From an international sailor with a penchant for power comes a boat to join the ranks of the world’s undisputed greats.

I have driven a lot of boats over the past three decades or so and in that time, very rarely have I found myself behind the wheel of something really special - something that outstrips your expectations with a dose of a reality you could not have envisaged. There are plenty of good craft out there, of course, that will stand on their beam ends, thrilling those aboard, and there are others that can reach those life-altering 80-knot plus zones, where the world seems to change shape and your mind is inundated with a fresh pace and intensity of sensory input.

Some of these craft are great sea boats, while others have the innate desirability to set themselves apart. But among these, there is a select element of boats that can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, not because of looks or style, but because they offer a helm that puts you in touch with the behaviour of the hull so directly that you and the vessel become almost indistinguishable.

I have driven such boats before. There was the Paragon Man VSV Mk II, a self-righting wave-piercer that would maintain 55 knots in any sea state. I also remember Odyn, a 14-metre 900hp twin-jet test-bed, built for the RNLI by Ocean Dynamics. The Arctic 27 was a beautifully balanced glass-fibre RIB from the Halmatic stable, while the Delta ARRC, the Pascoe 10m and the Rodriguez RHS 140 hydrofoil all stand clear in a memory packed full by 30 years of testing boats.

Some of these select few are speed demons, while some are capable of taking big seas and others just ooze a charge back through the controls and straight to the pleasure sensors. But all of them are genuinely special boats and I am very pleased to be able to add another to this exclusive list of six. It’s a boat that has been painstakingly built, regardless of expense and designed for one person only - the owner.

First-rate pedigree

Jason Carrington is a well-known, well-liked boat builder and sailor, from Lymington in Hampshire. A quick run down of his boating achievements tells you everything you need to know - four round the World races with Whitbread and Volvo, one Jules Verne non-stop round the World event, 15 Transatlantic trips, ten Fastnet races, seven Sydney Hobart races, three Admirals Cups, five years on the World match racing circuit and two Maxi World championships. And on top of all that, he is still one of only two people in the world to have held both mono and multihull 24-hour speed records at the same time.

Now this is a record that, even to the most bullish of boaters, deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. I appreciate of course that it’s a sailing rather than a powerboating CV but Jason has also been hammering around in power driven vessels all his life. His father even raced Offshore Class 1 powerboats, so you can see the talent and the pedigree that bubble away beneath the surface of this man’s design ideas.

It comes as no surprise then that, as well as being a sailor of almost unimaginable repute, Jason is also a builder of high-performance boats, specialising in ultra-modern techniques. It was only a matter of time before he put his talents to use and built a powerboat that would have us scampering around searching for fresh ways to describe its excellence. And happily, that time has come . . .

A personal creation

Jason built the C-Boat for himself, so this is not a production craft, with an established assembly line and a hundred-page order book. Certainly, if you want one, it can be built to your specification, but this particular craft is really just Jason’s runabout. Penned from the drawing boards of Humphrey’s Yacht Design and built entirely of the very latest materials (Carbon, SE84, Nomex and Corecell), she grabs the eye the moment you lay eyes on her.
The nine-metre C-Boat is very sleek, in some ways angular but not aggressive; eye-catching yet understated. In certain lights she looks mercurial, liquid, and although built from the most cutting edge materials, her silhouetted lines seem classic, a hint of slipper launch, a dash of MTB. Her straight bow harks back to ships from before my time and yet these old designs have proven so successful that they remain inherent in the most modern commercial offshore vessels. True she looks a bit like a Wally tender (and it’s also true that Windy now has a similar craft) but this C-Boat 9m remains a standalone, one-off vessel of explicitly bespoke design and build.

Heading out to play

She sits at her rather drab, grey, south coast mooring like some exquisitely exotic supermodel gently dozing on a bedsit sofabed. It’s an extraordinarily incongruous sight. Gently woken by the turning of keys, the twin Steyr 236hp diesels are barely audible. Upon letting go of the moorings, there are no loud throaty explosions of big engines revving up to prevent stalling as the gears are engaged. There’s merely a trickling sound as the water laps past the hull, while, even at tickover, the twin 230 Alamarin waterjets circulate enough water to manoeuvre with ease.
A simple manipulation of the buckets (water deflectors that control the directional flow of water from the jet nozzle) sees us heading out of the marina toward open sea and freedom from speed restrictions. And as we head out I muse on the fact that some people will raise eyebrows at the choice of engines. After all, twin 236s doesn’t seem to promise a lot of power. But when your carbon boat only weighs 1,200kg, you know you’re going to make the most of the power on tap. As if to prove the point, a handful of revs puts us on the plane in a flash. We increase the revs to wide-open throttle and, almost as we do so, the top speed of 45 knots is achieved.
The helm and co driver’s spaces are body bolsters, which almost merge you with the boat itself. There are grab handles in all the right places, but she flies straight and true and, with virtually no seastate on the test day, they’re not really needed. It is obviously not possible to test her seagoing credentials but if Jason (a multi round the World and Transatlantic sailor) insists that she behaves beautifully, I am inclined to believe him.
As is the custom with jets, the steering is finger-light. These are the first Alamarin jets I’ve ever driven and I am hugely impressed. They respond instantly to the throttle and bucket inputs and at no time can I force them to aerate. Tucking the helm over hard just results in rail-ride stability but if you drop the inside bucket a touch, you can elevate the vigour of the turn to a new level altogether, almost rearranging your organs, the forces are so acute.
However, this craft is practical as well as fun. She takes 580 litres of fuel, which on a day like today, gives you an enormous range in the region of 800 miles. The C-Boat also sports an overnight cabin, with a double V berth, galley and heads all on hand - and it is all so stylishly presented, it verges almost on the artistic. Jonathan Glynn-Smith is the man we have to thank for this exquisite internal design and we see the same minute attention to detail elsewhere, with custom-built carbon fastenings and cleats, hand-stitched leather and a general quality of finish that I have never seen surpassed on any other boat. The C-boat flows with style and craftsmanship from stem to stern, which leads us to the inevitable question - how much does a boat like this cost? Well unbelievably, this work of unmitigated loveliness could be yours for just 480,000 Euros. Yes, you could have a Wally Tender for the same sort of money but don’t you want that sort of money to buy you something extraordinary?

Verdict

The C-Boat is a joy to behold. Its aesthetics get even better when you’re on board and, as for the drive, it is something I will remember forever. It illustrates the very best of what is achievable when masterfully skilled and dedicated people like Jason Carrington, Jonathan Glynn-Smith and Angus Blair put their minds together. Plans for a 44-footer are already in place and I, for one, cannot wait . . .