Baia quality and handling !!! comments ??

This isn't so much a problem on the Baia 48 Flash where the bathing platform covers the drives entirely. The converse difficulty is reaching to those drives to remove the lines from a lobster pot, although it's easier than with shaft or out drives.

Having just come home from a trip up from the Thames to Oslo and back I wonder what good conditions you may have in mind. In a 10m boat, the North Sea has only two states, grey and black.

Fortunately my boat is now old, so we slow to its ability to cope, which in any case, was never high.

As any wise boat builder will say, anything he builds, however strongly, can always be demolished by people who think they know better, and to prove it, the coast is littered with their bones. Personally, I think everyone should try their hand at boat building, it's not as easy as it looks.

The Baia has a hull length of about 44 feet, so it's not a huge boat for two 480hp diesels. But the Arneson drives seem to boost speed by about 15% thanks to lower wetted surface, mainly, but also through fewer losses in the system.

The rooster tail from the surface piercing propellors is worth paying extra for, and people will assume you are travelling fast even when you aren't, so if you have speed limits on your waterway, take care!

There is little to go wrong with these drives but what is there could be a catastrophe if it broke suddenly at speed, so you need to be extra vigilant. The propellors are relatively well protected from shallow water, logs and the like, but you might hit them faster than in a conventional boat, of course.

The main problem to look out for in the boat is at the helm. For some reason the seat is low, and the instrument desk is too high, leaving precious little view forward. It either works for you, or you need to adjust things. If you habitually drive a Range Rover you soon get used to a commanding view of the road, so this may seem limited.

The hard top is essential. Economical cruising is from 25 to 30 knots, depending on the usual hull state, etc, etc. at that speed into a wind you will receive a battering, so the hardtop with the folding roof closed will protect you. Additionally, your area of the world is notorious for excessive solar radiation, so you'll have somewhere shaded!!

These boats dip quickly to the stern, so following seas can find their way in over the bathing platform, but as the Baia are fair-weather boats, you would hardly ever be out in such conditions. That's the benefit of such high speeds, you can get home before the rough stuff arrives.

Trimming the drives and the stern plates can seem daunting, but getting it just right will pay dividends, and it pays to practice on mirror flat seas to get the angles just right. That will give you the knowledge you need to cope when the mass of the boat is varied by people and fuel, and water isn't quite perfect. At 30 kts and above, every click of trim can be significant, and it's double the effort compared with shaft drives and more critical than with stern drives.

The usually things fall apart as with any fast boat, so buy a huge bag of cable ties and work your way around everything to stiffen pipe and cable runs, put a second pipe Jubilee clip on every outlet, and a few extra screws in anything that isn't meant to move. By that stage you'll know your boat pretty well. Nothing unusual there, but the special roof needs special attention. As it's possible to unlock windows and unbolt the roof, you can be sure somebody has, and the seals will be suspect, so act accordingly. The electric opening top is exposed to the elements and it's expensive, built in tiny numbers, and liable to test your patience if you fail to understand it, and give it lots of maintenance. It's worth it, trust me.

All in all, the Flash is a nice boat, and so are the rest of the range. I'd have one if I were forty years younger and enjoyed sunburn. As it is, I prefer a full roof and air conditioning, and the Baltic is more than sunny enough for me.

Hi,
Fortunately I have done a lot of long distance travelling between Nthn and Sthn hemispheres , I have not spent much time in extreme latitudes at either end of the globe.

The Nth Sea can be as flat and calm as anywhere, I have seen it in all states when doing passages from German Bight south and back the other way.

Late Dec 2011 I went to Kristianstad, Norway and then went from IOM to Edinburgh up the west coast of Scotland , out under the Skye Bridge and over the top.

It was freezing cold and there was snow on all the hills, flat calm and eerily smooth till we got our from the protection of Lewis and then it was rather lumpy till we got heading south to Edinburgh in something a wee bit bigger than 10m.

Yes, winter can be very good around the UK. You can get flat seas and low wind. Plus, no crowds.

In a 25 foot home finished Tremlett we skimmed (25kts) around the inner Hebrides for three weeks when the Skye bridge was still on the drawing board. It was June and excellent, for the most part.

The thing is, with a small open boat and young crew, my son was 15 months at the time, you can bale out and find an hotel without too much embarrassment on days when the rain is horizontal.