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VOYAGER 6.8M
CENTRE CAB |
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| The 6.8m Voyager Centre
Cab is the jewel in the crown of the current Seafarer range of fibreglass
boats. Not only does it draw on the intense development programme
that has been going on for several years, producing award winning
models such as the Viking, Victory, Viper and Vagabond, it also breaks
new ground in many areas to lay claim to being the most sophisticated
trailerable fibreglass boat available today. Centre cabin models have been in vogue for several years now, but so far little advantage seems to have been taken of the many unique design and layout opportunities presented by the centre cab concept. Most are built with the floor and cabin created out of a single mould. The Voyager is constructed with separate hull, floor and cabin moulds, allowing far more intricate design elements to be introduced. Not the least of these, is the fact that the floor liner is reinforced and has closed cell positive foam flotation located under the floor and not down in the bilge where the foam can be degraded and lose its efficiency. |
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| This is a boat that can comfortably
take on long range open sea work, so the entire construction and internal
design has been beefed up considerably to ensure that it does so with
very high safety margins. The Voyager in its basic form comes to you as a highly developed boat (see specifications on back page). Everything you see in the photos here is included in the basic fitup, with the exception of engine size, where you have a wide range to choose from to suit your personal needs. The cabin and walk round are at the heart of centre cab design, so we can start there. The walk round on this boat is 300 mm at its narrowest point, and 500 mm wide at the bow. These measurements are taken from the inside coaming to the cab front and side, with a further under coaming recess for foot room. This delivers knee to thigh height support from the coaming, with additional support delivered by upright bow rails running the full length of the walk round. Storage pockets for mooring fines or other equipment are recessed into the side coamings. |
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| Water management in the
walk round area has presented a major problem to designers of existing
centre cabs. Seafarer eliminates the problem entirely by fitting a
low profile step up at the cockpit end of the walk round, virtually
creating a storm water drain by fitting a grate to the face of the
step and in the sole ahead. This has the capacity to divert large
amounts of water into a sump below where it is held until drained
through over-sized scuppers. The foredeck area is fitted with heavy duty hardware with all cleats and bollards in keeping with the rope and ground tackle necessary for a boat of this size. A huge rope locker is divided by a bulkhead to facilitate storage of main and backup rope, or two separate anchor systems, with enough capacity for the rope, chain and large anchors. Two dead eyes are fitted. The cabin can be accessed from the bow or helm area, and inside you find two metre long berths in a Yee configuration with storage under. With the centre cushion in place this makes up into a spacious and comfortable double berth. A Porta Pottie is included as a standard fitting between these berths, yet there is still plenty of room in the foot-well to allow several people to shelter inside the cabin in comfort. The cabin sides, top and floor are all carpeted, which gives the area a nice feel and does away with condensation problems. Both the 27 meg radio and the stereo cassette are located inside the cabin in recognition of the fact that both items require more protection than other marine electronics. A soft bulkhead zip-out vinyl door is available to enclose the cabin when required. The helm station in this boat will delight even the most experienced and fastidious boat lover, with absolutely every important element of the boat's operating systems set up in the immediate area. Recessed into the cab side mouldings are a number of hatches, one for general storage, another for the batteries, and a third for fuel filters/separators. This means that routine checking and maintenance of these vital elements has never been easier. In addition, the spare storage bin and two open pockets allow you to store all those things essential to the operation of your boat close at hand. The helm station is a driver's dream, with the entire layout developed around today's most vital tools - your GPS and echo sounder. The standard Lowrance LMS 350 Sounder/GPS/plotter takes pride of place, flush-mounted in the console immediately behind the wheel where it is right under your finger tips at all times. Ensuring peak sounder performance, every Seafarer hull has the transducer thru-mounted when the hull is being laid up, and those requiring more than one transducer for special applications can also nominate those to be thru-mounted for optimum performance. The 12 gauges required for a twin installation are custom made for Seafarer by OMC, so no other make of boat has anything to match them for style. These are spread out above the wheel in clear sight, with two five switch panels flanking the GPS/sounder. Even the battery switches are mounted on the console right next to the wheel where they are easy to see and hard to forget. A cruiser style stainless wheel and hydraulic steering, compass immediately under your fine of sight, and superb twin binnacle throttles, round out the best helm station in the business. If you want to add radar, there is an excellent dash top space immediately to the left of the helm console. The pedestal helm seats are extremely comfortable and fully adjustable, up-down, fore and aft as well as swivelling, and to round out the picture of the perfect helm station, clears and covers are also part of the standard package, allowing you to produce a soft wheelhouse effect in foul weather. The proportions of the Voyager have allowed for an enormous cockpit area. It is a clean, uncluttered space that contains a wealth of design detail and features, the obvious one being the body-friendly, deeply padded side and aft coamings. Extra long side pockets are also padded. A split, drop-down lounge offers seating for three, and you'll notice that the scat ends have been curved where you have access to the walk-thru transom door. This leads to a non- skid step in the well over the pod, and from there it is a short step