| Specifications | |
| LOA | 35 ft., 7 in. |
| Beam | 12 ft., 2 in. |
| Draft | 2 ft., 9 in |
| Displacement | |
| Fuel | 185 gals. |
| Water | 66 gals. |
| Engines | Twin Volvo D3-200 diesels |
| Standard Equipment | |
| Twin Volvo D3-200 diesels, engine remote control, windshield defogger and wipers, sliding rear cockpit sofa, hot and cold cockpit shower, stainless steel sink w/cutting board, 2-burner stovetop, oven, refrigerator, separate shower in head, MP3/CD player w/USB jack, Webasto manual-opening sunroof, cockpit and sportop handrails, dashboard w/complete engine panel, salon sofa w/reversible seatback, 2 large storage spaces under cabin sole, removable carpet in staterooms and more. See dealer for full list. | |
| Optional Equipment | |
| Webasto electric-opening sunroof, electric trim tabs, autopilot, VHF plus AIS receiver, searchlight, 4 kw generator, electric flush toilet, microwave in lieu of oven, forward sunpad w/cover, wooden sidedecks, bow thruster (not available w/joystick), furler for rear anchorage and more. See dealer for full list. | |
| Builder | |
| eanneau, Les Herbiers Cedex, France; jeanneau.com | |
| West Coast Dealer | |
| Fraser Yacht Sales, Vancouver, B.C.; (877) 840-9137; fraseryachtsales.com |
|
Posted: November 1, 2011 | Boat Type: Motoryacht
Clever design introduces a new concept
Jeanneau is best known as a sailboat builder on this side of the Atlantic, but it has just introduced its award-winning powerboat — the NC11 — to the North American market, making it the second French sailboat builder to ship its powerboats to the U.S. and Canada. Beneteau’s Swift Trawlers paved the way, and though Jeanneau is part of the Beneteau Group, the vessels are marketed separately.
Jeanneau has been building powerboats in Europe for half a century, and the NC11 won the 2011 European Boat of the Year award for boats less than 40 feet long at the prestigious Dusseldorf Boat Show. The NC stands for “New Concept,” and the boat is 11 meters long — 36 feet. Jeanneau’s new concept relates to the use of space on the vessel, and there are some interesting and useful new features.
The NC11 is a sedan cruiser with modern, contemporary exterior styling and design. Jeanneau bills its new offering as an all-weather cruiser, equally at home in either the Baltic or the Mediterranean. Since the Baltic is about 20 degrees colder than the Med, Jeanneau is making a bold claim. That claim is sort of like saying the vessel will be as user-friendly in California as it will in British Columbia or southern Alaska.
Boaters in sunnier climates like to spend as much time as possible outside, tanning or just lazing around, and they want plenty of opening doors, hatches and windows for good ventilation. Boating in cooler locales usually calls for well-gasketed windows and doors, and a deckhouse large enough for boaters to feel comfortable if confined inside due to weather.
Heating and air-conditioning units are part of a boat’s equipment, not part of the design. A boat designed with enough space for those two pieces of equipment can be said to be at home whether it’s warm or cold, assuming the other criteria are met.
For a boat to be able to do “all things in all climates,” it has to be versatile and flexible. The NC11 is a model of both. As I approached the vessel along the dock, I first noticed what appeared to be a very comfortable, well-padded double seat built into the transom, with port and starboard doors allowing access to the cockpit. Those doors open inward so they won’t fly open if someone in the cockpit stumbles against one of them. This is a well-thought-out safety feature.
Then I noticed a pair of tracks, running fore and aft, set into the cockpit sole. The entire transom assembly including the seat, which is really part of the transom, slides forward on the tracks, creating a very large swim platform for boaters wanting a watersports-heavy day. If the skipper wants a larger cockpit for fishing or entertaining, he simply moves the transom aft along the tracks.
Inside Spaces
The deckhouse is larger and has more space than most other vessels of the NC11’s size, and this works well in cooler climates, since there’s enough room that boaters won’t be falling over one another as they move around inside. First-time visitors to the NC11 deckhouse would be forgiven for thinking they were on a cruiser with no galley — but they would be impressed with the well-crafted credenza along the port side.
