A Waterjet-Driven Hunt Design Delights
Cruising up the St. George River from Port Clyde, Maine, at a comfortable 26 knots, I took my hands off the wheel of the just-launched Lyman-Morse 42 Peregrine, waiting to see what would happen: Nothing. Tto test the jets’ performance, I put the wheel over. Drew Lyman, the head of Lyman-Morse, had done this a few minutes before, so I had a good idea of what to expect. Since jets steer a boat by directing thrust (rather than diverting it, as in a traditional prop and rudder situation), turns tend to be immediate. The wheel is sensitive, to say the least. So I resisted my normal instincts to crank it all the way over, and turned gradually. The boat lived up to her name. She doesn’t carve a turn exactly; she simply turns, instantaneously. The response is immediate, and fun. I had to restrain my impulse to slalom all the way back to the Lyman-Morse dock. It felt like I was driving a high-performance sport boat, but this was a beautiful 42-foot classic Down East flying-bridge yacht, built for an owner who wanted to cruise nearby Penobscot Bay in the summer or as far as the Bahamas in the winter.
As we straightened out and cruised up the river, I asked Lyman why the owner wanted jets. “Look around,” he said, and laughed as he pointed to the water ahead, dotted with dozens of pot buoys. Having snared more than a few barely submerged lines and pot buoys in my day, the peace of mind offered by jets is hard to describe. Cruising can be fun again.
Read the full boat test from 2014 here >>
