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BOAT REPORT


Set up for sunbathing: ample room to stretch out in the cockpit


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arasota, Florida. July 2012. It’s 100°F in the shade and not even 10am. I think about burying my head in the icebox Chris-Craft has provided but I worry it might look unprofessional. I wander along the line of boats this iconic American yard has lined up for us to test and watch the heat haze rise lazily off their highly polished hulls. Eventually I catch the eye of the guy in charge and he nods towards the Chris-


Craft Corsair 32. Salvation. There is only one way I’m going to escape this heat: I’m going to have to drive really, really fast. I step on board and dance an awkward jig along the molten teak to the helm. Six hundred horsepower gurgles powerfully into life and we pull away from the dock and out into Sarasota Bay. Once clear of the fi nal go-slow marker, I push the throttles to the


stops and taste the sweetest breeze. In seconds I’m running at 44 knots on board one of the fastest – and best-looking – air-conditioners on the water. The 32, along with the redesigned Corsair 36, are the newest boats in the Chris-Craft line, this one literally – it had been dropped into the water for the fi rst time that morning. Suddenly all thoughts of slowly perspiring to death in front of my American hosts are gone as I start to carve totally unnecessary turns in the placid blue water, shades on, enjoying the grunt from the


two big V8s. It was perfect, that moment, made complete by the view – not of the smart mansions that line Sarasota Bay, but the one forward, over the helm with its metallic mesh fi nish and impossibly shiny varnished teak foredeck.


DISTINCTION & HERITAGE If you didn’t know, Chris-Craft has been around for a while, and it felt like all its 150-year history was poured into that boat. At once I was driving a new boat and a classic, as this is a company that feels most comfortable producing craft that its founder, Chris Smith, were he alive, would still recognise. Like other yards of this type, Riva, for instance, it lost its identity a bit in the 70s and 80s, churning out forward-looking GRP boats which ended up ageing before their time. Since the turn of the millennium, however, there has been a wholesale refocusing on what Chris-Craft does best, and that’s producing curvy craft covered in wood that will look as good in 20 years as they do today. And here I was falling in love with one.


Handrails galore around nav seat and drinks holders are plentiful on deck


SEE THE VIDEO


Isotherm drinks fridge in the cockpit


A GENTLEMAN’S SPEEDSTER If there’s a word to describe the experience of driving the sterndrive Corsair 32, it’s tight. The sharp entry and 20° transom deadrise snap the boat into quick, non-slip turns that threaten to knock your spine out of alignment if done too quickly. With the throttle planted, you can get the boat right over, letting the chines grip the water to pull you around. It’s sportsboat fun with a refi ned edge – like skydiving in a dinner suit. This feeling of class is enhanced as you curl your fi ngers round the mahogany steering wheel with its engraved Chris- Craft logo on the centrepiece. The leather helm seat – not quite big enough for two – is triple stitched, and surrounded by handy and very chunky grabrails. The throttles sit exactly where you want them,


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