This is a 40-knot boat. Well, almost. The 35 is available with a panoply of power plants including shafts and sterndrives—the only option lacking is a sailing rig—but outboards were a first for Apreamare, and they didn’t take any chances. Twin 400-horsepower Verados might seem to err on the side of overkill, but they work well, being supernaturally quiet and also reasonably economical, if you remember to throttle back once in a while. Another fortuitous side-effect of fitting outboards to a boat designed for inboards is the truly cavernous storage area where the engines used to be.
In spite of the curved transom, the hull form is a conventional and easily-driven V-bottom, with 15 degrees of deadrise aft. So at 30 knots everything felt very relaxed and unstressed, the fine forward sections ironing out the chop efficiently and the windshield doing a reasonable job.
Suffice it to say that the 35 has plenty of horsepower and responds instantly to the helm and the throttles. The hardest turns couldn’t shake the hull’s tenacious grip on the water. Trimming the engines well up to find out where the maximum speed lay, we got the hull starting to porpoise before easing them down again, at a shade under 40 knots. It was a fun drive, and a cruising speed of around 32 knots proved comfortable and quiet. I would have been happy to head out some way beyond St. Tropez.
