 knots, and we have large breaking swells just as I go past the bombora here. So, I’m not going to cut the corner today or we’d roll the boat, so we won’t do that.
But straight away, I’m just sitting on a cruising speed of 24. I’ll actually slow that down to 21. So far, with the waves coming on my starboard beam and the wind on my, it’s either starboard or bow, the boat has been dry at a speed of 24 knots and a consumption of 92 litres.
We’re going straight into confused water here. Hopefully, you’ll see on the camera the bounce-back of the waves on the rocks just here, and I’ve got to make sure I time my peel-off so I don’t get into the breaking surf.
“she’s probably capable of reaching a maximum speed of 40 knots, with a fast cruising speed of 31 knots”
Just feeling this hull, this is a boat that’s a bit of an all-rounder, so you’d probably pick your conditions, but right now in this very confused, bumpy, awkward conditions, I feel great at 24.5 knots.
Peeling off now and going into some waves, a couple of waves. I’ll hit that at 22 knots, one and two, sending the water out to the side. I think if you hit that at an increased speed, you might send a little bit of water up over the bow, so just control your speed if you’re going into some of that short stuff. And I can see rolling and breaking waves to my left, so we’re going to make sure we stick to the markers and steer clear of that.
Got the trim tabs, got the Mercury 300 horsepowers. This boat can go up to 425, and she’s about a five-ton boat light ship with 800 litres of fuel capacity. 65% of fuel onboard today.
So, just coming around at 22 knots, I haven’t got my revs showing on, so I’ve only got fuel flow and speed to read out to you as we go. Now I’ve got the waves behind me. These are decent rollers, maintaining 24 knots, still dry.
I think I like this driver’s position because you feel quite elevated. You do have wind in your hair, but I’ll try it from the seated position when we get into the flat water. Here, I’m actually rolling down. Surf waves there and rollers here. So, look at that, I’m actually surfing this wave now. That’s cool, 27 knots doing that.
And it’s really bouncing up and down through these waves here in a comfortable manner. These would be one and a half-metre rollers and two metres as they jerk up closer to the reef just here.
So, considerable size, definitely not Mediterranean conditions. But from the helm back, everyone’s going to be comfortable. I certainly wouldn’t be running with people in the bow in these conditions. Flat water, no problems, but we’ll test that for you and show you in detail.
Now we’re getting into a little bit of calmer water, so here I can actually speed the boat up. This is quite entertaining. Yeah, at 27-28 knots, she’s got a good amount of heel angle. I’ll put the boat through a bit of a turn. I want to point out that I’ve used no trim tab for that whole journey, didn’t feel like I needed it. Yeah, she’s a big substantial boat.
Electronic steering is quite light to touch. It’s a fun heel angle on this one, and I’m doing that at 28 knots. I’m not going to go full speed until we get to the flat water because I’m just not going to get you the true numbers, I feel. And for this whole time, I feel going through choppy water, the standing position seems like a logical choice for this boat.
“This is primarily a family boat that can comfortably accommodate two families.”
So, what did I just learn? These 300s, in offshore conditions, are giving us 21 knots to 24 knots. I’m going to call that offshore because that was considerably rough. In bumpy water, we still had a really easy 27-28 knots. Let’s go try it out in the smooth water.
Okay, guys, so I’ve just snuck back around the corner to get away from all of that swell so I can give you some accurate numbers on the top speed of these twin 300 horsepowers.
A couple of things I’ve just learned. So, with the Yamaha throttles, they’re Digital throttles. Light to touch, so in choppy water, your hand could accidentally over-throttle it. The solution to not do that is rest your thumb on the throttle base. I gotta say, the Mercury’s throttle base is a little bit more comfortable than this one to do that in choppy water, but it is possible. That’s the solution, you could obviously do single lever and do it like that too as well, but just if you’re a dual lever kind of guy, then that’s what you do.