Lifting the solid wood top of this piece of fine furniture would prove their thoughts of a galley-free cruiser wrong: Under the top are a two-burner propane cooktop and a sink. The inside of the top is faced with stainless steel and makes an excellent backsplash. It also protects the underside of the top should it be closed by accident while the stove is still hot. The unit also houses a propane oven and a refrigerator with a small freezer. There is plenty of storage in drawers, with soft-close hardware, and in cabinets fore and aft — as well as in an eight-drawer plastic cabinet in one of the two huge storage lockers under the deckhouse floor. When galley duty is done and the top is closed, it transforms back into a credenza. This is a clever touch that looks like fine furniture but still works well in galley mode.
To starboard is what looks like a standard dinette for four, but on the NC11 things are not always as they appear. The aft dinette seatback can be flipped forward so it faces the cockpit. With the sliding-glass-panel bulkhead opened to port, the seat becomes part of the cockpit entertaining area. The high-low dinette table pivots and can be moved inboard or outboard to create more or less dining space. It can also be unfastened, by hand, and moved into the cockpit. But that’s not all. There are two box-like upholstered stools that stow in the salon, under the sidedeck, that can be hauled out for more seating.
The forward dinette seat also pulls double duty. A clever bit of engineering allows the seatback to flip forward while at the same time raising the seat itself to create a forward-facing companion helm chair.
For those who love fresh air and sun, the NC11 is equipped with a very large power-operated skylight. Snap-in carpets cover most of the sole area, and they can easily be removed for cleaning. The lights are energy-efficient LEDs, and a great expanse of window glass in the hull keeps the deckhouse bright and cheery. The helm station is up two steps to port, and all controls fall easily to hand. Unless the skylight is open, the skipper will not have enough headroom to stand and operate the vessel.
Access to the accommodation area and the head with a separate shower stall is down a centerline companionway starboard of the helm station. A forepeak master, complete with a queen island bed and a hanging locker, has plenty of room and an overhead hatch that opens. To starboard is the second stateroom with twin single berths that can become a double when a filler cushion is laid between them. This stateroom, although small, has a large set of drawers and boasts full headroom at the entry to the space. The overall accommodations are comfortable and do not create the claustrophobic feeling that you sometimes get in smaller spaces.
Performance
We fired up the twin 200-cubic-inch Volvo D3-200s and snaked our way through the crowded marina. These five-cylinder, turbocharged, common-rail, 739-pound engines flashed up instantly without even a hint of smoke and ran smoothly from startup, and they are designed to meet U.S. Tier 3 regulations that take effect in 2012.
The engine compartment is accessed through a cockpit hatch. It’s tidy, large and well lit. Routine service should present no problem, and there’s plenty of storage space.
At 1000 rpm, we were doing 5 knots and our noisemeter showed 72 decibels, just more than a normal conversation. At 1500 rpm, we were making 7.1 knots and burning a total of 2 gph. We burned 4 gph at 2000 rpm and made about 10 knots, and at 2500 rpm, speed picked up to 13 knots and we burned 6 gph.
When we upped the rpm to 3000, we hauled out at 21.2 knots and burned about 10 gph, and 3500 revs gave us 29.2 knots. Wide-open throttle, 4000 rpm, stepped the speed up to 32 knots with a fuel burn of 22 gph. The noise level at WOT, with all of the doors and hatches closed, was 78 decibels, about the same as being in a car on a freeway.
Speeds were measured by an independent GPS and, because we could not access the engine’s onboard computer for fuel burn, the fuel-consumption figures were calculated based on engine rpm and load. The actual fuel burn on any given boat is usually slightly less than the calculated consumption. Our test boat had a full fuel load and five people on board.
Our test NC11 is equipped with a joystick control, and it worked very well. In open water, the vessel accelerated nicely onto plane at about 13 knots. It responded smartly to the electronic helm and tracked well. The sea was calm, but we were able to find a few wakes, which the vessel handled well. Visibility port, starboard and aft is excellent, but because the NC11 is a sedan cruiser, forward visibility is not as good as the driver might like.
A comfortable cruise speed on this Jeanneau would be about 20 knots, and at that speed the diesels would be spinning at just less than 3000 rpm and getting about 2 nmpg.
I have to admit that Jeanneau’s clever use of space and the flexibility of almost all the fittings — and the combination of those two traits — does, in fact, usher in a new concept for boats in the NC11’s size and class. There is no doubt this vessel would be equally at home in Southern California or in southern Alaska, assuming an air conditioner and a heater are installed.
The use of standard, well-established drive systems and other machinery brings a reliability and familiarity boaters are already comfortable with. It’s likely they will also become comfortable with Jeanneau’s multifunction, multitasking interiors. In fact, they may start looking to other builders to follow suit.