Nelson - do we feel the love?

I personally have not been aboard a modern Nelson at sea, the one I drove was a 1980's model, the power installed in modern boats has increased substantially over the years and I dare say the response and feel has changed but I still prefer a wider boat from a sea keeping point of view.
 
Jegs said:
What are the current boats?

Thank you,

John G
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We now have 15m Halmatics, and 17.5m Orcs. Orcs are great in good/moderate weather and Halmatics better in the rougher stuff. But not a patch on the Nelsons as bad weather boats - no weight up for'd.
 
alanch said:
We now have 15m Halmatics, and 17.5m Orcs. Orcs are great in good/moderate weather and Halmatics better in the rougher stuff. But not a patch on the Nelsons as bad weather boats - no weight up for'd.
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Thank you.

John G
 
benjenbav said:
Must take you back to your submariner days! :D
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There have been a couple of times when we had to leave a safe spot and go in less than ideal conditions Lymington to home berth with a sw8 blowing up our stern made for an interesting passage at 10knots, there were a few times I thought we'd need to go to diving stations, trouble with these floaty things, there's no ballast tanks to blow when you submerge.
 
A good friend of mine was on Horatia for the 1969 round Britain power boat race and finished 16th over the 1400 mile race at an average speed of 28 MPH, he's got some great stories including having to dive under the boat in the North Sea in a f6 to clear fishing nets from the props, for a number of heavy weather legs they were running with the lead boats.

HORATIA-_1969_.jpg
 
Firefly625 said:
A good friend of mine was on Horatia for the 1969 round Britain power boat race and finished 16th over the 1400 mile race at an average speed of 28 MPH, he's got some great stories including having to dive under the boat in the North Sea in a f6 to clear fishing nets from the props, for a number of heavy weather legs they were running with the lead boats.

HORATIA-_1969_.jpg
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Current owner John Trafford is undertaking some massive works this year.

He's still running the original quad cam V8 Caterpillars. Mahooosive monsters!
 
burgundyben said:
It uses an epic amount of fuel.
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big 40'+ semi displacement trying to plane at 40kts is hardly going to be economical.

I would hazard a guess it would make lottery winners eyes water.

The worst burn rate I have been witness to, was on the helm of a Sunseeker Mahattan 60 flybridge 1900 rpm 98 lph 2250 rpm(wot) 199 lph and that was each engine, Southampton to Cowes flat out at just under a £ ltr £250- 280ish,

waaay out of my league!
 
Firefly625 said:
In 69 it was just a jolly jape, fuel back then would have been cheap.
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1969 diesel at the forecourt was 4'4d tax paid a Gallon, red? probably 2' a gallon, lets have them prices on today's salaries.

Mind you, our English speaking cousins still manage on $2.08 a gallon for gasoline, $2.83 a gallon for diesel, tax paid as of 02/02/2015 found on t'internet.
 
I did my Yachtmaster Offshore on a Nelson 44 last week and overall I liked it. Five sizeable blokes living on it with no major issues and it punched through a head sea in a 6/7 with ease. Following sea not so clever as she corkscrewed quite a bit necessitating a slight course change to improve things.

As already mentioned, it wasn't particulary responsive when maneuvering at close quarters and Mike's description of it being like a heavily overladen dumper truck isn't far off the mark. However, I stuck with it and it didn't take too long to understand its quirks and to be able to manoeuvre it into and out of a very tight berth at Suffolk Yacht Harbour.

Would I swap it for our Broom? Not sure that I would but I did like the chunky feel of a boat that felt as though it could probably take pretty much anything that is thrown at it :)
 
Here are some copies of old Halmatic Nelson catalogues that I resurrected recently from my files.

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Halmatic%2040%20P%201%20001_zps3fanywcr.jpg


Halmatic%2040%20P%202%20001_zpsn0ptyyu1.jpg


Halmatic%2040%20P%203%20001_zpsik7snfjn.jpg


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Halmatic%2060%20P%201%20001_zpsueaq1dv8.jpg


Halmatic%2060%20P%202%20001_zpsgwve8kys.jpg


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When our Coastguard was first established here in the early 1970's they had 3 x 40' Nelsons (in basic pilot boat mode) and one of the 65' patrol boats (Tough's version) as shown in the last scan above.
The Nelsons were all eventually scrapped / intentionally sunk (the last one was sunk in the late 90's I think), while the 65' patrol boat was lost on a reef in Grenadines in (I think) the late 80's.
 
Some very interesting data. Compare to a modern brochure drawing our attention to the extra large sunbed on the flybridge and the LED 'hidden mood lighting.'

I never knew that a GRP hull only made up 1/4 of the total displ.

The graphs also dispel the myth that semi-displ Hulls push a wall of water in front of the hull: the graph looks quite linear especially over the 'hump' and also further up the speed range over 20kts. Very surprising!

the numbers for the 32' boat are very economical: only 120hp to reach 15kts.


thanks for posting.
 
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