the cabin front windows make the difference

Experience the light inside the 2860 Regal cabin cruiser with the curtains pulled back and you will have seen the best there is available inside a boat cabin for airiness and sunshine brighten your boating weekend. Regal 2860 wins this point hands down.

Next, lay out on the skipper’s berth and see the biggest size berth there is for a good nights rest. Again, the Regal 2860 wins as it’s a “no contest” in this size class cabin cruiser.

Check off what else is important in a cruiser and a 2860 Regal cabin cruiser is competitive in all respects.

Competitive in everything that one looks for in a cabin cruiser and “the best in class” in two points of top importance.

Take a look, there is a sale going on right now.

clean running hull design that is well balanced

Your choice;Chairs or a settee for seating in the main salon

Are these full tank of diesel fuel ranges hard and fast? No. Could one reasonably expect such performance numbers to better understand if this yacht is for you? Yes.

Mainship Yachts kept the same hull as their 34, added on a few inches in the bow pulpit to make for a longer LOA, pushed some things around to get in a nice second stateroom inside and it’s the new and very nicely appointed 2011 model year Mainship Trawler 35.

Never get to stuck on the numbers here with this “35” yacht has an LOA of 39’ 5”, a beam of 14’ 2”,  a somewhat light weight of 20,000 lbs.  Single diesel (or two), bow and stern thrusters (or not, with the twin diesel engines), and flying bridge seating for five plus a bar-b-que and sink, etc make for a tippy motion at sea, but a fine spot to relax after a days run once you are on the hook.

master stateroom at the bow

The 34 had just one stateroom, sold well, and I predict that this one, with the two private stateroom will set sales records. Price…about $300 to $400 thousand depending on how one finishes this yacht out.

Oh, BTW, if you like slow and great fuel economy, get the smallest engine they offer. She will cruise slow on less than 150 Hp, the rest of the power is for “beat ahead of a storm” or a “good purchase against a running tide”, etc. The thrusters will take care of any marina  handling issues.

Main salon looking foward, look for the galley cook top

underway

layout cutaway for the Riva runabout

looking down

She goes as fast as the mid-40s with her twin diesels all the way wide open. At almost 6 tons she is a BIG wood and glass runabout. And, with her beam at 9’ 2” she needs a permit to haul her around on land.

Watch the ride when it gets rough, her deadrise is only a moderate v hull shape.

Made in Italy and sold mostly at Marine Max boat dealers. Yes, they usually have one Riva runabout boat for sale.

at speed

Riva yacht class

Wood and glass make for a nice day boat yacht

the skipper and the admiral

Its all of the White House

First, do not miss out on the brownies.

That said, this one is good coffee and right up the street from the biggest marina in town. Short walk from your boat slip. Go to St. Michaels Talbot Street., turn left, it is on the far side from you of the Talbot street. (the main street for St. Michaels). Across from Ava’s lunch, dinner, pizza, win bar, with its the lively social, friendly atmosphere of the town of St. Michaels.

Coming by land to St. Michaels?  On the driver’s side of the Talbot Street as one comes into downtown. 402 South Talbot Street.

There is a front sitting room and a huge back setting room with nice art, comfy couches, chairs, and an opportunity to get off the boat and plan your exploration of the Town of St. Michaels.

Coffee? Yup, just like all the other places. It tastes right to seabuddy / chris brown.

Why here? 1)  Close to the marina. 2) The spacious and relaxing area to rest and savor your drink. 3) the friendly  and helpful staff 4) did seabuddy say something about the brownies? 5) Wi Fi is free.

St.  Michaels Perk Coffee House, 402 Talbot Street, 410-745-8099, tell them seabuddy recommended them to you.

real wood, real varnish finish

outboard motor mounted inboard, inside the fordeck

note the yellow tinted stripesbetween planks

she is all of 8 feet long

Fact sheet

She is a real planked mahogany runabout in miniature. An outboard motor mounted inside the hull provides her power. She has single planked hull sides and bottom. Made in a small run back in 1931, she let the kids ride in a mahogany wood runabout just likeDad’s.  Only eight feet long, she got the “look” down very well for a reduced sized craft.

Dads and antique and classic boats just go together, is seabuddy / chris brown’s observation.

Master stateroom, note the light with a wood interior finish

This boat has the latest joy stick handling choice and the efficient Volvo Penta IPS pod drive system. With smaller than normal engines for good fuel economy, she makes her speed with the IPS pod drive as a straight shaft inboard of higher Hp would.

So, its… 1) easy marina maneuvering, 2) same cruising and top speeds, and 3) better fuel economy underway comes with this top-of-the-line Yacht. And the IPS diesels and drives take up less space within the hull, so another room is added, to top off the benefits of an Volvo Penta IPS drive system.

wide side decks plus this saloon

How about the hull? She is wood and resin instead of glassfiber and resin. In this case, epoxy resin. A fiberglass boat is made up of layers of glassfiber cloth combined with resin, this one is made up of wood combined with epoxy resin. Epoxy resin is both expensive and extra strong. On a budget-be-damned yacht, where strength and light weight are valued higher than the budget, epoxy is the resin of choice. Epoxy resin is used in either wood or glass fiber yacht construction.

