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Building a sportfisherman
at 3,000 feet above sea level, where the mercury spikes 100°F
for weeks in the summer and hangs below freezing in the winter, might
seem strange to an outsider. But Cabo Yachts calls Adelanto, California’s
high desert and birthplace of the builder’s flagship 40 Express,
home. Cabo recently took its new launch to Florida, and it’s
here that I meet Cabo’s delivery captain Peter Tinkham.
The 40 is easy to
spot behind Hutchinson Island’s Marriott Marina Resort in Stuart,
Florida. This is due to the 40’s optional J&J tuna tower,
her wide 15'9" beam, and the fact that her hydraulically lifted
bridge deck is wide open, revealing a pair of optional 700-hp MAN
D2876LE 401 diesels complete with optional gold-plated valve covers.
Tinkham is tinkering
and tweaking the 40 as I hop aboard and am drawn to the Midas touch
in the engine compartment. I easily step down into the area and have
near walkaround room. All regular maintenance items are inboard for
easy access. The standard 10-kW Westerbeke genset just aft of the
powerplants is powerful enough, but it doesn’t have a soundshield.
On an express boat, aural comfort is tough to achieve with big iron
sitting below the bridge deck, so every sound-attenuation tool is
welcome. Tinkham tells me subsequent boats are being fitted with genset
soundshields.
Tinkham and I untie
her lines and let the 40 out of the stable. Soon we’re running
the channel behind the Marriott with the MANs singing in symphonic
synchronicity at 2270 rpm as my radar gun displays a breakneck 43
mph and my decibel meter reads a stentorian 92 dB-A. The 40 has Secretariat-like
speed, but she’s loud. The MANs’ digital readouts show
a fuel burn of 134 liters per engine, which translates into 71 gph.
(Prepare to convert lph to gph if you opt for the MANs, since they
only display liters.) At 2000 rpm, the 40 easily cruises at 37.8 mph
with a fuel-burn of 52.3 gph. This boat can move.
Tinkham offers me the
wheel, which features Hynautic hydraulic power-assisted steering that
seems, at first, almost too smooth. For an unfamiliar helmsman, it’s
easy to oversteer, but the advantages are worth the minimal learning curve.
Once I aim the 40, she tracks as if on rails. I put the single-lever Glendinning
electronic controls, which oddly are located to the left of the wheel,
in synch mode and push full forward on the right control. The 40 nails
2270 rpm as I put the wheel hard over to port, and she cuts an unusually
tight circle (about a boat length and a half) without excessive heel.
Sightlines are good from the standard Stidd helm seat, although I wish
the large electronics console was lower. Considering I’m 5'7",
which means telephone books at more than a few helm seats, an overhead
electronics box would allow for a height reduction of the console and
even better visibility forward.
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Cabo 40 continued > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5,
6
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