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It was a hot day off
Miami as I held onto my spinning gear and performed the light-tackle tango
with a hefty mahi-mahi. It was then that I realized the Sea Vee 340I is
a great dance partner.
I’d first boarded
the 340I (“I” for inboard) at last February’s Miami
International Boat Show. Although she wasn’t in the water, a brief
tour of this walkaround showed me that she’d been built by a boatbuilder
that doesn’t work by the clock. Besides, seeing the boat on land
afforded me the chance to get an up-close look at the solid-glass bottom.
It’s vacuum-bagged to solidify the bonding process between the knitted
bi- and tri-axial fabrics as well as the Divinycell PVC core. Vinylester
resin is used as a bonding agent and moisture barrier, and the gelcoat
can be ordered in a variety of colors, the most popular being bright and
pale yellow. This boat was a bright canary yellow, and I figured that
a boat that looked that fast had to move.
In early May Sea Vee
called to let me know there was a boat in the water ready to test. At
8:00 a.m. on test day it was already steamy as I walked down the Miami
Beach Marina dock to meet Ariel Pared, owner of Sea Vee Boats, and PMY’s
Capt. Bill Pike, who had flown down on his vacation to ride along.
Pared lifted the front
of the center console to reveal two 300-hp Yanmar diesels so we could
hook up our fuel-flow gear. The engines were a comfortable fit: I was
able to get just about my whole body underneath and access about 90 percent
of both. Pared told me that the tower on our test boat could be easily
unhinged so the standard hydraulic lift system could open the console
and provide full access to the engines, if necessary.
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