It’s ordered and we take delivery early 2019
How exciting! It’s ordered and we take delivery early 2019, ready to launch The Fizz Boat at the beginning of the new season.
Having spent my early career at sea, firstly in the Royal Navy and later I was lucky enough to be the ‘Boats Officer’ onboard the support ship to The Sultan of Oman’s Royal Yacht, I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom to drive many different type of small boat, from Sea Riders to 13m Rotork landing craft and at one point 2 Riva speedboats. I’d really got the bug for boats!
The Fizz Boat being a concept we’d been working on for some time
Many years had passed but my passion for boating hadn’t waned, so when the time was right and the opportunity presented itself we began to make plans to buy a boat that we could bring onto The River Dart, The Fizz Boat being a concept we’d been working on for some time but finding the right boat was a whole different story!
Finding the right boat was going to be more difficult than we first thought
There are many lovely boats on The Dart, ones that you’d think would be perfect for the purpose we intended but oh no! Certification, legislation, CE marks and endless other considerations meant that the process of finding the right boat was going to be more difficult than we first thought.
There was a boat for sale in Salcombe, which at first sight looked perfect, in a photograph! We were really excited but being nearly 300 miles away didn’t want to make the journey without some more information, so we asked a local marine engineer to take a look for us and unfortunately, his opinion of the boat we’d seen was less than favourable!
It was the same guy who first suggested having a boat built specifically for the purpose we wanted. Wow! Hold on a minute, that’s going to cost a fortune… was my first thought but he knew someone with a hull design perfect for our purpose.
The Fizz Boat was born!
And that’s how we met Francisco, a Naval Architect in Portugal. His design met all the criteria we needed, the boat had a big open deck, perfect for hosting a party of 12 in relaxed comfort, was appropriately CE marked to carry passengers and looked a million dollars the part we wanted it to play. The Fizz Boat was born!
No 2 boats Francisco builds are the same!
After a whirlwind trip to Faro in Portugal, to see similar boats, I say similar because no 2 boats Francisco builds are the same, he bespokes each build around a generic hull design, we placed our order and the mould was laid.
It’s around 120 days from order to delivery, so as I write this in October 2018, the boat is under construction in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Portugal and will be fitted out by Blue Wave Marine in Plymouth, when it’s delivered around Christmas time.
The first in it's class in the UK
So look out Dartmouth, 2019 will see a new kid on the block, in fact it’s the first boat of this class to be seen in the UK but I’m certain it won’t be the last!