The final leg of MBY's trip back from the Nimbus factory with our new boat could not have been more fun.
Kate and Sue have already penned a few words on our trip from Gothenburg to Lymington in our lovely new Nimbus Nova 300R, so see what they had to say and I’ll take up the story on what was supposed to be the penultimate leg of the journey:
Getting Jo out of bed at 6am isn’t easy. She’s not what you’d call an early-morning person (I’ve seen three-toed tree sloths show more signs of life than Jo before around 11am). But Jo and Kate were booked onto a flight from Amsterdam to London at 9.30 that morning, and we wanted to drop them at Amsterdam station by 8am latest. Fortunately, Volendam to Amsterdam took well under an hour in a boat that will top 48 knots and cruise comfortably at 35 knots.
Tying up right outside the main train station in Amsterdam is a weird (and rather bouncy) experience, but we off-loaded the girls, sat in the sun and had croissants and coffee for breakfast, and then headed west along the North Sea Canal to Ijmuiden and the lock out into the North Sea. An hour later we were locked through and heading south-west along the Dutch coast.
The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the thermometer read 22 degrees C, and there was barely a puff of wind or trace of a wave to be seen. We wound the Nova up to 40 knots and settled back to eat up some miles. By early afternoon the fuel gauge was reading a quarter full, so we put in to Blankenberge on the Belgian coast for a fill-up. As we set off again, heading for our scheduled overnight stop-over at Calais, I looked at Lester, he looked at me, and we both said: Sod it…let’s try for Lymington.
So we did. We crossed the shipping lanes from Calais to Dover, turned west and headed past Dungeness, Eastbourne, and Brighton, skirted south of Selsy Bill and were in the Solent by 7.30pm. With no berth available at Lymington, we put in to Cowes and were on our berth with a gin and tonic shortly after 8pm.
Breakfast in Amsterdam, lunch in Belgium, dinner in Cowes. Around 315 miles in one day. Lester was all for heading for the Scilly isles the next day, and then Kinsale the day after, but I drew the line there and then. The boat might be more than capable, but I needed a rest.
Dropping the boat back to its base in Lymington the next morning we clocked up 48.3 knots on the GPS and as the KAD300s continue to loosen up you get the feeling that there’s still more to come. All in all the boat held up pretty well to some pretty severe punishment…yes, a few things fell off, but nothing too important, and it covered over 1000 miles in seven days at sea without missing a beat.
Watch this space, and our off-line brand (aka Motor Boat & Yachting magazine) for a full test of the boat and regular updates on what lunacy we’ve been up to with the Nova this summer.
