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Kwikkraft 922 SE review - Boating NZ June 2009

By KwikKraft Marine Ltd

09/01/2009
You can be pretty sure a boat based at Mana Marina will regularly cross Cook Strait. Playstation is no exception; she will spend her life cruising, diving and fishing in Cook Strait and the Marlborough Sounds. This 30-foot, hard-top tinnie is fast enough to cross the strait in under half an hour in favourable weather, but what makes her unusual is that her passengers won’t be thinking about their fillings as they race toward Wellington’s favourite cruising destination.
With lots of freeboard and a moderate beam, the 9.8-metre KwikKraft’s profile looks ideal for the job. When we step aboard, we notice that she is somewhat tender, which is what we’d expect from a fine-bowed deep-vee. Tilting the engine hatch-cum-storage locker, we learn that she has about three-quarters of a tonne of ironmongery – in the form of a 5.5-litre Volvo – mounted well below her static waterline. Tall, deep, not too wide, with a low centre of gravity and moderate initial stability, she looks promising.

Playstation idles at barely four knots, slower than might be expected of a fast diesel with big, high-efficiency propellers, so there’s no need to bump her in and out of gear to comply with five-knot speed limits. In the 10 to 20-knot speed range she runs flat enough for good visibility and control, suggesting that she’ll cope well with conditions too tough for high-speed running. Given a handful of throttle the Volvo shoves her smoothly onto the plane, and above 20 knots she settles onto a flat­tish trim angle that looks and feels stable and fuel efficient.
Unlike some deep-vees, Playstation does not lift her chines right out of the water at speed. She’s too heavy for that, but above 25 knots she runs with dry sides, suggesting good efficiency. The electronics seem to agree, indicating 21.3 litres per hour at 25 knots.
“That’s quite economical,” says owner Glen Jones. He’s not wrong.
In high-speed turns there was no tendency to wobble, chine-walk or slide. She just lays over and carves, losing very little speed on the way round the curve.
Soft ride
Cook Strait was a bit flatter than we would have liked, but we did manage to find a few bumps and holes. The helm and the forward end of the dinette are almost directly above the impact area, but even at 28 knots our landings were soft and filling-friendly.
With three people on board and three­quarter-full fuel tanks, the boat weighed about 4.5 tonnes during our test. She topped out at over 38 knots. Two up, she has done just over 40.
More important than top speed though, is her ability to stay on a plane in choppy conditions. She only requires a moderate throttle to push her up onto the plane, hint­ing at rough water performance well-suited to the outer Sounds.
It’s one thing to slice through head seas. It’s quite another to go fast down sea. Running back from Mana Island to Porirua Harbour at 25-28 knots, we found the odd half-metre wave just big enough to decelerate Playstation as she punched the back of the next. There was no tendency to broach, or sheer sideways.

Whether the passengers sit inside the hardtop or out in the cockpit, the engine noise never interferes with conversation. Above 30 knots the engine seems to become even quieter.

Keeping up with the Jones’
Playstation is Glen Jones’s third aluminium boat. A keen diver, his previous boats were petrol-powered hardtop tinnies. This time, he and his wife Natalie needed a more family-oriented boat: a fast, comfortable, hardtop tinnie suitable for two or three-day overnight trips away from their Queen Charlotte Sound holiday home. Playstation is “a bit posher” than they envisaged, but she is still designed for hard-out relaxation. Natalie ordered a fridge, stove, oven, pantry, and loo. It’s all there, designed for easy maintenance, and the teak and holly trim and grey upholstery are light and welcoming.
The kids love the under-wheelhouse double cave bunk. The forward berth is wide enough to sleep two people. The dinette is particularly well laid out, offering clear visibility and a comfortable ride at any speed. With all inside passenger seating to port, the skipper has no trouble keeping in touch. The compact galley is barely an arm’s length away from the helm, dining table, and cockpit.