The interior is also finished in wood, often in either a gloss white paint finish, or stained and finished with rubbed-effect varnish.

This hull splits the sea

She has three staterooms, one with a head in suite, plus a shared head for the other four people in the remaining two staterooms. Its a galley down, with and inside steering in the main saloon set-up. LOA 59’ 6”, Beam 16’ 7”, Price, just over 2 million. She is listed as a boat for sale / yacht for sale on Boat Trader.

at speed at sea

Slip…on a shirt

Slop…on sunscreen

Slap…a hat on your head.

The sun is brutal on your skin while using you boat.

It is amazing what seabuddy / chris brown learns from tuning in, Dave Hanson, Host of the “WNAV Boat Show” at 2:00 pm on WNAV, 1430 radio out of Annapolis, MD

riding bow high for the best control

Riva built this luxury runabout in Lake Como, Italy in wood and plywood from 1953 to 1968. The factory records indicate that 711 runabouts were made over this time frame.

A Super Florida Riva is a longer hull with 2” more beam than a Florida Riva model.  The hull was made bigger along with the new name to perform and ride better with a more powerful V-8 engine that became available as time progressed from the 1953 beginning of boat production.

These runabout boats all had a deeper forefoot than the typical Chris Craft of that time, while at the transom, the bottom was all but flat, as was the Chris Craft runabout.

This gives a better riding across the water experience at low speeds but these Riva need to get that sharp vee in the bow area out of the part of the hull that is in contact with the water as any speed increases. Why? What steers a boat should be the rudder. If a wave or wake at an angle catches the vee up front, that area can become a larger “rudder” than the boat’s metal rudder and the runabout will “bow steer” and the helmsman can not correct or over-come this redirection by the smaller area metal rudder that is attached to the steering wheel.

This vee forward is deeper than a Chris Craft

almost flat bottom at the stern

How to do prevent this action? Simple, balance and power the runabout such that the vee splits the waves and wakes at low speeds and weight balance, adjust the shaft down angle, and power to make the boat ride bow proud, or bow high, at speed. Without a power trim in a fixed shaft inboard, these three items are very important.

What happens as power causes the speed to go up? One must change one or all of these three design goals to work at the new, higher speed.

Over-power a straight shaft inboard and the flat transom stern area give more lift to the transom area of the runabout. Lift the transom and the bow gets pushed down at the same time. The lift of one pushes down the angle of the other.

The down angle of the inboard’s shaft also provides lift to the back of the boat. More lift from the almost flat bottom stern and down angle of the shaft causes the runabout bow to want to submarine and bow steer.

The fix?

1)      Change one or all of the three things to work together at the new speed to make for a safe riding / handling boat again.

2)      Have power trim on the drive to allow the helmsman to adjust amount of lift at the stern area of the boat. That is why I/Os (sterndrives) have power trim and that feature makes them more complicated.

What does this all mean? The runabout was set-up to perform well for an expected top speed: put in a souped up engine and that set-up will not perform well at the new top speed.

A good side view of how the vee goes to flat as the hull bottom moves aft

A fine cutwater

She is the best known and recognized of example of the commuter style of yachting done since the 1930s; Long and narrow. Light and speedy and a LOOKER!

While this is but one of several styles of a series of fine yachts called Midnight Lace, this one shows the lines and curves that that define the name. A sharp clipper bow and with the deck structure set well back in the boat. She is what one far-sighted yacht designer drew to bring a commuter yacht back into the boating scene post 1975 and up to today.

Note the hull widening at the chine

Now, what was a “commuter yacht”? If one worked on Wall Street or was a Captain of Industry before the 1929 crash, the family estate was out on Long Island with your office in Manhattan. In this time in the US history, a fast, go-to-work boat was the cat’s pajamas to commute from home to office daily, thus the name “commuter”. She was used as a go-to-work vessel, not as a cruiser, nor as much of a over-nighter. These boats were sleek, long, and narrow beamed high powered day boats and had more style put into their design than practical ness. Style ruled the design board with a commuter yacht.

Deckhouse and helm are well aft sitting on the hull

The first size in the Midnight Lace designs built was a 44’ with an 11’ beam, which was based from a 50’ by 13’ fully, developed set of hull lines and profile look. It is said that 45 of these Midnight Laces were built. Think about it – - – today most 33’ cruisers sport an 11’ beam.

another view looking forward

This 44’ model is not in my photos, here. Other sizes were built, and this is a one of those other sizes, sitting in a yacht yard  along the mid-Atlantic coast for some spring touch up work.  Boats, both, full-custom (one only) and semi-custom (several made of limited offering of a given yacht hull) were made. I believe that a 36’, 40’, 52’ and 65’ yachts were drawn by Tom Fexas.

As an aside, I sea trialed a 44’ as a pre-cursor to my buying a used yacht. That boat with her twin 210 Hp Renault diesels was too slanted towards good fuel economy at the expense of a sprightly cruising speed, and I did not buy that boat.

Some of the new-wider hull Midnight Lace yachts are powered with 1,400 Hp and speed along nicely in high style. If you fall in love with a Midnight Lace, please check out her speed before buy. Do not worry about the ride, they are Top Shelf merchandize in that department.

note the bottom shape