down to the boarding platforms either side of the engines. This gives easy access to the cockpit for even the smallest person. Either side of the cockpit floor you will find very large insulated fish boxes, and in the centre a huge insulated kill tank that can be flooded and drained. Set low in the bilge space like this, if used as ice boxes, these insulated areas are particularly effective. The oil bottle shelf sits immediately under the aft coaming centre and is covered with a vinyl skirt to tidy the appearance of this area. Deep gutters either side of the cockpit and under the aft deck ensure that water is fed quickly and efficiently to the large, non-return, self draining scuppers in the stern quarters. All hand rails and cleats are offset and recessed to ensure a smooth side and aft deck profile, and first quality capped stainless rod holders have been carefully positioned. Large bait wells are located in the quarter decks, with one plumbed as part of the standard fitup. A removable stainless transom bait board and cleaning table is also part of the basic package. Also standard is a Shur Flow deck wash pump and hose with bronze skin fitting and valve. It is worth noting that Seafarer refuses to use the plastic connections in common use when any plumbing involves a skin fitting. You always get bronze fittings that cannot split or break, thus compromising the safety of your boat. The Targa and peak are also part of the standard fitup, and fighting includes navigation lights, cabin lights, three recessed cockpit fights and a riding light on the Targa. You also get an additional 12 volt outlet and plug for the quick connection of additional electronics, spotlight and so on. You will find a long list of quality factory options on the back page of this brochure, but that is only a small part of the total range of factory extras produced by Seafarer. If you don't have one, please ask your dealer or phone the factory for the special options brochure. Almost anything you can imagine in the way of extras is more than likely readily available. The objective here has been to fit every possible feature that the majority of customers would want on a boat like this in order to cut down the messing about involved in trying to specify a boat of this size. We've done all the hard work for you, and all you need to add are the personal touches. A final word on trailers. Seafarer builds hulls that are made to deal with the worst hiding the ocean can dish out, but no fibreglass hull can be guaranteed to survive the stresses placed upon it by a badly designed and built trailer, or even a good trailer that has been incorrectly set up. To avoid having problems brought about by boats being packaged with the wrong trailers, Seafarer now has its own trailers built to the specifications required for each and every hull in the range. If the boat is on a Seafarer trailer it's on the right trailer, and one that has been correctly set up for the hull. Seafarer Boats are now supplied with a full one year structural hull warranty if sold on a trailer other than a Seafarer Trailer or with a five year structural hull warranty applying to boats supplied on a Seafarer Trailer. |
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| PERFORMANCE When the top to bottom re-design of the Seafarer range started some years back with the V-Sea, Viking and Victory models, the new bottom forms and flush bottom pods delivered quite remarkable performance enhancements. The boats came out of the hole with a highly desirable flat attitude, and demonstrated a willingness to hold plane at exceptionally low speeds. The Victory is still regarded by many in the trade as being the best trailerable sea boat ever produced in this country. But when the wider twin transom models were introduced, those benefits were magnified, and the big 6.2 and 6.8 m hulls are delivering stunning performance with surprisingly low horsepower engines. It is the normal practice at Seafarer to power the first boat off the line with the largest engines it will float, in order to water test the hull in the most brutal manner possible. With the strength and top end performance of this 6.8 m hull well and truly established through the 6.8m centre console Viper fitted with two 175 hp Evinrudes, it was decided to trial the new Voyager with diminutive twin 115 hp, counter rotating Evinrude Ocean Pro's fitted with 1911 stainless props. Even with a combined hull and engine weight of 1,930 kg to get out of the hole, the 115 twins found the hull so willing to run, they were seriously over revving. |
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| In an attempt to tame the
power, 2111 stainless steel Viper props were fitted and the boat wound
out to an amazing 75.6 km/h! (47 Mph). But top end speed is not really
the most impressive aspect of this performance. The really impressive
part is the way those engines can throw this big hull out of the hole
and have it planing at just 2200 rpm or 17 km/h (10.6 Mph). At long range cruise revs where optimum kilometres per litre performance becomes important, the Voyager loafs along in a high, flat planing attitude at 35.4 km/h (22 Mph) where the engines are just turning over at 3000 rpm, and fairly crackles along at 51.5 km/h (32 Mph) at the more conventional cruise range of 4000 rpm. The boat actually feels at its best at 3500, when it travels at 41.8 km/h (26 Mph). Single engine performance is just as impressive. With one of the twin engines trimmed clear of the water, a single 115 can run this boat at 48.27 km/h (30 Mph), and skirted lure trolling speeds of 6.5 knots are achieved at 1700 rpm. In spite of the steep 23 degree deadrise angle at the transom, the Voyager will delight you with its rock-like stability at rest. Experienced drivers will be even more impressed by its ability to maintain vertical stability when running across a sea with strong beam and forward quarter winds working on the hull. And as you would expect from the flagship of a fleet famous for rough water performance, the Voyager's rough water capability has to be experienced to be believed. The Voyager is a truly unique boat, both in terms of performance and layout. |
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Site
maintained by Leisure Marine:
Friday, 29 August 2008
Email any enquiries about this site to updates@leisure-marine.com.au
3242 Old Cleveland Road, Capalaba 4157, QLD.
Phone: 07 3245 5111 Fax: 07 3245 1263
Email any enquiries about this site to updates@leisure-marine.com.au
3242 Old Cleveland Road, Capalaba 4157, QLD.
Phone: 07 3245 5111 Fax: 07 3245 1263