The cockpit morphs seamlessly from dive base to fishing pier to barbecue pit to family room. The teak decking is one posh feature the Jones family will come to love; it’s a lot easier on the feet than tread-plate. Divers and swimmers will also like the low swim step; at about 100mm above the waterline, it’s low enough for easy board­ing, even if there’s a queue at the ladder. The centre-mounted handrail transforms from dive-bottle rack to baitboard stand to barbecue mount. It’ll provide dry-footed barbecuing at most popular Marlborough Sounds anchorages. Out in Cook Strait though, swim-step fishos will have to put up with wet feet.

Fish-ability
Glen has already tested the boat’s fish-abil­ity and reports that she’s great with four fishing and one driving. At anchor or in the marina, the cockpit has more than enough space for seven or eight people.
The D6-370 Volvo and the DPH sternleg are fully electronic CANBUS units, so there’s very little wiring, and yet they can do just about everything except catch fish. Glen chose a set of classical-style, digital-analogue gauges that look so old-fashioned we almost expected to find a bunch of pipes and hoses running from the engine to the steering station. But of course they are all connected to a single cable no thicker than a pencil. A handy feature of the digital-analogue gauges is that they are visible, and readable, from the cockpit so Glen can keep an eye on his investment even when someone else is at the helm.
The boat combines full accommodation for four people, with a cockpit large enough for serious fishing, diving and socialising. That’s a lot to cram into a relatively narrow thirty-footer.
The multi-function navigation system is central to the success of Playstation’s interior. Occupying an area about half the size of a folded paper chart, and not much thicker, the navigation system does the job of chart-plotter, GPS, radar and fish-finder. The helm station could not be smaller, at least not if it is to accommodate an actual person. That leaves almost the entire wheelhouse for the dining area and galley and, because the wheelhouse is so space efficient, there’s plenty of room for a good-sized cockpit. We used the Raymarine display as a full-screen colour chartplotter, but Playstation also has a radar powerful enough to penetrate the poor night-time visibility so common in Queen Charlotte Sound, and a fishfinder grunty enough to find quarter mile deep Cook Strait groper (hapuka) holes.



KwikKraft Managing Director Gary Tomes is obviously proud of the high standard of finish, which he says is typical of his company’s boats. Up close, the fine detail becomes apparent. Every weld is polished smooth, panel edges neatly finished, and the cabinet work fits superbly. Absolutely nothing squeaks or rattles, even punching a chop at 30 knots. It’s a long way from the traditional tinnie.

Krafty reinvention
Gary Tomes and his partner bought Kwik Kraft in 2007 and shifted the company from Tauranga to Rangiora, near Christchurch. Since then they have revised the KwikKraft range and introduced advanced production methods such as computer controlled cut ting. The company currently employs 11 staff, but they are very keen to break into export markets. Gary sees quality and attention to detail as vital to international success. The tidy finish and intricate detail design of Playstation are typical of what he thinks overseas buyers are looking for.
Equally important for many boaties,
KwikKraft like customising their products. Playstation has everything Glen and Natalie Jones wanted, but another buyer may have different priorities.
When Glen Jones pushes the throttle forward, he looks as if he has just discov ered the world is better than he could ever have imagined. That is partly because he chose an engine with enough power to shove Playstation’s deep vee hull up on top of the water where it is most efficient, and partly because of the boat’s excellent weight distribution.
The only problem left to sort out is that water can slosh into the cockpit at low speed, or drifting, in a following sea. Kwik Kraft plan to rectify that by installing better transom doors.
Another issue is that computer game developers do not seem to understand the potential of multi function navigation stations. You’d think that by now someone would have started making video games for those days when the weather refuses to play the game.
Glen Jones doesn’t seem too worried. He’s grinning from ear to ear about his new Playstation. n





About This Author

KwikKraft Marine Ltd

KwikKraft Marine Ltd

Kwikkraft-custom aluminium boat builders. From our world famous race jetboats and tunnel hulls to our new range of Offshore pleasure boats. Throw commercial tour jetboats and performance pleasure jetboats in the mix and we have all you need when looking for a unique, performance alloy boat! Check …

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