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The Baja rep had his
eye on the freshening breeze when he suggested that we shoot over to Lake
Erie’s aptly named Put-In Bay for our acceleration trials and speed
runs. As it turned out, it was with good reason. By the time we stuck
the extremely pointy bow of Baja’s new 440 Grand Prix out into the
wide blue, the previously flat surface of the lake had become a whitecap
farm in full bloom.
Silently regretting
my East Coast assumption that all lakes are placid, I adjusted the electrical
stand-up, sit-down, do-everything-but-hug-you bolsters to their most comfortable
position and hunkered down behind the tempered glass and stainless steel
windshield. I then put the three Gaffrig throttles to the stops and prepared
to shake loose a lot of expensive dental work.
The three-footers grew
to four-footers, with the not-so-occasional five-foot graybeard thrown
in for good measure, all kicked up by a 20-knot northwester. Body check:
lower back (the first to go in a rambunctious boat), content. Dental work:
better off than the last time I took New York City’s A train. Knuckles:
white. Face: big grin. Boat: no thumping, no pounding, not at 50 mph,
not at 60 mph.
At a steady 60, I swung
her, in a long sweeping turn, crosswise to the wind and seas. The Baja
tracked steady but leaned a little into the wind. A touch of the K-Planes,
and she straightened up like a marine at attention. I backed off on the
throttles, and she suddenly transformed herself into a placid cruiser.
Meanwhile, the seas were cockpit high, and the only other floating objects
out there were the Kelly Island ferries plowing through the slop.
Is this Baja an all-out
raceboat? Absolutely not, although I can think of more than a few trophy-seekers
that’ll eat her wake. Sure, with a 24-degree transom deadrise, she
is about as deep-V as you can get–that explains the effortless slicing
through the seas. What about those three 502s? Well, they may be a notch
up from the standard MerCruiser 454s, but they were driving stock Bravo
One drives, not the surface piercers favored by the true race-bred. (Incidentally,
with the center drive in neutral, the 440 maneuvers around the dock as
docilely as any family-oriented stern drive cruiser, something you’ll
never see with a surface-piercer.)
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Baja 440 continued > Page 1, 2,
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6
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