|
The spot where I found the Nordlund Xpress LT 57 appealed to me about as much as the vessel herself. She was tied alongside a pier on the Hylebos Waterway, just behind Nordlund's custom yacht-building facility. The Hylebos cuts through a hardscrabble slice of waterfront on the northern fringe of the Port of Tacoma, Washington, a vast maze of container terminals, concrete plants, grain elevators, and ramshackle marinas.
I love such places. Always have.
I stopped for a moment, first to check the strength of the ebb and then to give the 57 an appraising look: A classic express type with all accommodations below, she virtually glowed with elegant simplicity. No whipped-cream profile here, I noted. And no swoopy side windows. Except for a little tumblehome aft and some curves along the leading edges of the superstructure, she was all long lines and angles. Even her sheerline was virtually straight.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
|
"Morning," said a salty, white-haired guy at the boarding gate. "I'm the owner, Robert Mann." Within minutes Mann and I'd loaded the PMY test gear onboard, sized each other up, and jumped into a discussion of the thinking behind the 57's creation, a project requiring the combined talents of naval architect Ed Monk, Jr., GRP structural engineer Tim Nolan, fluid-dynamics specialist Ed Hagemann, the tank-testing experts at British Columbia's Vizon Technical Center, and, of course, the Nordlund folks.
Mann's approach had been basic. By capitalizing upon 40 years of experience cruising and racing high-tech composite, ocean-sailing yachts, he'd hoped to produce a modern, lightweight (hence the LT in her designation) powerboat with good performance. He'd wanted a sporty top speed, seaworthiness under coastal-cruising conditions, and exceptional comfort. "A big part of the comfort thing comes from keeping the boat smooth and quiet," he said, while leading the way down a superbly crafted Oregon cherry stairway communicating between the wheelhouse and the saloon. He achieved this primarily by using V-drives to push the engines as far aft as possible, an approach that helps produce well-balanced, nose-up running attitudes as well as reduce sound levels in the wheelhouse and accommodation spaces.
We began by examining the two-stateroom, two-head layout below decks, a roomy arrangement that featured furniture custom-made in San Francisco and upholstered with Belgian fabrics, top-end commercial-grade appliances in the galley, and a big skylight brightening the saloon. What was more edifying, however, was the utility area I explored under a hatch in the saloon. In addition to scrupulously installed copper and PVC plumbing runs here, slice-of-bread-thick welded-aluminum tanks on either side of a centerline crawl space, and a massive Freeman watertight hatch in the forward bulkhead (accessing one of six bilge pump-equipped watertight compartments), I was able to get a first-hand look at the essence of the 57: strong but lightweight construction. The framing system was of the longitudinal type seen in airplanes, only with bulkheads doing double duty as web frames to cut weight. Hull stiffeners supported large, exceptionally rigid, cored-fiberglass panels overhead, nixing the need for heavy beams and carlines under the cabin sole. And of course there were the smooth surfaces that I could see between the hull stiffeners. The entirety of the 57 is cored with either Airex or Corecell foam and laid up with state-of-the-art resin-infusion techniques, two more serious weight-saving strategies.
|
PAGES:
|
1
|
|
 |
|