MBY journeys to Ipswich for a test of the Hardy 40DS
The east coast of England could have been in the eastern Med on the day we turned up to test the Hardy 40DS. The sun was blazing, the air still and the surface of the River Orwell disturbed only by reflections.
The 40DS uses the well-proven hull of the Hardy 42, so despite the benign conditions providing nothing to put this particular boat to the test we know that the pedigree is good.
The DS stands for deck saloon and, pootling sedately towards Felixstowe, we began to get a real grasp of how well this whole one-level-living thing can work.
The cockpit doors don’t just slide open, they fold so the opening is essentially as wide as the entire wheelhouse. This means that you can drift between cockpit and saloon with only a small lip at the bottom of the doors to negotiate.
Let’s move on to performance. The test boat had a single 440hp Yanmar 6LY2A and, really, was most comfortable cruising at 15 knots. Top speed is a quoted 19 knots but we only managed 18 on the day and that was at a rather raucous 3,300rpm.
My advice would be that if you want a boat that cruises comfortably in the late teens then you’ll need the twin installation.
This isn’t too much of an issue, though, because Hardy will fit pretty much any single or twin engine installation you want as long as it fits in the engineroom.
Some tweaks are in the pipeline for the midships cabin and they will improve the workings of the sleeping area in particular. The berth will be transformed into a proper double, as opposed to the slightly awkward head-to-head sleeping arrangement there is at the moment, and there will also be a small seat installed to put on shoes.
You will be able to read about the boat in more detail in the June issue of Motor Boat & Yachting where there will be a full boat test.
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