Trim tabs, just didn’t use them. Yeah, I obviously could lower the bow in the rough stuff if I wanted to. Didn’t feel the need in today’s conditions, so no point. I did learn something else, though, on how excellent this is; however, I wasn’t super impressed with the throttle design. But I love the motors, the joystick is also excellent. So keep watching. I’m going to give you a little demo in some windy conditions of this joystick because it’s definitely something if you are a joystick lover, worth paying attention to. But here we are, flat water. Let’s get the boat moving, and let’s see what we do.
Okay, so she really pops up on plane there. I’ve just gone wide open throttle, legs down, now I’m getting a little bit of leg trim up. And let’s just go full speed.
We’re at 34 knots, 35, 36, 37 knots. That sounds like the engine’s at wide open throttle there. 38 knots, I’d say this is a 40 knot boat, guys. 38 and a half knots. You know, considering we’ve still got a few little waves left over, I’m getting 38.7 knots right there. One more little trim up, see if that makes a difference. 38.7 knots is my wide open. And now I’m just going to do a sweeping fast turn.
So with these motors, she’s probably max speed of 40 knots. I’ve currently got 38.5. But for your fast cruise speed, just by listening to these motors, I’m gonna say your fast cruise is about 31 knots, feels about right. The engines are not working too hard just there, and the boat’s passing through even these waves quite comfortably. Let’s just give it a hard turn in this flatter water, which is not actually flat. I’m probably not coming up with the camera, I still have waves, but it’s better than what we had.
So at 31 knots, even at full lock, she’s quite fun! You know, if you’re a Mosman dad and you’re just taking the kids out for the day, you can still have a lot of fun just with all the kids hanging on the back of the boat, not hanging on the back of the boat, sitting in the seat, I should say. But yeah, I mean, this is primarily a family boat that will take out two families very comfortably, take out mom, dad, and the kids for an overnight with ease.
But if you’ve still got a little bit of lead foot left over from your younger days and you’re like having a bit of fun, this boat’s definitely going to do that for you. And oh my god, with the 425 Yamahas, which it is rated to, this boat’s probably going to be touching 50 knots, I would say and 45 without a problem. So let’s just head over and give you a demonstration on this joystick.
JOYSTICK DEMONSTRATION
Okay, guys, so I’ve changed position again, and I’ve just come back to an exposed location deliberately. I wanted to demonstrate this Yamaha joystick, which, from what I’m discovering, I think it’s actually better than the Mercury for a couple of reasons. The functionality is greater, so you have high modes and low mode, so you go up to five positions. So if you are in a crosswind and you need to really dial up the power, like I have just now, you go up to level five, and she’s really gonna go. So if you do a full joystick around like I am right now, she’s going to really give it some.
“She has twin Yamaha 300-horsepower engines with Digital throttles.”
Just the next thing because I’ve done this on a few Mercuries, and I love the Mercury joystick, and it is great, don’t get me wrong, so don’t be disappointed if you have one. But pressing stay point like I am right now, and I’ve got wind on the beam and chop on the beam, this thing holds position like you wouldn’t believe.
So just let it do its thing. Here we go, now it’s coming alive. And just looking at the land referencing from where we have started with a crosswind, for a joystick operation on an outboard-powered open-style day boat, this is the best that I’ve seen so far.
So look at that, since activating, we haven’t lost any ground, we haven’t drifted, the engines are working hard, as I would expect, but it is keeping its attitude relative to the wind, and we’re just not drifting. Listen to those motors, hopefully you can hear that on the microphone. That’s amazing! That’s really, really good!
Obviously, there’s a lot of benefit to fishermen who want to come out, there’s a drift point and a fish point. I’m not a fisherman, so I’m not going to pretend that I know what that actually means. But if you are new to parking boats and new to bringing boats in marinas surrounded by multimillion-dollar boats, this is going to put you at ease because you can do things like operate it with one hand and then switch hands and switch your body relative to the position of the wheel and the joystick still makes sense. So me pushing the joystick in the direction I want to go, the boat goes that direction. If you haven’t driven a boat before and this is your first experience, that will make your life a lot easier.
