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For some wretched reason
or other, on the morning I stepped aboard Cobalt’s new 360 Performance
Cruiser at a little marina on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, I hadn’t
been on a fast boat for way too long. So the spine-sparkling shiver I
usually get just prior to a wide-open-throttle, big-block extravaganza
felt about as good as it always does, but just a tad unfamiliar. Easing
over the gunwale, I said hello to Cobalt’s western sales manager
Alex Berry, who was kneeling beside the machinery spaces in the shade
of a big, open engine hatch. After commenting on how flat-calm the lake
looked, he began pulling the dipsticks on a pair of 415-hp MerCruiser
502 MAG MPIs, as I proceeded to familiarize myself with the helm, a snazzy
piece of work if ever there was one.
Lemme get specific.
For starters, the plushly upholstered, double-wide benchseat was an ergonomically
correct, boat-driving wonder. Thanks to an electrically actuated fore-aft
adjustment, I could position the fold-up driver’s leaning post at
just the right height and proximity to the wheel to guarantee kickback
relaxation without losing more than a smidgen of over-the-windshield visibility.
All steering-related controls and instruments were gathered together in
the same molded, rectangular pod, savvily positioned against the starboard
inwale and directly beneath my throttle-jockeying hand. Obviously, the
pod’s design came straight out of the high-speed boat-handling realm.
Aft of this was a pair
of buttery smooth Zero Effort throttles, with a handy dual-trim switch
in the top of the port stick. Above this were two Bennett trim tab rockers
with easy-to-read-at-a-glance LCD digital and LED bar tab-position indicators.
And above these was a set of separate trim switches, with needle-type
Faria trim gauges topping off the whole ensemble. A thrivin’-on-drivin’
arrangement? You bettcha.
There was more. The
three-way adjustable wheel had fat, fine-feeling leather handgrips and
a Teleflex cable-type steering mechanism, in addition to the Merc’s
power-assist system. And just over the top of the wheel were two long
rows of smartly prioritized, gleaming Faria gauges. In the middle of the
top row were a synchronizer and speedo, flanked by port and starboard
tachs, with a Faria depthsounder all the way to starboard and a couple
of fuel gauges all the way to port. In the bottom row were two sets of
oil, voltage, and temperature gauges (the right for the starboard engine,
the left for the port). Crisp Carling toggle switches—the best in
the market for my money—were to port of the wheel, controlling such
secondary systems as cockpit lights, wipers, and the optional Captain’s
Call exhaust silencer.
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Cobalt 360 continued > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5
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