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The world of extreme
sports has gained a significant following. Turn on ESPN most any day of
the week, and you’ll see clips of extreme skiing, rock climbing,
and similar sports made popular by shows like X Games and Gravity Games.
Bigger, more powerful all-terrain vehicles like the Hummer H2 have taken
off-roading to a new level of extreme enjoyment, but as far as recreational
boating is concerned, outside of go-fast boats on poker runs, the “extreme”
element hasn’t caught on. And for good reason: When it comes to the
ocean, Mother Nature can be entirely unforgiving and almost always has
the upper hand.
But Zodiac’s latest
launch, the CZ7 Ultimate Adventure Boat, might just give Mother Nature
a run for her money. Not only is this RIB designed with “mastering
the elements” in mind, it’s also intended to be a primary boat,
not a tender, capable of speeds in excess of 45 knots.
The 24-foot CZ7 (which
stands for Civilian Zodiac 7-meter) was created because Zodiac believes
there’s an untapped market for an extreme adventure boat, just as
there was for an SUV with attitude like the popular Hummer. Because of
this, the CZ7 was, according to its builder, designed to handle all sea
and weather conditions and “is built to a different standard than
anything else of its kind.” In fact, Zodiac says the military-style
CZ7 is “a direct crossover from the H-7333 military RIB used by the
U.S. Navy and Canadian Coast Guard for severe-weather rescue, commando
insertion, mine patrol, and drug interdiction.” And here’s the
novel part: This swift RIB is available to recreational boaters just like
you and me.
Sounds pretty cool,
right? You’re probably envisioning yourself whipping around on the
water, thanks to the standard twin, direct-injection 150-hp Evinrude V-6
outboards, jumping wakes without throttling down, doing J-turns left and
right, pretending you’re performing some secret, special-op rescue,
just like in the movies.
Be that as it may, the
CZ7 comes with a hefty $195,000 price tag, and most boats with that asking
price offer at least some creature comforts for day tripping or extended
cruising. But the CZ7 has no head, accommodations, or traditional seating.
That’s why, at first glance, I thought, “That’s a cool-looking
boat, but I can’t imagine anyone forking over the almost $200,000
for it.” Furthermore, I was shocked to learn that the Zodiac Adventure
Academy (see “Operation Charlie Zulu 7,” this story) has plans
for a 350-mile-plus tour beginning at New York’s World Trade Center,
stopping at the Pentagon, and ending in Little Creek, Virginia, this spring
(it’s already completed one from the Pentagon to the World Trade
Center and back). But once I drove the CZ7 myself at the official unveiling
in Annapolis, Maryland, in April, I realized how wrong I was.
That’s where I
got to participate in a Survivor-style eXtreme eXcursion taught by Navy
SEALS and Coast Guardsmen. (Even Rudy Boesch, the retired SEAL who placed
third on the first season of Survivor, was promoting it the previous day.)
The excursion was broken up into morning and afternoon sessions. The morning
session gave a group of people, including a couple from Maryland (potential
buyers), and me, the chance to get behind the CZ7’s center-console
helm to check out some of its extreme-handling capabilities.
Next page >
Part
2: The mission was crazy and like nothing I’d ever done before,
but it was heart-pounding excitement, too. > Page 1, 2,
3, 4
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